White ZZ plants are not exactly “White” but have a tint of yellow and white on the leaves, which makes them appear very different from the regular green and rare black types.
05.03.2024 - 18:47 / getbusygardening.com / Amy Andrychowicz
Growing broccoli in your home garden is a wonderful way to enjoy this fresh, cool-weather vegetable.
But to have the best possible success, first you must learn about the ins and outs of broccoli plant care.
This comprehensive guide on how to grow broccoli is perfect for gardeners of any skill level. You’ll learn about timing, location, sun, water, soil, pest control, and so much more.
Table of Contents
Broccoli (Brassica oleracea) is a cole crop and a member of the Brassicaceae, or mustard, family of vegetables. It’s related to other favorites like cabbage, brussels sprouts, kale, kohlrabi, and cauliflower.
It’s technically a biennial, but most people grow it as an annual. It can keep producing almost year-round, depending on your climate. Eventually it will bloom, set seed, and then die.
The heads, or crowns, are made up of tightly packed clusters of unopened flower buds. They’re typically dark green, but can have hues of blue. There are even heirloom varieties that produce a purple crown.
All parts of the plant are edible, and the main head can range in size from 3-6” depending on the environment, variety, and quality of care.
Different broccoli varieties feature varying heat tolerance levels, cold resistance, growth rates, color, and size. All of them require the same care. Here are a few of the most popular options:
Broccoli grows from the main central stem. Only one large crown will form at the top of each plant.
But most plants will also produce several smaller heads, or side shoots, after you harvest the central one. So you can continue enjoying it all season long.
Before we get into the specific care instructions, let’s chat about when and where to grow broccoli. Timing and location are keys to success.
You can grow your
White ZZ plants are not exactly “White” but have a tint of yellow and white on the leaves, which makes them appear very different from the regular green and rare black types.
Oxalis triangularis, also known as false shamrock, is an eye-catching bulbous perennial that makes an excellent and long-lived house plant. Bold, dramatic foliage in shades of dark purple to wine-red creates a striking contrast to blush-white flowers borne in summer. The leaves are three-lobed, hence the name of shamrock which it resembles, though is not actually related to. Oxalis triangularis is native to from Brazil. Its leaves have extra fascination because they open during the day and close at night.
Poppies (Papaver spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9) are one of the most beloved and desirable garden flowers, but they aren’t as easy to please as many sources make them out to be. While there are those who will claim that they are the easiest flowers to grow since they often self-seed around the garden with abandon, poppies—especially the annual species—remain challenging to grow for many gardeners. Below I’ll go over some common annual and perennial poppy species, some recommended varieties of each, and how to make them thrive in your garden.
Ranging from $500 to $5,000 per kilogram, saffron, or the Red Gold as it is commonly referred to, takes a total of about 150,000 flowers to produce just one kilogram! Now you know why it would be a great idea to have its plant at home!
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Ponytail palms are not exactly the fastest or the tallest growing specimens out there, so people are always in lookout for ways to make their’s stand out from the rest!
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Parrotia persica, also known as Persian ironwood, is a deciduous tree mainly grown for its spectacular autumn display when its leaves turn shades of yellow, orange, red and purple. It’s a wide-spreading, slow-growing tree with bark that flakes away, creating an interesting texture and revealing younger bark below. Dense heads of red flowers will appear in late-winter and early-spring. The flowers of Parrotia persica do not have petals; instead, buds open to reveal attractive red stamen.
Acidanthera (Acidanthera murielae syn. Gladiolus murielae) – also known as the Abyssinian gladiolus, callianthus, sword lily or peacock lily – is a graceful summer-flowering perennial. It has erect grass-like leaves and slender stems up to 1m tall, each one bearing several nodding, funnel-shaped, white flowers with purple throats. The flowers are attractive to a range of pollinators, including bees, which visit for nectar and pollen.
Goji berries (Lycium barbarum) are a popular ‘superfood’ to eat fresh or dried. Native to China, they’re packed with vitamins and antioxidants and have been used in Chinese medicine for over a thousand years. They’re easy to grow at home in the UK and bear fruit after just one or two years. The best thing about growing your own goji berries is that you can eat them straight from the bush – most commercially available goji berries are dried.
Home-grown garlic takes up little space and requires hardly any effort to get a good crop. It’s an easy crop to grow, spouting from a garlic bulb separated into cloves, which you plant individually. Certified, disease-free garlic bulbs are sold at garden centres or online.
Common beech (Fagus sylvatica) is one of the most majestic of European native trees, yet also makes an excellent formal hedge as it tolerates regular clipping. Although deciduous, beech is still good to use as a screening hedge as growth is dense, twiggy, and the dead leaves usually remain on the branches for much of the winter, often until the new leaves appear in spring. There are both green and purple-leaved varieties of common beech which are suitable for hedging. The purple-leaved form (Fagus sylvatica ‘Purpurea’ is commonly known as copper beech. To grow as individual trees, the common beech species becomes too big for all but the largest gardens, but there are columnar (fastigiate) and weeping forms of beech that are much more compact in size.