Growing herbs is a fun, easy way to get some planting in without a garden patch. Borage, a favorite of bees and butterflies, yields delicately-flavored leaves and flowers, both of which are best eaten fresh. As an annual plant, to keep borage in your garden, just leave a few plants alone so that their seeds … More Borage: A Fluffy, Flowering Herb
Three days after sowing seeds in my garden, the heart-shaped leaves of radish sprouts have appeared above ground. Fast-growing and hard to kill, radishes are a wonderful crop for those who lack patience and time to care for finicky vegetables. Radish seeds can be bought at most stores. Spring radishes, which are much smaller than … More Radishes: The Cutest Crop
The staghorn fern does not look like the standard fern: instead of many thin, leaflet-covered ribs, the staghorn fern has thick blades that split at their edges and resemble the horns of an elk. This deep green fern can grow to be quite large, a few feet in diameter, and its base eventually becomes covered … More The Large, Elegant Staghorn Fern
A relative of the tomatillo, the physalis (or groundcherry) is a beautiful little plant whose fruits come bundled in a parchment-like casing. Like most tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, and other members of the nightshade family, the physalis has no trouble growing in Ohio climates. The light and pretty fruits of the grouncherry make it an aesthetically … More The Physalis: Naturally Packaged Desserts
With its funny genus name, Schlumbergera, the Christmas cactus is a lovely plant to care for, and enjoyable to learn about. These tropical cacti are native to Brazil, where they grow in mountains and on top of other plants. In Brazil they bloom around Easter, but in Ohio’s climate they flower around Thanksgiving and Christmas. … More The Christmas Cactus
The Hibiscus is a group of plants with large, tropical flowers. The types of plants range from small trees to annual plants. We encounter Hibiscus often in our daily lives in some surprising ways! The most notable example is the vegetable okra, slimy seedpods which are fried in the American South and eaten raw in … More The Multi-Faceted Hibiscus
When I was at the Oxford Flower Shop uptown, I noticed a jewel-green plant with fleshy leaves and bright bunches of yellow flowers. It turned out to be a Kalanchoe, specifically Kalanchoe blossfeldiana (the genus Kalanchoe has a very wide variety of stunning plants, but I believe Oxford Flower Shop sells only K. blossfeldiana). I … More The Kalanchoe: A Madagascar Beauty
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