Category: Heirloom plants

Animal repellant products / Community Gardening / Compost / Deer / Edible Plants / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Organic Vegetable Gardening / Raised Beds / Seeds / Spring

 by Elizabeth McCoy

The Real Magic- Starting With Seeds

  Growing our own plants from seeds opens up a wide horizon of choices never even imagined by those who depend on the big box stores for their starts each spring.   There are many varieties of vegetables, herbs, flowers, and trees that have never been marketed in our area as seedlings.  Even within a popular type of vegetable, like tomatoes, there are many delicious named cultivars, many of them heirloom, not in commercial production as seedlings. Malabar spinach, a vining...

Carbon Garden / Climate Change / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Native Trees / Soil Conservation / Tree Care / Weather

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Planting Trees and Other Hacks to Manage Wet Soils

  Water may be a blessing or a curse.  Gardeners usually want abundant rain to nurture their plantings and generally have a back-up irrigation plan for dry spells.  Providing the right amount of water for each plant is one of the keys to a gardener’s success. Working With the Water Cycle Just as leaves absorb carbon from the air, so roots absorb water from the soil.  The water, and any chemicals or elements dissolved in it, may be stored in...

Flowering Shrubs / Garden Maintenance / Heirloom plants / Landscape Love / Ornamental Shrubs / Rose Care / Tales from the Help Desk

 by Patsy McGrady

Tales From the Help Desk: Rose Rosette Disease

Q.  My Zephirine Drouhin climbing rose looks odd. There are “frilly” growths, and the buds are very small.  Should I be worried? A. The Heirloom Roses website description of Rosa ‘Zephirine Drouhin’ states that it “may be the most consistently blooming, large, flowered climbing rose, with the added benefit that it is thorn-less.” The variety is thought to have originated in France in 1868. Your rose appears to be infected with rose rosette virus (RRV). This is a virus spread...

Container Gardens / Heirloom plants / Holiday Plants / Tales from the Help Desk / Tropical Houseplants / Watering

 by Patsy McGrady

Tales From the Help Desk : Christmas Cactus

Q.  How do I care for a Christmas cactus so that it blooms well for Christmas? A.  Christmas cactus, Schlumbergera x buckleyi, is native to tropical rain forests.  It should be planted in a soil mix that is high in organic material but drains well.  It likes to be root bound, so don’t feel you have to keep putting it in a larger pot each year. Keep the soil moist from spring through summer but let the soil dry out...

Evergreen Shrubs / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Native Trees / Permaculture / Taxonomy / Tree Identification / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Identifying Local Trees in Winter

  Recognizing and identifying trees can be a great pleasure.  Knowing trees well enough to understand how they fit into the local ecosystem, and how they can be used, allows us to look around at the trees in our community with even greater appreciation.  But there are so many trees!  How can you learn to identify them without carrying around a heavy field guide? This was our quandary as my novice Tree Steward colleagues and I began a project to...

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Carbon Garden / Evergreen Perennials / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Holiday Plants / Native Plants / Poisonous Plants / Wildlife Gardening / Winter

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Legends, Lore and the Truth About Mistletoe

  From November through May we can admire the living mathematics of the trunks and branches of hardwood trees.   Their leafy crowns have fallen, and their beautiful bark in all its silvery, marbled, textured variety is revealed once again. Looking up, we sometimes see lively green clusters of mistletoe shining in the treetops.  These shrubby, evergreen plants have been a part of myth and folklore since ancient times.  They live suspended between heaven and Earth, rooted into the branches of...

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Evergreen Shrubs / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Invasive Plants / Keystone Species / Native Plants / Native Trees / Ornamental Shrubs / Permaculture / Poisonous Plants / Wildlife Gardening / Winter

 by Elizabeth McCoy

A Winter Wildlife Garden- “Inviting the Stranger”

  Cardinals nest in a large evergreen shrub beside my kitchen window.  Though the shrub, Ligustrum, is frowned upon by many contemporary gardeners as invasive, the birds don’t know that.  They delight in its abundant berries and the insects that visit year-round. We delight in watching the birds come and go, even as they peer in the windows at us.  We amuse one another.  Cardinals, titmice and other birds also perch in the crape myrtle tree a little further out...

Birds / Carbon Garden / Edible Plants / Fall / Food Forest / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Larval Host Plants / Native Trees / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Diospyrus virginiana, the Divine Fruit

  A sadly spindly ‘mystery tree’ grows on a steep slope in our back fern garden.  I first noticed it six or seven years ago.  Its top was broken off in a winter snowstorm a while ago, and its odd growth pattern, plain looking leaves and immature bark left me clueless about its identify.  My best guess was that perhaps it was a paw paw tree, since the leaves are similar, and we have a stand of those nearby. But...

Carbon Garden / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Native Trees / Propagation / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

From History and Legends to My Own Front Yard:  The Beautiful Oak

  At the intersection of myth, fantasy, and living reality stands a towering oak tree, covered in plump acorns.  More than 400 species of oaks grow across temperate and tropical regions of North America, Europe and Asia, with 90 species here in the United States and another 160 species growing in Mexico.  China has 100 different types of oak. Types of Oaks All oaks, members of the Fagaceae family along with beech and chestnut trees, produce acorns.  Some, like our...

Community Gardening / Edible Plants / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Keystone Species / Native Trees / Permaculture / Planting Trees / Propagation / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Growing Indigenous Trees from Seeds

  What Are Indigenous Trees? Indigenous trees are those native species that have grown in our area since before European colonization.  They are uniquely suited to our climate.  They support our indigenous wildlife and make our landscape unique.  Trees produced from long generations of the same species, that have all grown in our immediate area, are considered indigenous.  A tree ordered from a mail-order nursery, even of the same species, was likely grown from seed, or a cutting, indigenous to...