in praise of honeysuckles (aphids be damned)

Rhododendrons have many praiseworthy characteristics.

I like this combination of Aquilegia and Honeysuckle. The lobed leaves offset the spiky flowers.

Yes you can rest happily with this organic treatment for your Aphids. It is called ‘spiders’ and they can be found in every garden and often in your own home.

These little breeders have been having a banquet on some of my Dahlias. They go for the soft new shoots and nascent flower stems which must be easy to get their teeth into. For some reason they have been quite selective on the plants they choose (As has been the spray I have used in a prophylactic manner). I hope the rest of the summer is black fly free but you never know.

Honeysuckle Belgica

This aphid has been parasitized by a tiny parasitoid wasp. Parasitoid wasps lay eggs in a host, like this aphid. As the egg hatches and the larva develops, it causes the aphid to swell, making it appear bloated. When the larva matures, it bores out of the host, leaving a hole in the abdomen, as seen above. The bloated body that the wasp leaves behind is known as an “aphid mummy.” These beneficial wasps can be attracted to fields and gardens by planting a variety of wildflowers, especially sweet alyssum, dill, cilantro, parsley, buckwheat, etc. Click here to learn more.

PEONIES—the big, traditional herbaceous ones, above—are in their peak moment. I grow them in an out-of-the-way spot for cutting only, not in the garden, as I have mentioned before. Have any that didn’t bloom so well? Some tricks of getting a peony’s full cooperation.KOUSA DOGWOODS are having a really good year in my garden, with a proliferation of bloom, above, that I hope will be followed by good fruit set. Last year, the various Cornus kousa didn’t put on such a big show, and then you may also recall the near-disaster I had with my unusual weeping one. Glad I didn’t cut it down.DAME’S ROCKET, or Hesperis matronalis, is to some a wildflower and to others a w

The common bleeding heart, Dicentra spectabilis (epecially the gold-leaf cultivar ‘Gold Heart’), gives the peonies a run for their money; so does Jeffersonia diphylla (twinleaf) and many heucheras. Scientists postulate that in some cases anthocyanins, flavonoid pigments which are often masked in the main growing season by the green of chlorophyll, may either serve to deter herbivores from nibbling tender new shoots or perhaps help attract pollinators, a kind of lurid “come hither” ensemble. If you don’t look like a leaf, maybe nobody will eat you–and looking like a flower extra-early increases your chance of getting pollinated when your flowers come not too long afterward.These pigments probably taste bad, too, compared to green ones–another deterrent to nibbling–and may help also tender young leaves cope with excess light (meaning the pigments are “photoprotective“).Whatever the particulars, I am happy to crawl around enjoying it, camera in hand. Crawl around with me in a quick slideshow? (Click the first thum

I’ve been sitting here with vases of multiflowered (also called bouquet) tulips in the house for more than two weeks now, specifically the variety ‘Red Bouquet,’ and from tightly closed to overblown and about to fall apart (about how I feel at the moment as well, by the way) they are a delight.The reason multiflowered tulips aren’t a formal class, the way Triumph or Double-Late or Greigii or another of the 15 officially recognized tulip classifications is? Because varieties with multiple flowers can occur in any class. The amazing red-hot tulip Tulipa praestans ‘Fusilier,’ for example, which will perennialize

I got the answer to at least part of the riddle from Sidney, a Rhode Island gardener who’d attended a lecture I gave there recently. Too bad I didn’t hear earlier, because Sidney (who charmingly says, “I have been gardening for 81 years and I think I would just shrivel up if I were taken away from the country”) had the trick for the floppiness:Grow your paperwhite bulbs in 8 parts water to 1 part gin or vodka. This works out to half a cup of spirits to 4 cups water, and keeps the leaves short, Sidney confirms, after growing boozy bulbs for three years.In the past I have grown the paperwhites in tall glass cylinders, in pebbles and water, so that th

Marion (with an impressive cabbage, below), is like her older sister and our parents a writerly type. Decades ago she began leaving voicemails that always started with, “I’ve got an Urgent Garden Question,” and then revealed her latest horticultural crisis.  In the early years, I suspected she was just trying to come up with an ice-breaker, and didn’t really need advice.We’d had some rough patches, as sisters do, and I knew she had a Master Gardener certificate—so why did she need my help? But it gave us a reason to speak, and get past things that had been in the way. For that I thank her (as I did in this 1989 essay and have been doing ever since). And I thank her for helping me solve my “how to do Q&A on the air” question, too.have a question to ask?WE’LL PUT OUT A CALL for your latest questions on Facebook before each Q&A edition of the radio show, and you can also ask here on the blog anytime. Each month I’ll gather the best ones—best as in likely to be most helpful to others—and answer them on the air.a way to garden