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.
(Hepalica Hepatica; H. triloba of Gray) Crowfoot family Flowers - Blue, lavender, purple, pinkish, or white; occasionally, not always, fragrant; 6 to 12 petal-like, colored sepals (not petals, as they...
(Peramium repens; Goodyera repens of Gray) Orchid family Flowers - Small, greenish white, the lip pocket-shaped, borne on one side of a bracted spike 5 to 10 in. high, from a fleshy, thick fibrous roo...
(Iris versicolor) Iris family Flowers - Several, 2 to 3 in. long, violet-blue variegated with yellow, green, or white, and purple veined. Six divisions of the perianth: 3 outer ones spreading, recurve...
(Gerardia purpurea) Figwort family Flowers - Bright purplish pink, deep magenta, or pale to whitish, about 1 in. long and broad, growing along the rigid, spreading branches. Calyx 5-toothed; corolla f...
(Corallorhiza multiflora) Orchid family Flowers - Dull brownish purple, about 1/2 in. high; 10 to 30 borne in a raceme 2 to 8 in. long. Petals about the length of sepals, and somewhat united at the ba...
(Coreopsis lanceolata) Thistle family Flowers-heads - Showy, bright golden yellow, the 6 to io wedge-shaped, coarsely toothed ray florets around yellowish disk florets soon turning brown; each head on...
(Ledum Groenlandicum; L. latifolium of Gray) Heath family Flowers - White, 5-parted, 1/2 in. across or less, numerous, borne in terminal, umbellate clusters rising from scaly, sticky bud-bracts. Stem:...
(Amelanchier Canadensis) Apple family Flowers - Pure white, over 1 in. across, on long, slender pedicels, in spreading or drooping racemes, with silky, reddish bracts, early falling, among them. Calyx...
"A plant is not to be studied as an absolutely dead thing, but rather as a sentient being.... To measure petals, to count stamens, to describe pistils without reference to their functions, or the why...
(Lobelia inflata) Bellflower family Flowers - Pale blue or violet, small, borne at short intervals in spike-like leafy racemes. Calyx 5-parted, its awl-shaped lobes 1/4 in. long, or as long as the tub...