Garden Wisdom Blog — flowers

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,...

With Mom’s special day fast approaching, we put together a simple Mother’s Day gift bag you can print at home. Cut it out from the template and follow our instructions for folding and gluing (or taping) into its final shape. Add a ribbon for a touch of style. The gift bag is the perfect size for a handful of seed packs, or some other, small-sized garden gifts. Isn’t it too late to plant seeds? No! There are a host of flowers, herbs, and even vegetables that benefit from planting into the warm soil of May and June. We’ve included a...

One of the amazing opportunities facing all gardeners and farmers is planting for wildlife — or, at least, growing food with biodiversity in mind. Organic gardeners understand that soil health is inherently dependent on robust biodiversity in the soil. Earthworms, invertebrates, fungi, bacteria, and many other organisms play different roles in the breaking down of organic matter into forms that are available to plants. But this concept carries on above the soil, too. The most obvious wildlife in most gardens are the legions of pollinators and other beneficial insects, not to mention the pest species many of them prey upon....