Focus on Flowers

Houseplants that bloom help us to get through winter while awaiting next year's flowers in the garden. But often houseplants suffer from problems that we must address promptly to save a plant's life.

Betty Smith is the author of the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn about a young girl who is inspired by a tree. Unfortunately, the tree happens to be an invasive species.

You do not want this junk tree anywhere near your garden, as it self-seeds aggressively and many people are highly allergic to its pollen.

Continually cut back plants that have done their stuff to allow more room for those whose bloom period is yet to come.

If you need something in bloom all through the growing seasons in your garden, check that you have these plants.

There are many common names for the pink lilies, Amaryllis belladonna, that pop up in our gardens during the hot days of August/September: naked ladies, magic lily, autumn lily, surprise lily, and resurrection lily.

Native to the Far East, crepe myrtles can be trees or but in my zone 6 garden, they usually die back to the ground each winter.

The winter-blooming clivia plant is one of the very few house plants that will produce flowers indoors in the dead of winter.

If you are looking for deer resistant shrubs to plant in your unfenced yard, the safest evergreens are spruce, juniper, and boxwood.

Early on, I longed for all the more pretentious perennials, but now I prefer the tried and true.