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!
24.02.2024 - 16:33 / gardenerspath.com / Heather Buckner
How to Plant and Grow Bee Balm Monarda spp.
One of my absolute favorite flowers, I look forward to the day each year when the bee balm buds open into magnificent scarlet blooms, bringing a whole crew of ravenous hummingbirds into my yard.
We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission.
Incredibly beautiful, medicinal, and edible, it’s no wonder the birds and the bees love it too!
Best of all, there isn’t much to getting a patch established, and once you do, it will reward you with vibrant color and life year after year.
What Is Bee Balm?Bee balm is a perennial flowering herb in the mint family. Like many mints, it has a square stem, opposite leaves, and creeping rhizomes that spread rapidly under the soil.
There are quite a few varieties of Monarda. Perhaps the most commonly cultivated variety, M. didyma, boasts bright red tufted blossoms with tubular petals.
M. fistulosa, also known as wild bergamot, has similar shaped blooms of light purple or pink, and can be found growing wild in fields and prairies, and along roadsides and the edges of woods.
It commonly grows to about two to four feet high, though some dwarf varieties are shorter and can make great additions to containers or borders.
Bee balm attracts all sorts of pollinators, including bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. It is medicinal, edible, and delightfully fragrant,tasting a bit like oregano and mint, with a long history of human use.
Cultivation and HistoryEndemic to eastern North America, this plant has been used medicinally by many Native American communities throughout history, and was eventually adopted into medicinal use by early colonists as well.
This plant has many common names,
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!
When garden space is at a premium, growing beets in containers is an easy way to cultivate this favorite vegetable. By adding beets to your garden-vegetable list, you’re getting a double harvest: Both beet leaves and beetroots are nutritious and easy to prepare. Beets can tolerate frosts as well as warmer weather, giving you a container-gardening crop throughout the seasons. Whether you prefer to start your beets indoors or to direct sow them, you can grow them out in a pot in just 2 months or less after germination. In this article, you’ll read about why and how to grow beets in containers, from beet seeds and seeding to potting mix and fertilizing.
Sowing a seed directly into the ground, nurturing it, and reaping the rewards is one of the easiest gardening activities you can do—yet many gardeners don’t. There are many reasons to direct sow. Often, you’ll have earlier harvests because the seeds will germinate when it’s the perfect time to grow, and stronger seedlings because transplant shock isn’t an issue. Planting seeds in general (instead of buying transplants) gives you more varietal options, and you can also save a lot of money (1 packet of 30 to 150 seeds often costs less than a 6-pack of plants). And then there is the personal satisfaction factor. Ask any child who has planted a sunflower seed how they feel when that flower towers over their head, and you’ll understand what I mean.
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.
For gardeners who love to raise their plants from seed, the beginning of March is not unlike the build-up to Christmas. There’s lots of hustle and bustle, with flurries of intriguing parcels from favourite suppliers arriving in the post, accompanied by the making of wish lists and enthusiastic sorting of essential tools and equipment.
Pinching is an art of stimulating new growth in plants by pressing and removing the ends of the stems. Let’s have a deeper understanding of the ones that benefit the most from it.
Common juniper (Juniperus communis) is one of only three conifers native to the UK. It’s a member of the cypress family and grows on chalk or limestone in lowland areas, and moors, woodland and cliffs in northern Britain. Juniper is in decline in wild populations and has been designated a UK Biodiversity Action Plan priority species. This special tree has disappeared from several areas in the south of England. Many remaining colonies are so small that they’re considered functionally extinct. Scotland is now the stronghold for 80 per cent of the UK’s juniper trees.
The beautiful balcony plants on the terrace at the London house of Henrietta Courtauld of the Land Gardeners
If you want to learn how, there are not just one or two or three but five amazing ways to regrow a pineapple plant, either indoors or outdoors. You don’t need to become a master gardener
How to Plant and Grow Daikon: Add Some Zing to Your Garden Raphanus sativus var. Longipinnatus
If you are searching for Plants to Grow with Heuchera – we have plenty for you! These will compliment its leaves and make it thrive, too!
How to Plant and Grow Cabbage: A Fall and Spring Staple Crop Brassica oleracea var.capitata