notable natives, from mountain laurel to milkweed, with andy brand

The ancient Chinese have cultivated Tree Peonies for over 1500 years. Prized specimens are and were grown for medicinal purposes as they contain glucocides and alkolides. The  imperial palace gardens had many specimens that became quite valuable.

I have been reading the Penguin Encyclopedia of Gardening which aims to provide ‘….an explanation of words used in a technical sense in a horticultural context in the UK and USA.’ Set out as an A to Z this resulting post, missing a thousand definitions, is unlikely to rank highly with search engines.

I have grown a lot of viburnums over the years, and have pruned them at various times of year for one reason or another. Usually viburnums need relatively little pruning, assuming you planted the right cultivar in the right-sized space (for example, not ‘Mariesii’ among the doublefiles, shown, but ‘Watanabei’ if you only had a smallish area). Even the lightest form of pruning, the removal of spent flowers called deadheading, isn’t needed with most viburnums, since what you want is fruit after the flowers (unlike all that deadheading with lilacs, for instance, to prevent messiness).POOR PLANNING TO BLAMEMost of the pruning I’ve had to do on viburnums was because I didn’t leave enough room for the plant to reach its eventual size, and poor planning (meaning my impatience to have a filled-in garden) caught up with me in time. I have cut several viburnums to the ground or the

THAT OLD, DISCARDED ELECTRIC FAN that isn’t strong enough for the hot summers of global warming…hey, bring it on. It’s perfect for accomplishing one of the tricks to growing better tomato seedlings, which is (after all) the only thing you probably really care about on the run-up to another spring. To hell with winter.

On my radio show and podcast, we talked about why having extra-early and extra-later bloomers—from spicebush to Clethra to goldenrods and more—mean important insects and even birds will choose not just to stop by your garden, but call it home and raise a family.Read along as you listen to the May 11, 2015 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).read/listen: choosing native plants,a q&a with broken arrow’s andy brandQ. I know that when the subject of native plants is raised, peopl

Andy is nursery manager of Broken Arrow in Hamden CT, a destination nursery with an extensive retail operation plus a giant mail-order catalog of unusual things. His 25-year-old personal Epimedium collection includes more than 150 kinds, with other shade treasures such as Solomon’s seal, or Polygonatum, and some lookalikes also on his radar.Broken Arrow, where he has worked for 25 years, is known for unusual things: “Especially if it’s variegated, dwarf, or has contorted branches, or there’s something that’s not quite looking right about the plant”–in the very best way, of course–Andy says you’ll find it there. Plants with an irresistible twist

CRAZY, BUT TRUE: I ALWAYS THOUGHT the quirky “voice” of the Fedco Seeds catalog, named C.R. Lawn—get it? Lawn?—was a fictitious character, the made-up but pervasive green spirit of the longtime seed cooperative’s brand. But he’s not make-believe. He’s the Maine-based Fedco’s founder, and an organic gardener, market grower and seedsman with more than 30 years’ experience, and he took the time to answer some of my questions on what to grow and how to grow it better. The result is a vegetable-gardening Q&A (from peas to potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, mineral dusts and more), with the very real C.R. Lawn—and the chance to win three $20 Fedco gift certificates I bought to share with you, and say thanks to him. Let’s jump right in:

I first heard about “Bird Songs Bible: The Complete, Illustrated Reference for North American Birds,” edited by Les Beletsky, featuring sound from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and published by Chronicle Books, in this NPR segment last month. One caveat: The book-cum-boombox (birdbox?) ain’t cheap (cheep?) at $125.‘Millions Against Monsanto’ CampaignIWON’T ELABORATE OR START SHOUTING, but rather leave it at this: One of the things that scares me most is GMO crops, whether in the field or in our food. The Organic Consumers Union offers education, and also an advocacy program (aimed squarely at Monsanto, of course, whom they label “the biotech bully”) to make it easy for us all to add our names to the fight.

ISEEM TO BE A MAGNET for furry black creatures, a trend that I suppose started when the cat of my dreams adopted me all those years ago. This week, he and I have been visited by two other thick-coated types: the biggest caterpillar I have ever seen, Hypercompe scribonia (above, who will become the giant leopard moth), and a not-so-big (but big enough, thank you) American black bear, Ursus americanus, who completely terrorized resident fur-bearer Jack the Demon Cat in the overnight hours last night.

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

Many visitors have asked me to take it to the next level. Now Broken Arrow Nursery—they always do plant sales at my big Open Days—and I are offering smaller, ticketed, workshop-style events and sales on September 17, lasting a half-day each, with lots of individual attention. Our spring version sold out fast; space is very limited. Ticket includes $25 Broken Arrow shopping credit at the plant sale.Tour with me, Margaret, focusing on how I made a garden for the birds (60-plus species visit yearly); my maybe-too-crazy obsession with gold foliage; my passion for great groundcovers; the pollinator- and bird-enhancing “meadow” I’ve cultivated by observing carefully and mowing differently; and most of all, my intimate relationship with the place that goes wa

The answer is the pawpaw, and to say that Andrew Moore has a passion for pawpaws and encyclopedic knowledge about them would be an understatement.The Florida-born and Pittsburgh-based writer was just 25ish years old when he began work on what is now the book “Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit,” and he did indeed go on a search for it, or maybe more of a magical mystery tour–through history, horticulture and literally around the nation with many unexpected adventures along the