Gardening

If you like to craft with dried flowers, you need to add celosia to your cutting garden. The flowers come in many bright colors, are easy to dry and retain their colors for months.

Napa cabbage is a cool season vegetable that is used in kimchi, hot pots, wraps and stir fries.

Astilbe will light up your shade garden with its colorful plumes of flowers.

Add luffa vines to your vegetable garden and you may never buy another sponge!

Peanuts aren't just for southern gardens. We northern gardeners can grow and enjoy them also.

No garden is complete without bulbs. Planted properly, they will reward you with years of color.

Jack in the Pulpit are perfect for that damp, shady area in your yard.

A Victorian favorite, sweet peas love cool spring weather.

Primroses are a great choice for a shady garden. They come in many bright colors, guaranteed to light up a shady corner.

If you are a native plant lover, set aside a corner of your shady garden for a few trillium. You can choose from the 36 species that grow across the temperate US.

Neem oil is a safe, gentle, natural solution for personal, household and garden use.

Hyacinth bean vines are edible but they are most often grown for their ornamental value.

You can enjoy homegrown figs no matter where you live. Fig trees grow well in containers if they are not hardy in your area.

Ostrich ferns are the largest native fern. They make a dramatic backdrop to your shade garden. Take advantage of their rapid spread and use them for erosion control along stream banks.

Squash Vine Borers are destructive but can be easily controlled using some simple techniques.

Buy large pumpkins for your jack-o-lanterns and smaller ones for cooking. Or skip the pumpkins entirely and buy winter squash for your cookies, breads and pies.

One of the first harbingers of spring, the forsythia with its bright yellow flowers is easy to grow and propagate.

If you have the space, red hot pokers are eye-catching statement plants that attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. They are deer and rabbit resistant.

Lady's Slippers are native orchids that are hardy in most of the US. Grow them in a shady corner or under a tree.

Purple bell vines are a Mexican native that is grown as an annual. The 10 foot vines are covered with purple flowers that look like bells.

Pansies are versatile cool-season flowers. They can be grown in containers, as borders or as a ground cover. Pansies thrive in the shade providing much-needed color in a shady corner of your yard.

Edamame is a type of soy bean that is harvested before it is ripe. The beans are an important source of nutrients for vegans.

Bleeding hearts are an old favorite with unique flowers. They are easy to grow and perfect for a shady corner in your garden.

Lilacs are an easy-care, long-lived plant with colorful fragrant flowers.

Peonies never seem to go out of style. Their gorgeous flowers have been a staple of cottage gardens for centuries thanks to their ease of cultivation and long lives.

Grown as both a vegetable and a landscape plant, globe artichokes have been in our gardens for thousands of years.

Milkweed is critical to the suvival of monarch butterflies. Do your part to save them by planting this easy to grow native plant.

Asparagus beetles can destroy your asparagus patch in a single season. Using a combination of beneficial insects, neem oil and good gardening techniques, you can limit the ravages of these pests.

Vermicomposting is a good substitute for composting outdoors. Using a small bin, some newspaper or cardboard, red wiggler worms and a little patience, you can make nutritious compost for your garden.

Malabar spinach, although not a true spinach, tastes like it and grows during the heat of the summer when your true spinach has finished.

European fan palms add a tropical flare to your home or yard.

Ladybugs are an organic gardener's best friend, ridding the garden of destructive insects.

The bright red foliage of Japanese blood grass provides interest year round in your garden even in temperate climates.

Lupines add interest to your garden with unusual leaves and colorful spires of flowers.

Rosa mundi is a naturally occurring sport of the Apothecary's Rose. The flowers are striped instead of solid.

Blackberry lilies, which are not true lilies, have orange or yellow flowers which produce shiny black seeds that provide color and texture in the fall and early winter.

Siberian bugloss, also known as False Forget-Me-Not, is a shade loving perennial that can be grown in wet soils.

Prayer plants are the perfect solution if your home does not get a lot of sunlight. They prefer filtered light. Their leaf colors can add a little pop of color to your interior decor.

Bear's breeches are a spectacular addition to your semi-shady garden. Both the flowers and the leaves add an architectural element to your bed.

If you are looking for something different for your spring/early summer display, you should consider the fritillaria family.

Beloved by both adults and children, snapdragons are a great addition to a spring garden or a cutting garden.

Firethorn shrubs have bright orange or red berries that attract birds adding movement and color to the winter landscape.

Add a little exotic greenery to your landscape or home with a ponytail palm.

Japanese beetles are highly destructive. They have no natural enemies here in the US but they can be controlled using methods that are effective and environmentally friendly.

Cardinal climber vines are an interesting addition to any garden. Their long throated red flowers will attract hummingbirds, while their leaves add texture.

ZZ plant is a great plant for people who have trouble growing houseplants. It can grow in almost no light and can go months without watering.

Plant bluebells to add spring color in your woodland or shady garden.

Earwigs aren’t the worst insect nuisance that you have to deal with in your home and garden, but they are definitely one of the most scary looking ones. Keep your home and yard earwig free using these simple steps.

Liriope can be used as a ground cover or an edging. Its lavender flowers add color to your garden in the late summer and early fall.

Caladiums are shade plants with large, colorful leaves. They can be grown in your shade garden or indoors as a houseplant.