indoor growing under lights, with leslie halleck

The Pacific Bulb Society has a large report on numerous species.

Bromeliads are one of the most colorful plants you can adorn your rooms with. If you want the most stunning ones for your home, then check out these Best Bromeliads Anyone Can Grow Easily Indoors!

Commonly known as the Winter melon and Chinese watermelon, Ash gourd is native to Japan is found commonly throughout India. When touched, the fruit leaves an ash-like residue on hands. That’s the reason behind its interesting name! Here’s all you need to know about growing Ash gourd!

The pre-Columbian Indians of the Andes domesticated more starchy root crops than any other culture, but only the potato caught on as a staple worldwide.“The others have seldom been tried outside South America, yet they are still found in the Andes and represent some of the most interesting of all root crops.…” said a 1989 report called “Lost Crops of the Incas: Little-Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation” from the National Research Council.“They come in myriad colors, shapes, and sizes,” the report added. “T

Decades ago, I inherited the big old Clivia plant that had inhabited the sunroom of the home I grew up in for years before that. All these eons later we still live together, Clivia and I, as we have at several locations in between, though now there are multiple plants, each a division and each monstrously bigger than the one I started with.And then maybe 15 years ago I bought a yellow-flowered Clivia [above] at a botanical garden plant auction, and last year a young plant of a Clivia species unknown to me arrived in the mail as a gift from friends….so you get the idea. I like clivias. A lot.Alan Petravich, who a

Joseph and I are two peas in a pod, you see, but also apples and oranges. Joseph, who gardens in Michigan, and I are both seed-catalog madpeople—but we’re mostly mad about different catalogs, and different items.Back on the first of December, I wrote to Joseph, author of “Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener,” to ask him if in, say, a month he’d be ready to talk about the latest catalogs.Silly me.“I just finished puttin

Since 1993, Scott has run Old House Gardens, the only American resource devoted exclusively to heirloom bulbs, many available nowhere else–older varieties that have been handed down for their enduring value and interest.After a degree from Columbia, Scott returned to Michigan to teach school and bought an 1870s fixer-upper house in Ann Arbor that led to an epiphany when he realized some of the plants outside it were hand-me-downs of gardeners past. He pursued a masters in historic preservation, worked as a landscape historian, and has taught landscape history at Eastern Michigan University.And most important for this discussion: Having that whole catalog of b

Four Winds Growers was founded around the idea of developing and promoting dwarf varieties of citrus to fit the scale of the new-home boom in post-war California and beyond–including on all those patios, and also in pots as the container-gardening trend began to take hold. Four Winds remains a family business, and a multi-generational one. It was taken over by the founder’s son, who ran it from the early 1950s until recently, when his son took charge, along with his daughter; her husband, and a grandson.In his own home garden, Four Winds marketing director Ed Laivo has potted citrus that he has been growing for “upwards of 25 or even 30 years.” He joined me on the radio and podcast to share his tips on container growing and pest control. (The transcript of the Nov. 3, 2014 show is below.)citrus-growing q&a with e

Background: Barry Glick–a serious plantaholic who’s even a vegan and is sometimes also referred to in mock botanical Latin as the Glicksterus maximus–is a native of the Philadelphia area, and has been gardening since childhood.  In 1972, he purchased 60 acres of a 3,650-foot-high mountaintop in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, that became Sunshine Farm and Gardens (which you can stroll though and shop from at sunfarm.com).  Barry’s a garden writer and a longtime lecturer—but most of all I love how he was described in one magazine article I read recently:“The Flower Child Who Became the Flower King.”snippets from my q&a with barry glickIN THE TEXT BELOW, I harvested just the briefest details from conversations with Barry before, after and during the show taping, so be sure to listen in as well as read (the podcast player is just above), for extra unexpected goodies. Examples: the fact that a Number 8 “camel-hair” brush—which Barry uses for hand-pollination of hellebores—is actually made fro

Gallione, in his position as Technical Services Technician in the research department at Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine, is used to answering gardeners’ questions. I started at the beginning with mine: Why grow crops under cover, anyhow?There are two basic uses for fabric row covers, Paul explained:To modify temperature (for heat retention or frost protection, most early and late in the season with heavyweight fabrics); As a barrier to keep out insects, crows, and chipmunks, to name a few common troublemakers. (Note: You can also create some shade, perhaps for summer salads—t

Since 1993, Scott has published a catalog (and more lately of course a website) from his headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that represents the only American resource devoted exclusively to heirlooms bulbs, many available nowhere else.After a degree from Columbia, Scott returned to Michigan to teach school, and bought an 1870s fixer-upper house that he says led to an epiphany, when he realized some of the plants outside it were history-filled hand-me-downs of gardeners past. He pursued a master’s degree in his

Now Joseph Tychonievich, the sought-after Michigan-based garden writer and author, has confidence-building advice for me in his just-out book, “Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style.” Joseph is also author of “Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener.”Read along as you listen to the Oct. 24, 2016 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).my rock-garden q&a with joseph tychonievichQ. How did you get the rock-garden bug? Did you catch it in your time working at Arrowhead Alpi