Garden Wisdom Blog — category: Flower Talk

Our Butterfly Blend wildflower ingredients include the following species. These were chosen specifically for their nectar rich flowers to which butterflies are drawn. The type of butterfly attracted to your flower patch will depend on where you live, but this mix includes flowers that are attractive to Monarch butterflies, swallow-tails, skippers, admirals, and many more. This blend is also attractive to hummingbirds and wild pollinators like bumblebees, hoverflies, and other beneficial insects. Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta),  Blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata),  Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa),  California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica),  Candytuft (Iberis umbellata),  China Aster (Callistephus chinensis),  Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus),  Dwarf Godetia...

It’s early July, and squash plants of all types are beginning to bloom on farms, in gardens, and even in balcony containers. Every year at this time we start hearing from would-be squash growers with a mysterious complaint: The plants appear healthy, the leaves are bright green, plenty of flowers are opening, but the fruits seem to wither from the blossom end. Instead of producing nice, plump fruits, they turn from green to pale yellow. Some just fall off the plants. This is the result of incomplete squash pollination. Let’s look at how squash pollination works. Male squash blossoms, borne...

Purple Tansy is the common name for one of the garden’s supreme workhorses, Phacelia tanacetifolia. Gardeners who have had trouble with fruit setting on squash, melons, or cucumbers need to learn how to improve pollination with Phacelia. Phacelia is a fast-growing annual that is very easy to manage, and it never gets weedy. Because it matures so quickly, it can be planted until the end of June. Its lacy foliage forms a rosette of leaves that produces from its centre a 100cm (36″) tall flower spike. Each of several inflorescences opens gradually over several days, revealing a series of nectar-rich,...

On this page we list the ingredients in our Butterfly Blend Wildflower Seeds mix. This blend was selected based on flowers that are particularly rich in nectar, and ones that naturally occur in North America, along butterfly migration routes. The benefit of planting wildflower mixes is that they greatly increase biodiversity wherever they are planted, and they have been shown to have a measurable positive impact on pollinator populations. Butterfly Blend Ingredients: Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)Blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata) Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa)California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) Candytuft (Iberis umbellata)China Aster (Callistephus chinensis)Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus)Dwarf Godetia (Clarkia amoena)Dwarf Plains Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria)...

Not so much an official trial, as an effort to grow out each of our sweet peas for comparative study. We grew out fifteen varieties among the other flowers and vegetables at our Kirkland House demonstration garden here in Ladner this year, creating one of the most fragrant garden experiences of all time. The sweet pea plant (almost all cultivated varieties are Lathyrus odoratus) originated in Sicily and the nearby surrounding Mediterranean region. They have been cultivated since the 1600s, and some of the oldest strains are still around. But every year new varieties and combinations are introduced, so a...