Independent gardening advice for real gardens, balconies and windowsills.
Practical advice on growing food and flowers, improving soil, and making the most of small spaces. Start anywhere — the garden will meet you.
This small bush is extensively cultivated in China for the preparation of a blue coloring-matter of the nature of indigo. The pigment is prepared from the entire plant by a process similar to that emp...
This dwarf palm is a native of the Southern States. The leaves are made into fans, and the soft interior of the stem is edible.
This is a West Indian palm; the leaves are used for various purposes, such as making mats, huts, etc.
The sugar cane. Where the sugar cane was first cultivated is unknown, but it is supposed to have been in the East Indies, for the Venetians imported it from thence by the
The arenga palm, which is of great value to the Malays. The black horsehair like fiber surrounding its leaf-stalks is made into cordage; a large amount of toddy or palm wine is obtained by cutting off...
This palm produces the sago of commerce, which is prepared from the soft inner portion of the trunk. It is obtained by cutting the trunk into small pieces, which are split and the soft substance scoop...
This is supposed to be the plant that produced the mustard seed spoken of in the Scriptures.
A tropical tree, sometimes called the Indian sandal tree, which produces a fruit like an apple, of agreeable acid flavor. The root of the tree has some medicinal value.
Called the African bowstring hemp, from the fibers of the leaves being used for bowstrings.
This tree yields the true sandalwood of India. This fragrant wood is in two colors, procured from the same tree; the yellow-colored wood is from the heart and the white-colored from the exterior, the...
The soapberry tree. The fruit of this plant is about the size of a large gooseberry, the outer covering or shell of which contains a saponaceous principle in sufficient abundance to produce a lather w...
A widely distributed Asiatic tree which yields an acrid, milky juice, which, as also the leaves of the plant, furnishes a kind of dye. The fruit in its green state is acid, and is eaten as a condiment...