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03.05.2024 - 14:10 / finegardening.com
If you’ve run into a garden rut, we’ve got you covered. It’s time to start planning for your first trip to the local nursery or garden center. What plants will you need for a new garden area? Are you noticing a lack of excitement or color outside (we call this the midspring slump)? Just itching for an exciting new addition to a well-established bed? Now is the time to make a list of the perennials, shrubs, and/or trees that will fill those needs.
To help you make the best choices, we’ve asked regional garden experts to tell us what plants are on their spring shopping lists. These plants serve a range of purposes in the garden, but all are region-specific stars. From out-of-this-world flowers to show-stopping foliage and everything in-between, discover fantastic plants that would be a welcome addition to any garden in the region.
Find great shopping-list plants for the Midwest below, and check out this comprehensive collection of articles to discover more springtime planting and planning inspiration.
Name: Hibiscus ‘Airbrush Effect’
Zones: 4–9
Size: 3½ to 4 feet tall and 4 to 4½ feet wide
Conditions: Full sun; average to moist soil
Native range: Hybrid of North American species
If you need something special to plant outside your kitchen window or you want flowers you can spot from across the yard, this exceptionally brilliant hibiscus is the one. Each 8-inch, ruffled, hot pink blossom has a white glow that emanates onto the petals from the small, deep red eye. Since so many flowers open at once, the whole canopy of dark green foliage becomes shrouded in vivid pink. It’s a breathtaking sight every year from midsummer into early fall. Because of its tropical look you might assume this is a tender perennial, but it is
When choosing flowers for graves, it’s important to consider their symbolism so that you can convey the right wishes to the lost soul.
Name: Hydrangea arborescens ‘Kolpinbel’
Name: Cornus kousa var. chinensis
Name: Mahonia repens syn. Berberis repens
Name: Pycnanthemum albescens
I was first introduced to Mohr’s rosinweed on a botanizing trip to northern Alabama. It’s a true native stalwart and one of the many durable plants in the genus Silphium that are indigenous to prairies, meadows, and grasslands across the United States. These resilient members of the aster family are known to be both beautiful and extremely low maintenance in a garden setting.
As a researcher of urban agriculture, I was shocked to see a recent news article bearing the headline “Food from urban agriculture has a carbon footprint six times larger than conventional produce, study shows.” I had spent five years researching and publishing peer-reviewed articles and book chapters about urban agriculture during my Ph.D. with the Berkeley Food Institute, and this conclusion seemed to fly in the face of all that I’d read. How could this be?
May is National Hypertension Awareness Month and American Stroke Month, two conditions that are intricately linked to cardiovascular health. While many fad diets tend to come and go, one dietary pattern has stood the test of time and remains one of our world’s healthiest.
From Left: Sara Lee. Neilson Barnard / Staff / Getty Images.
If you have limited space indoors, there is still a range of house plants you can buy to add greenery to your home. Succulents and cacti offer the biggest choice of small house plants, but there’s a wealth of other varieties to enjoy, from air plants that grow without compost to the carnivorous Venus flytrap. As well as small plants, look for slow-growing house plants that take time to reach their mature height, such as the nerve plant. Windowsills, desks, hanging planters and shelves can all be enhanced by space-saving house plants.
Last month, the job listings page for the American Climate Corps went live. The ACC is a new program developed by the Biden administration that plans to mobilize young people into careers fighting climate change and environmental injustice. These roles span the country and both private and public sectors. Like other corps-type jobs, these roles will be term limited.