And despite having a name that is anything but picturesque, the silvery-white speckled leaves and pink and blue blossom clusters are a charming addition to shady areas of the landscape. Pulmonaria spp. Lungwort is a flowering perennial suited to cultivation in USDA Hardiness Zones 3 to 8. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission....

Unlike them, A. triloba grows in the temperate regions of USDA Hardiness Zones 5-9, and has three intriguing qualities: Asimina triloba Have you heard of the pawpaw, Asimina triloba? It’s the largest native North American fruit, and it has a tropical flavor and custardy texture. If you’re confused, that’s because there are other tropical fruits called pawpaw, including the papaya, Carica papaya, and the graviola, or soursop, Annona muricata. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....

Aconitum carmichaelii is a member of the Ranunculaceae, or buttercup family, which includes clematis, hellebore, and columbine. It is also known by its synonym A. fischeri. Aconitum carmichaelii Divine blue flowers are rare in the fall garden, but have we got a showstopper for you! Azure monkshood is a perennial flower with stunning purple-blue blooms and entrancing foliage, perfect for adding interest to a fall garden. Though it prefers moist soil, it can grow in shade or sun....

Now I find eating unshelled sunflower seeds is an excellent way to keep my mind occupied when I’m on a long road trip. Here’s a confession for you: even though I love them, I used to be too lazy to eat sunflower seeds. Unshelled ones, anyway. All that work cracking them open just for a tiny slice of heaven inside? Not for me. Or so I thought… After enjoying the large, glorious yellow blooms of my very own sunflowers all summer long, I harvested my own homegrown seeds for the first time....

Ready to work some garden magic? Let’s dig in! When you first see that spindly-looking bare root rose, you’re probably asking yourself how it’s going to go from that sad-looking pile of sticks to a big, robust bush. It’s not hard. All you need are some basic garden tools and a little know-how. We can’t supply you with the shovels, but we can definitely help with the knowledge. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....

Think spinach meets celery under neon lights, and you have a pretty good description of this colorful and nutritious vegetable. Read on for all you need to know to grow it in your garden! Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris, (Cicla and Flavescens Groups) Swiss chard, B. vulgaris, is a type of beet. But instead of featuring a well-developed and flavorful root, its claim to fame is glossy puckered leaves veined with bright white, orange, magenta, red, or yellow, with firm stalks to match....

In this guide, I’ll share everything you need to know. Boysenberries, Rubus ursinus x R. idaeus, are tasty hybrid berries that typically grow best in USDA Hardiness Zones 5-9. I’m in Zone 4, and it is admittedly audacious of me to to grow them here. But what’s the fun of gardening without a challenge? Fortunately, with adequate winter care, my boysenberries produce a delicious harvest year after year. In our guide to growing boysenberries, we cover how to cultivate these shrubs in your garden....

However, many varieties have unique requirements for ripening. They’re picked when mature but still underripe and placed in cold storage for conditioning before they can be ripened. Sweet, juicy pears are a favorite autumn fruit. Fragrant and flavorful, they’re wonderful for fresh eating, desserts, or made up into preserves. Harvested from mid-summer to mid-fall, depending on the cultivar, many varieties make excellent keepers and can be stored for months given the right conditions....

A major component of this process involves the use of plants known as xerophytes. These are species that, by design, consume less water from the ground than others, and thrive – rather than merely surviving – in drought conditions. What is xerophytic gardening? If we dissect the word, the prefix “xero-” means dry, and the suffix “-phytic” means plant. Simply put, it’s the process of designing a sustainable, environmentally-friendly garden or landscape that works to conserve water, and this type of design is usually employed where liquid water is scarce....

So, say you planted some nutritious maize. Corn gets a bad rap these days. It’s in everything from breakfast cereal to dog food to skin care products, so how can it be healthy? Well, my friends, it is. Especially sweet corn, which is loaded with fiber, vitamin C, folate, thiamine, magnesium, and potassium, all of which are essential to human health. It’s the processed products you have to watch out for, not garden-grown deliciousness....

A knockout when mass planted in containers and throughout the garden, they also naturalize readily – given the right conditions. Charming and diverse, anemones put on an eye-catching and long-lasting floral display from early spring into fall. Anemone is a large genus, and many folks will be familiar with the charm of the daisy-like Grecian windflowers, aka Balkan anemones, that pop up in early spring. They’re soon followed by other species with delightful poppy-like flowers, some that bloom from late spring into summer and others flowering from late summer into fall....

There’s a real advantage to being able to grow tomatoes for fresh eating in your own garden. These particular varieties don’t ordinarily pack or travel well, so they’re not always available commercially, or even at the farmers market. At the start of the new year, seed catalogs hold me spellbound, particularly as I try to decide which slicing tomatoes I will plant this year. I attempt to be conservative when selecting how many of these Solanum lycopersicum varieties will fit in my raised beds, especially since I also like to grow determinate paste tomatoes for canning, and maybe a cherry variety or two....

But what if just the long, pointed leaves grow, and no flowers bloom at all? For gardeners who want an easy-to-grow flower that refines their capacity for patience, daffodils are perfect. You plant them before the ground freezes in the fall or winter, and then you’re rewarded in the spring with the most cheerful, nodding faces. Unless… you aren’t. Perennial daffodils (Narcissus spp.) are some of the first blooms of the spring season, opening their buds as early as January or February in warmer climes, and as late as April or May in frigid areas like Alaska, where I live....

In this article, you’ll discover how to lift, cure, and store caladium corms for replanting the following spring. Caladiums are colorful, tropical foliage plants that grow as perennials in USDA Hardiness Zones 9 to 11. In colder areas, where the ground freezes, they are often grown as annuals. They can be taken out of the ground in the fall, the corms stored during the winter months, and replanted the following spring....

Well, the way that you harvest, process, and store your nuts can have a huge effect on the quality and quantity that you are able to enjoy from your tree, so it’s important to know the best techniques. So, you’ve planted your almond tree following our handy guide packed full of growing recommendations, thanks to which you now have a beautiful and bountiful crop. Now the question is, how and when is best to harvest your almonds to make the most of them?...

While famous for its leaves, it also features pink or purple flowers. Some cultivars, like ‘Cotton Boll,’ have white flowers, but these are less common. Stachys byzantina If you love plants that are as fun to look at as they are to touch, lamb’s ears, Stachys byzantina, makes a fantastically fluffy addition to any landscape. It’s also surprisingly easy to grow, since the only thing it doesn’t like is soggy soil....

Low-tech cold frames have a small footprint, and they’re quite versatile. Any gardener looking to extend the growing season or offer protection for their plantings should consider adding one to their arsenal of garden tools. Greenhouses offer an amazing venue for overwintering plants, but purchasing and constructing one may be outside a gardener’s budget. Or it may be too large to fit on their property. Or perhaps it’s a bit too labor intensive....

There are many delightful crops that grow well in a fall garden. Autumn is my favorite time of year! As the air becomes crisp and fresh, I find myself reenergized and geared up for a second round of gardening. For me, growing crops in the fall has become a fantastic way to continue to bask in the garden magic for much longer each year. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....

You just need to know how to treat them right. In turn, your container-grown plant will treat you with a load of sweet fruit. There is nothing quite like picking a ripe blueberry or two, popping a warm berry into your mouth, and enjoying the moment when it bursts onto your tongue with that distinct, sweet, sun-ripened, homegrown flavor. Maybe your mouth is watering while you’re reading this. But for those of you who only have a balcony or a small patio, or maybe the wrong soil type or garden plots that are already full to the brim, the dream of growing your own blueberries can seem out of reach....

Since these bulbs take six to eight weeks to bloom after planting, the gesture has always been a gift for two occasions, with the brilliant red blooms sometimes bursting forth close to Valentine’s Day. The long-standing “almost every year” holiday tradition at our house is to give younger family members a huge amaryllis bulb to grow fragrant red blooms indoors in late December. Even at eight years old, my daughter Lucy could sprout this gorgeous tropical flower on her own....