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 baobab tree, a native of Africa. It has been called the tree of a thousand years, and Humboldt speaks of it as "the oldest organic monument of our planet." Adanson, who traveled in Senegal in 1794...
A tree that furnishes red sandal wood. A dye is obtained simply by rubbing the wood against a wet stone, which is used by the Brahmins for marking their foreheads after religious bathing. The seeds ar...
This plant is extolled for its charcoal in the manufacture of powder. The flowers, leaves, roots, and especially the fruit, are considered antispasmodic, and are administered in India in asthma and in...
This plant belongs to the orange family, and its fruit is known in India as Bhel fruit. It is like an orange; the thick rind of the unripe fruit possesses astringent properties, and, when ripe, has an...
This plant is commonly known as American aloe, but it is not a member of that family, as it claims kindred with the _Amaryllis_ tribe of plants. It grows naturally in a wide range of climate, from the...
Granada, and Murcia by the Moors. In the fifteenth century it was introduced into the Canary Islands by the Spaniards and to Madeira by the Portuguese, and thence to the West India Islands and to Braz...
Jesuit's bark. It was brought most particularly into notice when Louis XIV of France purchased of Sir R. Talbor, an Englishman, his heretofore secret remedy for intermittent fever, and made it public....
Very ornamental evergreen shrubs, bearing tubular,funnel-shaped flowers. They succeed in any ordinary soil if the situation is warm and sheltered, and are readily raised by cuttings. Height, 3 ft. to...
Among these ornamental conifers mention may bemade of the beautiful Japanese Spruce Ajanensis, which grows freely in most soils and has dual-coloured leaves--dark green on the upper surface and silver...
Handsome half-hardy annual trailers. Grow in sandy peat andmultiply by root division. Flowers in April. Height, 4 in. to 6 in.
Evergreen greenhouse shrubs of great beauty and easycultivation. May be raised from seed, or by cuttings of young shoots placed in spring or summer in sand under glass, or with a bottom heat. Cut the...