How to successfully grow leaf lettuce in your garden

Eutrochium spp. Skipping over all the heated arguments about flowers, snobbery, and who has the audacity to call certain plants “weeds,” I’ll tell you that joe-pye weed is wonderful. It grows tall, seven feet or more, and blooms in late summer and fall when so many other flowers have already faded. Its composite flowers, in attractive shades of purple, pink, and pearl white, have a scent reminiscent of vanilla. They produce an abundance of nectar and pollen tha

Ocimum basilicum var. thyrsiflora Don’t make fun of me, but I grew up in a house where fresh (not canned!) spinach was considered an exotic addition to the dinner table. So I distinctly remember the day when I ate at the home of a friend from Thailand, and tasted my first nibble of Thai basil. Obviously, I’d had good old sweet basil before, so I was expecting something similar. But the pungent bite of licorice in the larb gai we had for dinner made me feel like firework

Murraya koenigii Have you ever dug into a bowlful of yellow dal from your favorite restaurant and marveled at that subtle, citrusy flavor that maybe you couldn’t quite place? Want to make that herbaceous deliciousness a part of your personal culinary repertoire? Then you should consider growing your own curry leaf tree at home. You can use the leaves in your cooking, and as an added bonus, this plant is also stunning as an ornamental. It has an elegant bush-like g

Tulipa x hybrida Also called double late tulips or double hybrids, peony tulips (Tulipa x hybrida) are round and layered with scores of ruffled petals, which makes them resemble a real peony (Paeonia lactiflora). But the two are entirely different flowers. Peonies are usually herbaceous perennials or woody shrubs that grow from thick tubers – which I have recently seen unearthed in my front flower bed because my dog has inexplicably been digging up one of my peonies over and