Focus on Flowers

Most clivia plants produce orange flowers, but you can impress a gardener by ordering a clivia for them as a holiday gift that produces yellow blooms, as yellow is quite rare and treasured by knowledgeable gardeners.

As we look back on the gardening season, we can assess what worked and what didn’t – our successes and challenges in the garden.

In the fall, I leave a few cone flowers and sunflowers for the birds, otherwise I cut spent flowers right to the ground and clean up the debris. I want the beds clear before the spring daffodils and other bulbs bloom.

My garden is very crowded, and so in the fall, I am always wondering where I can plant more spring bulbs without cutting into the existing ones.

It is easy and fun to save seeds from this year’s annuals.

I used to believe that some plants—like peonies, for example—were immune to deer. Not anymore. I have seen deer eat just about every plant...

Not a pretty name for such an attractive plant.

A plant that attracts butterflies to our garden is the pincushion flower. The botanical name is Scabiosa, and these plants usually have blue, white, or pink flowers. As their common name suggests, the shape of the flower resembles a pincushion as the central florets form a rounded shape.

One often sees Veronia, a.k.a. ironweed, on roadsides and in fields and ditches. The wind disperses the seeds, which explains why it is a surprise when it appears in our gardens like an uninvited guest.

We should cut back most perennials in the fall. They don’t look good once it gets cold, so it is best to cut them to the ground and they will come back well next spring.