This week's Plant of the Week is Love in a Mist (Nigella damascena), a great blue flowered addition to the landscape. As gardeners know, blue is not a common color in flowers, so this flowering annual is a great choice. Love in a mist can be easily grown in...

This week's plant of the week is one of my favorite flowers, the Strawflower (Xerochrysum bracteata). As a florist, I've come to appreciate flowers that hold up really well as a cut flower, as well as a dried flower, and strawflower is great in both categories. It...

Limited on space or don't want the hassle of having to dig potatoes to harvest? Try growing potatoes in containers. I've done that the past few years in my garden with great success. Any sized container will work, but obviously the bigger it is, the more potatoes you can get....

I've noticed several cases of White Mold (Sclerotinia sp.) over the past few days. While at a field day last week, I noted several different annual flowering plants dying as a result of this fungus. And another email today concerning green beans looked like a similar problem. This...

This week's Plant of the Week, the American Bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum) I noticed on a walk along the prairie at the Apple River Fort Museum in Elizabeth. I was struck by the blue color of the flowers, but wasn't sure exactly what it was, so I pulled out my...

I discovered this week's Plant of the Week while checking out the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin last week during a conference. I had seen this plant several places around town and finally found one with a sign that I could identify...

Self watering containers are a great solution for us gardeners who don't like to water our containers very often. There are a multitude of these types of containers available on the market, but unfortunately some can come at a steep price. I have some self watering containers as window boxes which...

This week's Plant of the Week is Beardstongue (Penstemon digitalis). I've noticed many beautiful Beardstongues blooming in landscapes this past week. Several species of Beardstongues can be found in the garden, but Penstemon digitalis is a pretty solid...

While on a walk around my neighborhood this past week, I noticed some lovely large Catalpa trees in bloom. Likely the trees growing in my neighborhood were the Northern Catalpa (Catalpa speciosa), but the other Catalpa species in Illinois is the Southern...

If you are lucky enough to have a neighbor with a large maple tree, you are probably in the same boat as myself right now. Maple seeds that are germinating everywhere!  My particular neighbor has a large silver maple tree that rains helicopters (samaras) all over my yard. Don't worry, I pay...