hey, big boys: 3 easy tall perennials

I am often asked to recommend plants for problematic garden areas during my call-in radio program or after public-speaking engagements. As a result, over the years I have developed a list of my top picks for sunny and shady gardens depending on whether the soil is dense, heavy, and clay-based, or lean, sandy, and quick-draining. Fortunately, I have experience gardening with both soil types, and so I know that each presents its own challenges and opportunities. Here are a few options for perennials, trees, and shrubs that can survive and even thrive in the trickiest soil conditions.

Red Anthuriums, with their heart-shaped, bold red spathes and dark green foliage, are the epitome of tropical charm. However, coaxing these plants to grow larger and more vibrant isn’t always straightforward. This guide lifts the curtain on some of the lesser-known, specialist techniques used by master gardeners on How to Grow a Big Anthurium Plant!

Read this Boysenberry vs. Blackberry guide to find differences and similarities between the two and get a clarity once and for all!

What is purple and where do you draw the line between dark pink and dirty red? How much blue should be included to make a purple plant? Does it really matter anyway?

Goodnews, I have 3 good sized compost bins. The bad news is I am filling them very quickly which if they rot down soon enough will become more good news.

Most items that are an integral part of our daily routine are made of plastics. Plastic is an incredibly versatile and durable material, which is why it is so popular today. Furniture, containers, appliances, packaging, and even synthetic clothing can lead to the release of tiny plastics called microplastics into our environment and water systems.

Hover flies, aka syrphid flies, are a common sight in the garden. Of the 900 or so species native to the United States, most are mistaken by many gardeners as being a bee or a wasp due to their mimicking coloration pattern of black and yellow stripes on their abdomens. But these stingless imposters are important beneficial insects in the garden that feed on the likes of aphids, thrips, immature leafhoppers, and other small, soft-bodied plant pests. They are one of the first beneficial insects to become active in the spring and get an early start on helping to suppress those early aphid populations on certain ornamentals and vegetables.

Spring is here! All the signs are evident, including walking into caterpillars hanging from trees by slender threads (which happened to me last week). These danglers are often members of the Geometridae family, also known as inchworms or loopers. I love that their Latin name means “measures the earth.” The distinctive gait of these caterpillars makes it seem like they are taking their measuring duties very seriously. First, they deploy their front feet, and then, unlike other caterpillars with intermediate appendages, they pull forward their rear feet. This causes them to arch their bodies in that characteristic manner. Unsurprisingly, this onset of caterpillars coincides with the first flush of spring leaves, a buffet for these newly hatched critters.

My original piece of Farfugium japonicum ‘Giganteum’ (then known as Ligularia tussilaginea ‘Gigantea’) came many years ago, from a friend at a New York City public garden. Summers, it was lusty and bold, growing mightily in a pot and showing off like crazy. But I could never make the plant completely happy in the offseason, or so I thought, and after torturing it in my house one winter and in my basement (trying to force dormancy) the next, I gave the exhausted creature to a friend with a greenhouse.I kept his likeness here with me, and I guess I pined for him: A mid-century tray I’d bought at at antiques store bore an image of Farfugium, though not to scale. The plant bears ultra-shiny leaves that get to about 15 inches across.When I saw its shining face not long ago in the Plant Delights catalog, which credited the same person I’d got

IN A RAINSTORM HE DEPARTED, AND IN A RAINSTORM HE RETURNED. One of my five beloved big bullfrogs (above) hopped back in the other wet night after a four and one-half month absence, with not so much as a single word of explanation, and just that same stupid smile on his face.

Now Ruth Rogers Clausen, one author of that well-used 1989 book, has teamed with another longtime horticulturist and garden writer, Tom Christopher, to create a volume that better matches the palette of plants packing the benches of today’s nurseries—and also better serves gardeners in the hot, humid Southeast, not just cooler and drier regions, something the earlier book didn’t.  (I’m sharing a copy in the latest giveaway; enter at the bottom of the page.)Their new book is “Essential Perennials: The Complete Reference to 2700 Perennials for the Home Garden,” and it is a collaboration with a special backstory: Ruth, a British-trained horticulturi

Bullfrogs (about 3 1/2 to 6 inches in body length) are true aquatic animals, meaning they need a watery environment, period, unlike the Green Frogs (2 to 3 1/2 inches) I am left with (including the sexed-up adult male, above, whose intentions and gender I discern from his yellow throat coloration and the raucous behavior he’s been exhibiting lately). I think he has (bug) eyes for the lady up top. Green Frogs can deal with a terrestrial environment, at least part of the time; bulls cannot…except in big rains, when the opportunity to move presents itself. So off they went, in search of greener pastures, I suppose, perhaps singin’ in the rain.When it’s wet out, the normally aquatic Bullfrogs can move much longer distances: “They have been anecdotally recorded to move about 1.5 km or more, astonishing as that may sound,” says Megan Gahl, an environmental scientist and co-author of a