Garden Experiments
For the love of gardening and wildlife habitat
Information about how to grow, where to plant, how to propagate, soil and sun requirements, and more for garden plants and flowers. Discover new plants for your garden or learn more about plants already in your garden.
When I was learning to identify plants, the leaves of boxelder used to trip me up. To me, they looked so much like poison ivy. However, there are a few key features that can help you tell the difference between these two plants. Boxelder Maple Similarities with Poison Ivy The leaves and leaflets of these two plants have a similar appearance. …
Continue Reading about Is this Poison Ivy? How to Tell Boxelder from Poison Ivy
You might find this low-growing plant with scalloped leaves creeping along the ground under tall trees where the soil is often moist. While its pale purple flowers of creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea) are cute, the quick growth of this plant is definitely not. Where is creeping Charlie from? Originally brought from Great Britain, …
I often see sassafras growing along the trails, in the forest breaks, and in old fields. However, it’s the mitten-shaped leaves that stand out to me. If you break off a twig of a sassafras tree and smell it, you get the distinct smell of root beer. My dad used to do this for us every time we took a hike with him. It was a family tradition and …
If you have a shallow window sill, about 3.5 or 4 inches, you can still add some plants to brighten up your room. The window sill in one of our bathrooms is wide enough for a very small pot; it's the perfect size for succulents that don't require a lot of watering or grow too quickly. Picking Out the Pots for the Window I found three …
In late summer, pockets of lavender color begin to appear along the sides of roads, at the edge of streams, in old fields, and in wetlands or other moist-soil areas. These fuzzy lavender-colored flowers belong to the blue mistflower, also known as wild ageratum, a plant native to the central and southeastern U.S. Adding blue mistflower …
Continue Reading about How to Grow Blue Mistflower – Get Lavender Flowers in the Fall
In the middle of summer, the bright yellow, showy flowers of swamp sunflower light up my garden. This perennial's flowers keep blooming into the fall. It’s late October, and I still have bright yellow flowers that add some fall color to my yard. We have a patch in our backyard that stays wet most of the time. The neighbor's yard and our front …
Continue Reading about How to Grow and Care for Swamp Sunflower – Helianthus angustifolius
