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.
(Orontium aquaticum) Arum family Flowers - Bright yellow, minute, perfect, crowded on a spadix (club) 1 to 2 in. long; the scape, 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, flattened just below it; the club much thickened...
(Chrysopsis Mariana) Thistle family Plower-heads - Composite, yellow, 1 in. wide or less, a few corymbed flowers on glandular stalks; each composed of perfect tubular disk florets surrounded by pistil...
(Ranunculus acris) Crowfoot family Flowers - Bright, shining yellow, about 1 in. across, numerous, terminating long slender footstalks. Calyx of 5 spreading sepals; corolla of 5 petals; yellow stamens...
(Saponaria officinalis) Pink family Flowers - Pink or whitish, fragrant, about 1 inch broad, loosely clustered at end of stem, also sparingly from axils of upper leaves. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, abou...
"If blue is the favorite color of bees, and if bees have so much to do with the origin of flowers, how is it that there are so few blue ones? I believe the explanation to be that all blue flowers have...
(Gentiana crinita) Gentian family Flowers - Deep, bright blue, rarely white, several or many, about 2 in. high, stiffly erect, and solitary at ends of very long foot-stalk. Calyx of 4 unequal, acutely...
Baby's Breath. Large Purple-fringed Orchis. Smaller Purple-fringed Orchis. Hepatica (occasionally). Purple Marsh Clematis. English Violet. Wild Phlox. Catnip. Pennyroyal. Wild Thyme. Peppermint. Spear...
(Myosotis Palustris) Borage family Flowers - Pure blue, pinkish, or white, with yellow eye; flat, 5-lobed, borne in many-flowered, long, often 1-sided racemes. Calyx 5-cleft; the lobes narrow, spreadi...
(Euphorbia corollata) Spurge family Flowers - (Apparently) white, small, borne in forked, long-stalked umbels, subtended by green bracts; but the true flowers are minute, and situated within the white...
(Cornus florida) Dogwood family Flowers - (Apparently) large, white or pinkish, the four conspicuous parts simulating petals, notched at the top, being really bracts of an involucre below the true flo...
(Cypripedium hirsutum; C. pubescens of Gray) Orchid family Flower - Solitary, large, showy, borne at the top of a leafy stem to 2 ft. high. Sepals 3, 2 of them united, greenish or yellowish, striped w...
(Potentilla Canadensis) Rose family Flowers - Yellow, 1/4 to 1/2 in. across, growing singly on long peduncles from the leaf axils. Five petals longer than the 5 acute calyx lobes with 5 linear bracts...