Archive for the ‘Drought tolerant’ Category

Six Summer Annuals Your Grandma Did Not Know About

              Angelonia (“summer snapdragon”)… are outstanding performers in the summer flower garden, yet so many gardeners have never heard of them. Angelonias demonstrate outstanding heat and humidity tolerances. Serenita™ (12-14 inches high), Serena™ (15-18 inches high), and Archangel™ (12-14 inches tall high) series, are available in purple, lavender, pink, […]

Japanese Crape Myrtle Flaunts Stunning Bark

Most crape myrtle cultivars marketed through garden centers are hybrids that combine the large colorful flowers of Common Crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) with the mildew-resistant foliage and cold hardiness of Japanese Crapemyrtle (L. faurei). Japanese Crape myrtle are cold hardy (USDA hardiness zones 6-b to 9) and are heat tolerant. They are rated hardy to winter minus 10 […]

Hold In Confinement

Some plants are incredibly aggressive. Herbicides like Roundup™ won’t phase them. They often escape and take over other areas of your garden or neighborhood. Four notorious examples are ditch lilies (Hemerocallus fulva), swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), Mexican petunia (Ruellia brittoniana), and pink evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa). You can grow these four weedy offenders in confinement. All will survive […]

Tulip Poplar And Cultivars

  Tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), aka yellow poplar and tulip tree, is a large stately deciduous tree of eastern North America (USDA hardiness zones 4-9). This fast growing native typically grows 60-90 feet tall. It is also an important timber tree. A member of the magnolia family, flowers attract large numbers of bees. Ornate 2-inch-wide goblet-shaped flowers are […]

Chinese (Kousa) Dogwood

              Chinese dogwood, aka kousa dogwood, (Cornus kousa) is a small 25 to 35 foot flowering tree (USDA hardiness zones 5-9). It grows in either full or partial sunlight (4-hours sunlight minimum). Depending where you garden, kousa dogwood begins blooming from late April or in May, almost two weeks after our native […]

New Coreopsis Cultivars All The Rage

              Threadleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata), also called tickseed, is a popular summer flowering  perennial. Coreopsis are native to the U.S. and produces hundreds of pale-yellow blooms. Depending on cultivar, plant grows 12 to 18 inches tall and 2 feet wide. Some gardeners even plant old-time favorites like ‘Zagreb’ and ‘Moonbeam’ as annuals (USDA hardiness zones […]

Summer Blooming ‘Little Lemon’ Goldenrod

  Goldenrods are members of the aster family (Asteraceae); approximately 100 species of goldenrods are native to North America. Across most of the Eastern and Midwestern U.S., goldenrods are frequently spotted growing in moist soils in open farm fields, in ditches, and along edges of streams. The golden yellow blooms attract countless bees, butterflies and other […]

Carolina Allspice Sweetshrub

Carolina allspice sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus), aka strawberry bush, bubby bush, sweet Betsy, et al., is a trouble-free medium size spring flowering shrub. This dense rounded deciduous shrub is native to Eastern North America (USDA hardiness zones 4-8). As its common name hints, flowers emit a sweet fruity fragrance. Intensity of floral fragrance is highly variable […]

Fothergillas Are Topnotch

              In the Eastern U.S. two species, dwarf fothergilla (F. gardenii) and large fothergilla (Fothergilla major), are native. They are also labeled “witch alder”. Both species appear almost identical, except for flower and leaf size, and overall shrub size. Large fothergilla is indigenous to the mountain and Piedmont Regions […]

Attracting Monarchs To Your Garden

            From Canada to Mexico, gardeners are being recruited to halt the decline of the Monarch butterfly populations across North America. One way you can help is to fill your garden with Monarch’s favorite flowering nectar plants and milkweeds (Asclepias spp.). Plants should be sited in open full sun and […]