Garden Wisdom Blog — flowers

Grass is used to fill in an awful lot of public spaces. We think of it as the automatic response to revitalizing just about any building or construction site, and since grasses are so darn tough, they seem to thrive just about anywhere. Grass seeds are cheap to produce, and the plants are durable, so it stands to reason that we have come to depend on it this way. But it isn’t much more than that. We like the idea of supplementing unused grassy spaces with wildflowers, but there are some basic principles to understand for the best success. First...

Okay – now for the fun stuff. Seed balls (sometimes called seed bombs), are simple balls of clay and soil that contain seeds. They can be placed or tossed into their growing spot, and the clay/soil mix provides the seeds within just enough medium to get started. In most cases this will be more successful than simply throwing or dropping raw seeds. Some mischief-minded people might choose to throw seed balls into vacant lots, traffic meridians, or other under-used urban areas. We would never condone such behaviour, of course. But here’s how to make them! Step one: The Materials Seed...

It’s pronounced “zee-re-scape-ing.” And it’s a key concept for landscapers as we look to a future of water conservation and climate change. It’s worth mentioning again in this series of Twenty-one Days of Green leading up to Earth Day, because the Earth can’t take much more of water-hogging garden designs. Simply put, xeriscaping is a system of landscaping with water conservation as the priority. In areas that receive little rainfall in the summer, some thoughtful xeriscaping will allow flowering plants to thrive, adding visual appeal – as well as important forage for pollinators. There are five principles that are key...

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...