…roses. Muckross Gardens, Killarney, Ireland. Single-flowered orange dahlias blaze across a green landscape, drawing the eye toward the house. Oslo Botanical Gardens, Norway. The blaze of color caught my eye from 100 yards away. Sandwiched between the lush lawn and a dark green hedge, the row of red-orange dahlias drew my eye like a magnet. The single, golden-centered blooms captured and reflected the colors of the yellow house and r…
…Dutch and is an appropriate name for the eye-catching blooms of this unusual form. Each flower has a row of shorter petals that encircle a center disk, which is often in a contrasting color. Dahlia flowers range in size from 12″ across to the diminutive double Pompons and Mignon Singles that measure less than 2” across. Although not a formally ADS-recognized category, most dahlia purveyors offer the largest blooms as “dinnerplate dah…
I was 50 before I discovered dahlias. Part of it was about being a flower snob. Dahlias (like glads) were “out” for many years. But I’m sorry to say that it’s also about climate change. This variety is called Who Dun It. I was 50 before I discovered dahlias. Part of it was about being a flower snob. Dahlias (like glads) were “out” for many years. But I’m sorry to say that it’s also about c…
…nd what went into producing it. So how come I can’t have the right to know what’s in the food I buy in the store? That’s the goal of the Just Label It campaign, which last month submitted a record-breaking 1.1 million signatures to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in favor of labeling genetically engineered (GE) foods. And in polls by ABC, MSNBC, NPR, the Washington Post, Consumer Reports and others, consistently…
…eek we had a couple nights in the mid-20s and it was definitely time to make the big transition into the basement. The list of those headed indoors had expanded to include six bamboos, one cordyline, 20 cannas, eight dahlias, 12 pots of tender succulents and a friend’s mandevilla. If we wanted to still be able to use the rowing machine (you never know when the physical fitness urge might hit!), it was clear that we needed to use our space more ef…
Dahlias grown by Dan Pearson of Dan’s Dahlias in Oakville, WA. Here, they await pick-up from the buyer at the Seattle Wholesale Grower’s Market. Photo: David E. Perry San Francisco’s Baylor Chapman created this boutonniere with foliage from fuzzy lamb’s ear, forget-me-not blooms and the fruit and leaves of an alpine strawberry. Photo: David E. Perry We’re swooning over the glorious photos in Debra PrinzingR…
…en the earth-friendly ones. At first, I tried neem, a relatively harmless spray that does wonders on aphids and controls blackspot on roses. It worked to control the larvae the first year, but I had to spray frequently (every 10 to 15 days). The second year, I couldn’t keep the larvae under control. My lily crop was hit hard, and I got few blooms. Last year, I decided to resort to a systemic called imidacloprid. The results were instantaneo…
…tes hosts a trailer, brings it in when it is full, and returns with an empty one,” Cline says. Steve Cline sorts plastic pots and cell packs at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s recycling program, where they collect 100,000 to 140,000 pounds of horticultural plastic every year. Cline, former director of the Garden’s Kemper Center for Home Gardening, started the program in 1998. The botanical garden’s Pots to Planks program s…
Flat-leaf parsley I used to do much more canning and freezing than I do now. With our household down to just two, we’re cooking smaller meals and don’t need to have as much food around. But there are still quite a few garden crops that I squirrel away in my freezer or pantry, and one of those is parsley. I can chop and freeze a huge basket of fresh-picked parsley in about 15 minutes. With a half-dozen sessions like that throughout the…
Though cold winds chill the air and snow blankets much of the U.S., pesticide use remains a hot topic — and not only among gardeners. The most recent comments come from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Council on Environmental Health, whose December 2012 policy statement makes a clear link between pesticide exposure and children’s health problems. Published in Pediatrics, the official journal of the 60,000-member AAP, “Pesticide Ex…