Garden Experiments
For the love of gardening and wildlife habitat
This early spring sky is filled with butterflies! I am seeing so many eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies (Papilio glaucus) feeding on colorful spring flowers that it has really brightened my days. Eastern tiger swallowtails are quite large - with a wingspan of 3 to 5.5 inches and with their bright yellow wings with blue spots, they put …
Continue Reading about Early Spring Flowers for Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies
Have you ever plucked a honeysuckle flower, turned it around, and gently sucked the nectar from the tube-shaped back of the flower? If you grew up in the southeastern U.S., I bet you did. That taste of super-sweet honey nectar always makes me think of summer nights spent chasing fireflies and summer days spent running wild and free. Imagine …
Continue Reading about Japanese Honeysuckle vs Native Honeysuckle Vine
In spring, my cypress vine (Ipomoea quamoclit) is covered by tiny, star-shaped, brilliantly red flowers. Although the flowers are tiny, they really stand out against the light green of the leaves and vine. My favorite part about the cypress vine is its dainty, feather-like leaves. The leaves look so fragile and fairy-like that, even when it …
Continue Reading about Cypress Vine: Delicate, But Aggressive
When I decided that the raised bed in my front yard needed a little height to add structure and color, my first thought was some sort of permanent structure, whether it be garden art or something a plant could grow on. Metal, Freestanding Trellis I looked for a way to include a flowering vine on a sturdy trellis. I found the perfect metal, …
Continue Reading about Add Structure, Style, & Color to Your Garden with a Trellis & Flowering Vine
Wisteria vines bloom in early March, adding a sweet floral scent to the air. The flowers appear before the leaves. In the South, this vine is everywhere—in the forest, in neighborhoods, in rights-of-way, and even along highways. That is both the joy of and the pitfall of Chinese wisteria, which has purple flowers that grow on a …
Continue Reading about Chinese Wisteria: Beautiful but Deadly Vine with Purple Flowers
The summer heat has arrived and it’s pretty miserable outside. When we're in a heat advisory, the temperature outside FEELS like over a hundred degrees with the high humidity. I’m watering in the early morning and sometimes at night, just to keep up with it, but the plants are still suffering. However, some of my plants are thriving, in spite of …
Continue Reading about Top 10 Flowering Plants that are Heat Tolerant
