How A Bee Sees A Flower And How It Helps Pollination

Do you know about the Texas State Flower? Well, it is a beautiful blooming plant with blue flowers! Read on to know all the details!

Are you looking at plants in your garden and wondering why they aren’t flowering?

APPARENTLY MRS. ANDRE’S TOMATOES succumbed to “tiny insect things that will not leave our garden alone,” we hear this week from Himself, who very sweetly shared the actual sympathy postcard he drew for Herself on the occasion of her lost tomatoes.

I N A GOOD SPRING, BELOVED PLANTS COME BACK. Not everybody, of course; some just can’t find their way home.

YOU KNOW THE WAY A BEST FRIEND wants to know the details of your latest intrigue, based on whatever the friend likes most about objects of intrigue herself. (Forgive me, gentlemen; just swap all the pronouns in this post to suit.) “How are his manners?” she’ll ask, and “His sense of humor? His smile?” Here’s what I’d ask if I were your best friend and you had your eye on someone new, especially in the perennial department: How are his leaves? It’s leaves after all that dictate a plant’s character, hanging on as they do longer than most any flower.

FULL SUN (or light shade in hotter zones), and well-drained soil that’s high in organic matter is the basic regimen (though the sweetbay magnolia, M. virginiana, can also take a wet spot). Give the others those requirements, plus a light layer of aged organic mulch, and they generally will thrive. Fertilizing isn’t needed, says Andrew. (At Scott they only mulch the circles of trees in lawn areas, using a combination of leaf compost and one-year-old composted wood chips.)Magnolias are not the easiest to plant under, however, because of their fleshy, moisture-hogging root systems.  “Some plants that can take dry shade will make a go of it,” he says, suggesting Epimedium, or Asarum, or Christmas fern. Among bulbs, try Scilla, or Chionodoxa, or even toadlilies (Tricyrtis), he recommends.Magnolia grandiflora, the so-called Southern magnol

Many companies ship extra-early, based on rough frost-date estimates for each area that may not be exactly what’s going on at your place, but is that really when I want the starts to arrive? I asked for advice from Alley Swiss of Filaree Farm, a longtime certified-organic farmer in Okanogan, Washington, whose main crops—garlic, shallots and potatoes—are favorites in my garden, too.(You might recall the popular garlic-growing Q&A Alley and I did together, and our later garlic-growing piece in my column in “The New York Times.” I’ve learned a lot from our ongoing conversations–including that it’s OK to wait a little while for the seed potatoes to arrive.)how to grow potatoes, with alley swissQ. When is the right time to plant—is there a cue in nature to remind us, or a

As far as planning the perfect summer garden goes, even the most novice of gardeners know the basic necessities: sunlight, water, and healthy soil. If you really want your garden to thrive, though, you need to plant the right mix of plants, too.

When you spot its ethereal plumes swaying in the wind, it’s clear why pampas grass has rocketed to the top of everyone’s wish list.I nearly passed out when I saw how much a couple of dried stal

As a kid, I wasn’t a huge fan of asparagus, but now I can’t get enough of it.The reason? There weren’t any aspa

I remember discussing black garlic with my friends at a dinner party about 10 years ago.We’d all heard of this trendy, artisanal

As heavenly bamboo shrubs and my middle school yearbook photos can attest, there’s a fine line between an organic, natural look… and just being a mess.A well-pruned Nandina domestica man