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.
The shaddock, which has the largest fruit of the family. It is a native of China and Japan, where it is known as sweet ball. The pulp is acid or subacid, and in some varieties nearly sweet. From the t...
This is the Kum-quat of the Chinese. It forms a small tree, or rather a large bush, and bears fruit about the size of a large cherry. There are two forms, one bearing round fruits, the other long, ova...
The lime, which is used for the same purposes as the lemon, and by some preferred, the juice being considered more wholesome and the acid more agreeable. There are several varieties, some of them bein...
The lemon; this plant is found growing naturally in that part of India which is beyond the Ganges. It was unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans. It is supposed to have been brought to Italy by the...
The citron, found wild in the forests of northern India. The Jews cultivated the citron at the time they were under subjection to the Romans, and used the fruit in the Feast of the Tabernacles. There...
A tropical plant which yields abundantly of a tenacious resin from its stem, which is used for the same purpose as pitch. It is first of a green color, but when exposed to the air it assumes a brown o...
Known in the West Indies as the seaside grape, from the peculiarity of the perianth, which becomes pulpy and of a violet color and surrounds the ripe fruit. The pulpy perianth has an agreeable acid fl...
The cocoanut palm. This palm is cultivated throughout the tropics so extensively that its native country is not known. One reason of its extensive dissemination is that it grows so close to the sea th...
A Brazilian species, highly ornamental in its long, arching leaves, and producing quantities of orange-colored nuts, in size about as large as a chestnut, inclosed in an edible pulp.
The coffee plant, which belongs to the _Cinchonaceae_ and is a native of Abyssinia, but is now cultivated in many tropical regions. It can not be successfully cultivated in a climate where the tempera...
The Liberian coffee, cultivated in Africa, of which country it is a native. This plant is of larger and stronger growth than the Arabian coffee plant and the fruit is larger. This species is of recent...
An African tree, which has been introduced into the West Indies and Brazil for the sake of its seeds, which are known as Cola, or Kola, or Goora nuts, and extensively used as a sort of condiment by th...