About Golden Spice Pears For a delightful home garden pear, Golden Spice can hardly be beaten. It requires some work to grow successfully, but what you get in return is an ornamental tree that has a lovely oval shape and a profusion of white spring flowers. Of course, you also get the fruit, which is small and yellow with a slight blush and a sweet flavor and crisp texture. Golden Spice pears are versatile and great for eating fresh, for cooking, for canning, and for baking....

Why Do My Lemons Stay Green? Lemon trees need plenty of sunlight in a protected area with adequate moisture. The tree, like all citrus, should be pruned to allow the sunlight to penetrate and allow for adequate air circulation as well as to maintain the shape and make it easier to harvest lemons. A regular feeding schedule of an all-purpose soluble food (18-18-18) should be applied to the tree. If you are doing all of this and still wonder, “Why do my lemons stay green?...

Why is My Squash Bumpy? You are in the zucchini patch and see that the squash is warty looking and knotty. This leads to the question, why is my squash bumpy? Squash are cucurbits and fall in a family that includes cucumbers, melons, and pumpkins. Fruits in the cucurbit family are plagued by several different viruses, which can cause lumpy squash plants. Usually the foliage goes unaffected for quite some time, while the forming fruits get knots and bumps in the skin....

Problems with Hellebores There is so much to love about hellebores. With shiny evergreen leaves and lovely, long-blooming flowers, hellebores thrive in shade and bloom when other plants snooze. This makes managing hellebore issues a priority. Hellebores are quite healthy and vigorous as well, and not particularly susceptible to pests. However, you’ll invite problems with hellebores if you don’t give them the growing conditions they need. For example, hellebores are very tolerant of different soils, but if you grow them in waterlogged soil, you can expect hellebore plant problems....

What is the Mandrake Plant? Wrinkled and crispy mandrake foliage might remind you of tobacco leaves. They grow up to 16 inches (41 cm.) long, but lie flat against the ground, so the plant only reaches a height of 2 to 6 inches (5-15 cm.). In spring, flowers bloom at the center of the plant. Berries appear in late summer. Mandrake roots can grow up to 4 feet (1 m.) long and sometimes bear a remarkable resemblance to a human figure....

Mayflower Plant Info Mayflower plant (Epigaea repens) is a trailing plant with fuzzy stems and clusters of sweet-smelling pink or white blooms. This unusual wildflower grows from a specific type of fungus that nourishes the roots. The seeds of the plant are dispersed by ants, but the plant rarely produces fruit and trailing arbutus wildflowers are nearly impossible to transplant. Due to the plant’s particular growing requirements and destruction of its habitat, mayflower trailing arbutus wildflowers have become very rare....

Should I Mulch My Vegetable Garden? Vegetable garden preparation is crucial to getting a bumper crop and large perfect fruit. There are many ways to prepare for the growing season. Amending soil with organic additions, weeding, fertilizing, putting in drip irrigation, and planting companion plants for insect control are all part of the kickoff for edible gardening. Adding mulch for vegetable plants isn’t necessary, but it may be the key to larger fruits and vegetables and easy-care beds....

Some beautiful roses have weak root systems if left on their own, unable to survive in many harsh climatic conditions, thus comes the need to graft them onto a root system of another hardy rosebush. Multiflora rose fits that need, BUT comes with a dark side – multiflora roses, on their own, can become invasive. Multiflora Rose Information Multiflora rose was first brought to North America (USA) in 1866 from Japan as a hardy rootstock for ornamental rosebushes....

Are Daylily Plants Invasive? Common orange daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva), also known as ditch lilies or tiger lilies, are extremely invasive and hard to kill once established, but unlike many garden favorites, these daylilies don’t need special care to get established, or possibly any care whatsoever. They may spread from a stand started long ago, or from tubers pulled out of other gardens and tossed on the ground in your garden. Many gardeners find their daylily is out of control and panic, but pulling them takes patience; these are not your typical landscape plants....

Reasons Grass is Disappearing The most common reason that lawns deteriorate and patchy areas of poor or no growth develop is the lack of sunlight. Grass thrives on full sun, so if you have shady areas, a fence that has just gone up, or a new tree blocking sunlight, you may start to lose patches of green. There are, of course, other potential issues if you know your lawn is getting enough sunlight:...

Finding Spines on Kale Leaves The simplest explanation for finding prickly kale leaves is the case of mistaken identity. Kale is a member of the Brassicaceae family. It’s closely related to cabbage, broccoli, and turnips. Turnip leaves are sometimes covered with prickly thorns. From seed collection to labeling seedlings, mix-ups can and do occur. So, if you’re finding spines on kale leaves in your garden, it’s possible you might have inadvertently purchased turnip plants....

Don’t fret, there are some tricks to getting pumpkin blossoms and harvesting big, beautiful fruit. Fertilizers and some homemade sprays may be just the tip on how to get blooms on pumpkins that are reticent to flower. My Pumpkin Plant is Not Flowering What could cause non-blooming pumpkin plants? The most common reason is impatience. Pumpkin plants flower after plants have established and developed several vital stems. When do pumpkin plants flower?...

Orientation of Plant Growth The question of plant growing orientation is one scientists and gardeners have been asking for at least a few hundred years. In the 1800s, researchers hypothesized that the stems and leaves grew up toward light and the roots down toward water. To test the idea, they put a light under a plant and covered the top of the soil with water. The plants reoriented and still grew roots down toward the light and stems up toward the water....

Owl House Design Your owl box plans do not need to be fancy to be effective, but you’ll need to figure out how to build an owl house that is the right size to be a nest-substitute for the type of owl you hope to attract the garden. Obtain information on the size of the owl species before you begin your owl box plans. For barn owls, a simple wooden box about 38 by 18 by 12 inches (96....

It also sometimes goes by the name palm leaf false shamrock plant or simply false shamrock. But how do you go about growing Oxalis palmifrons? Keep reading to learn more about how to grow a palm leaf oxalis and palm leaf oxalis care. Palm Leaf Oxalis Plants Palm leaf oxalis plants are native to the Western Karoo region of South Africa, and they need similarly warm weather to survive. They can be grown outside in USDA zones 7b through 11....

Help, My Pansies Aren’t Blooming! The first thing to consider about pansies that won’t bloom is temperature. Pansies are cool weather plants that take a season to mature prior to blooming and setting seed. This means that in the northern region pansies should be planted in the fall; in warmer areas plant seedlings in the winter. Pansies stop or slow their blooming when the weather gets hot. The heat is a signal to the plant that it is time to start a new generation, so it goes into overdrive to produce seeds instead of blossoms....

Paperwhite, or Narcissus, is one of the most foolproof flower bulbs to force. Planting forced paperwhites is so simple, the novice (or even your kids) can easily accomplish paperwhite bulb forcing. Many varieties of paperwhites are available, ranging from all white flowers to those composed of both light yellow and white. Forcing Instructions for Paperwhites Forcing instructions for paperwhites are relatively simple and are as follows: How to Force Paperwhite Bulbs Indoors in Potting Soil First, acquire excellent quality bulbs via mail order, local garden center, or even a florist for planting forced paperwhites in the fall, anytime after October 1st....

What is Bacterial Pea Blight? Recognizing the various diseases that can occur on vegetable plants is a challenge. Bacterial diseases come in many forms and attack many types of plants. One of the more common is bacterial blight in peas. It can spread through rain splash, wind, or mechanical methods. That means it can become epidemic in field situations. However, the symptoms are mostly cosmetic, except in very severe cases, and most plants will survive and produce pods....

When to Feed Peace Lily Plants Peace lilies aren’t fussy and they really don’t need much fertilizer. The best time to apply peace lily fertilizer is when the plant is activity growing or producing blooms. As a general rule, two or three feedings throughout the growing season is plenty. If you choose to feed your plant more often, use a very diluted fertilizer. Avoid overfeeding, as too much fertilizer may create brown spots on the leaves....

About Peach ‘Belle of Georgia’ Peaches are one of those fruits that are delicious fresh but also translate well to canned, grilled, and dessert recipes. The peach ‘Belle of Georgia’ is a blushed freestone with white, succulent flesh. As an added bonus, the tree is self-fertile and doesn’t require a pollination partner to crop. It does, however, need at least 800 chilling hours for a reliable harvest. Not all peach trees are created equal....