How to Grow Bamboo in Containers

The sumac tree (Rhus typhina) is also known as staghorn sumac or staghorn sumach. It’s one of around 200 trees in the Rhus genus around the world, and is native to north America. Highly ornamental, it’s commonly grown in UK gardens for its attractive branching habit, which is said to resemble a pair of stag’s horns (hence its name), along with its fresh green, finely divided foliage, which turns glorious shades of red and orange in autumn. In spring, candle-like, yellow-green flowers form, which mature into a cluster of reddish fruits that hold throughout winter. If dried, the fruits make a passable substitute for the spice, sumac, which is usually made from the closely related Sicilian sumac, Rhus coriaria.

My family didn’t grow asparagus when I was a child. We found it. My dad had a sharp eye for the tender green spears that grew wild along roadsides near our home in Piqua, a wisp of a town in southeastern Kansas. He could spot even a single spear when he took the family on Sunday afternoon drives, stopping our Plymouth Fury to gather the crop.

It’s always a great day when I pick the first snap peas. A lot of the harvest never makes it to the kitchen. Snap peas—which snap like green beans and look and grow just like regular shelling peas—have one delicious difference: The pods are as tender and sweet as the peas inside. I could say I grow snap peas because they yield more food per square foot than shelling peas. But that’s not it. I truly enjoy the eat-it-all peas in the pod, whether I’m snacking on them in the garden, tossing them with pasta, or featuring them in a soup.

In my father’s victory garden, we planted a single crop of beans in late spring. The endless rows came in all at once, and we spent a long, hot week harvesting the beans. And while I love the taste of fresh snap beans, enough is enough. I’d rather have a number of smaller, more manageable crops of beans.

Peter Piper may have picked a peck of “perfect” peppers, but for the rest of us, a good harvest of this popular veggie can be more elusive. Peppers, like their tomato cousins, can be a disease-prone, temperature-sensitive, weak-rooted crop. Success, however, can be easy to achieve if you pick the right variety. Like tomatoes, peppers come in a wide range of colors, textures, and sizes. They also can be spicy or sweet in flavor. But aside from appearance and flavor, varieties also vary in their proclivity to resist disease and drought. All of these factors will help determine which type you choose to buy.

Gooseberries are delicious cooked in pies or swirled into sweetened cream to make a gooseberry fool. They’re easy to grow, and just a single bush will reward you with masses of berries for up to 15 years.

Verbena is a varied genus of plants, mostly native to South America. They tend to be short-lived, but the abundance of nectar-rich flowers more than makes up for this.

Most of us think of honeysuckles as twining climbers with pretty, scented tubular flowers, perfect for covering walls, fences and pergolas. But there are also evergreen, shrubby types that make an excellent honeysuckle bush, hedging or topiary. Both belong to the genus Lonicera and there are many different cultivars, hailing from Europe, Asia, the Mediterranean and North America. Lonicera periclymenum (wild honeysuckle, common honeysuckle or woodbine) is native to the UK.

If you are looking for an option to save money while enjoying fresh coriander sprigs right at your home, then learn How to Grow Cilantro from Stem Cuttings!

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to get exclusive access to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show? Well, your dreams have come true because in this exclusive interview we got an all-access pass to THE horticultural event of the year thanks to Annie Guilfoyle, a 2024 judge. Annie is co-founder of Garden Masterclass in the UK and an award wining garden designer who earned a Silver Medal at Cheslea years ago for her innovative landscape design. Annie is just back from the show this year and shares details from her favorite gardens, interesting new plants that caught her attention, and even some celebrity gossip from those stars that were in attendance at the show. (Spoiler alert: she did not  see Lady Whistledown at the Bridgerton -themed garden). We discussed how native plants and sustainable practices played a role in this year’s event and talk about themes of water conservation and hardscape upcycling.   

The bamboo palm (Rhapsis excelsa) is an elegant evergreen fan palm. It has bamboo-like stems and fronds of long dark green leaves with blunt ends, making it an unusual, yet attractive, house plant. Several other house plants are also referred to as the bamboo palm, including Dypsis lutescens (also known as the Areca palm, golden cane palm or butterfly palm) and Chamaedorea seifrizii.

If there’s one thing the most exciting gardens have in common, it’s that they always have something beautiful happening. And that “something” usually means something in flower. Bringing that idea home may seem challenging for gardeners, but happily, plant breeders know we want more—more beautiful foliage, more interest across every season, and most importantly, more and better bloom—and they have answered our calls. This is excellent news because, let’s face it, most gardeners today have less time to spend in the weeds (or looking for strong bloomers) than in years past. And everyone stands to benefit from bigger, continuous summer blooms with less effort. The following group of superstars starts flowering at the onset of summer and keeps going all season long, many even going right into fall. Use them as supporting players for those that shine more briefly, or switch it up and make them the centerpiece.