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Welcome to My Jungle 2020

Winter blooming hellebores

Recently I noticed some of my winter-blooming hellebores (Helleborus spp.) are already adorned with flower buds, which is about a month early for my garden site.  I don’t think I have ever had a “Christmas Rose” in bloom by Christmas?  If Mother Nature doesn’t freeze them out, a winter bouquet may...
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Fall evokes the five basic senses

What comes to mind when you think of your garden or the landscape in the fall? Not including all the work gardeners do in preparation for the coming winter, sit back and just meditate on all the things you associate with fall. My list was amazingly long and looking at it as a whole, it brought a...
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Evergreen leaves live longer lives

It’s that time of year when eastern white pines (Pinus strobus) start dropping older needles, resulting in a new layer of sound-cancelling padding under trees. The sight of so many browning needles can be alarming though if you are not wise to the true meaning of evergreen. In general,...
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Bringing container plants in for the winter

Hard to believe it’s just four weeks out from the St Louis area’s first median frost date (~October 10), so prepping outdoor perennial container plants for over-wintering has moved higher up on my priority to-do list.  Some are hardy perennials that I just planted in large containers with the...
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Hairy crabweed is one bad weed!

I really can’t say enough bad things about mulberryweed, a.k.a. hairy crabweed (Fatoua villosa). For me, it has been a weed nightmare that come in on a load of mulch about 10 years ago, and every year since has been a battle to control because I didn’t recognize it for what it was and take...
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Sticky seed dispersal and plants with eye-catching leaves

There are just some native plants you just don’t want to cultivate near well-traveled paths, and most especially if you have a dog. I ’m talking about native plants that have developed a seed dispersal method that involves hitching a ride on any animal passing by. Just a few that I regularly...
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Editing aggressive plants in the garden

Not all the garden plants in my jungle are polite. Skullcap (Scutellaria spp.), Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum spp.), green dragon (Pinellia tripartite), bell flowers (Campanula spp.), field scabiosa (Knautia arvensis), salvia (Salvia spp.),...
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Welcome to My Jungle - May, 2020

When you have a lot of any one thing, it’s sometimes hard to choose a single favorite, but in the case of tall bearded iris, ‘Edenite’ is the one I most look forward to every season.  Described as sooty red-black with brown beards, this historical 1958 release is still a crowd pleaser. ...
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Welcome to My Jungle - April, 2020

Hellebores with their leathery palmate leaves add a much needed touch of green to the winter garden, but by spring the older leaves are starting to look rather rough around the edges, distracting from the floral display.  As soon as new growth begins to appear in late winter or early spring,...
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Welcome to My Jungle - March, 2020

Who doesn’t recognize a daffodil on sight, even with their myriad of forms and colors?  ‘February Silver’ is always the first to bloom in my jungle, and it never fails to elicit that thrill of excitement that spring is definitely on its way!  I drove by a motivational sign recently that read “Do...
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Welcome to My Jungle - February, 2020

Like this time last year, my jungle still has the look of winter sleep, but a few plants are starting to stir, some more than others.  As expected, the buds are swelling on Cornelian cherry dogwood (Cornus mas) and my fragrant dawn viburnum (Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’) has broken bud…more on that...
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Welcome to My Jungle - January, 2020

Ever notice how beautiful henbit and purple deadnettle bloom can be when viewed from afar, though much less so when viewed up close in your own garden?  Both are classified as winter annual weeds, meaning they complete their life cycle in one year, but instead of germinating in the early spring...
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