Your All Things Plants weekly news

for August 29, 2015

This Week's Gardening Ideas:

Celebrating Hibiscuses

By dave
August 29, 2015
Celebrating Hibiscuses

We open the Hibiscus Celebration Week with a look at the top cultivars, top comments, most thumbed images, and more! (2,623 words - Read the full article)

Many Veggies Taste Best Raw

By Newyorkrita
August 28, 2015
Many Veggies Taste Best Raw

Lots of summer veggies taste great raw, straight from the garden. (125 words - Read the full article)

An All Things Plants Favorite: Garlic

By dave
August 27, 2015
An All Things Plants Favorite: Garlic

What is the absolute easiest edible plant you can grow? I spent my entire morning contemplating that question, and nothing came to mind that beats garlic. As everyone knows, it's a bulb, planted in the fall, grown through the winter, and harvested in very early summer. It requires no special care during the growing season, and has absolutely innumerable uses. Let's talk about this incredible plant. (1,173 words - Read the full article)

 Make Your Ponds More Inviting to Frogs

By Newyorkrita
August 26, 2015
Make Your Ponds More Inviting to Frogs

Ever wonder why some ponds have frogs and others don't? Help the frogs out with pond plants. (92 words - Read the full article)

Homemade Humidity Trays for Multiple Orchids

By chris1948
August 25, 2015
Homemade Humidity Trays for Multiple Orchids

These are inexpensive, very easy to make, and only take a few minutes for each one. They work very well, especially with all the orchids I have in my greenhouse. (238 words - Read the full article)

The Most Important Garden Pass-Along

By grannysgarden
August 24, 2015
The Most Important Garden Pass-Along

We often refer to an heirloom plant as a pass-along. These are very dear to us, but there is an even more important garden pass-along, which is the garden practices and garden knowledge we adhere to in our own gardens. (1,053 words - Read the full article)

Garden Photography

By frankrichards16
August 23, 2015
Garden Photography

Photographs are a great way to document and share gardens and garden history. Here is what I have learned. (708 words - Read the full article)

The most popular images last week from our plant database:

By floota:
Image from plant ID 5091
By floota:
Image from plant ID 183785
By floota:
Image from plant ID 5091
By Bonehead:
Image from plant ID 75654
By vitrsna:
Image from plant ID 76965
By csandt:
Image from plant ID 78257
By Bonehead:
Image from plant ID 75704
By Njiris:
Image from plant ID 701090
By Njiris:
Image from plant ID 701090

The most popular Multi-Plant Photos from last week:

Photo by 4susiesjoy:
Image by 4susiesjoy
Photo by ge1836:
Image by ge1836
Photo by ge1836:
Image by ge1836
Photo by foraygardengirl:
Image by foraygardengirl
Photo by ge1836:
Image by ge1836
Photo by Catmint20906:
Image by Catmint20906
Photo by Paul2032:
Image by Paul2032
Photo by foraygardengirl:
Image by foraygardengirl
Photo by ge1836:
Image by ge1836

Noteworthy acorn tips given this week:

22 people gave for the idea "The Most Important Garden Pass-Along" by grannysgarden

21 people gave for post #938252 in "Banner for August 28, 2015 by Dinu" by Dinu

9 people gave for the idea "Garden Photography" by frankrichards16

3 people gave for the idea "Homemade Humidity Trays for Multiple Orchids" by chris1948

2 people gave for a photo of Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Sabre Rattling') by Char

2 people gave for a photo of Four o'Clocks (Mirabilis jalapa 'Broken Colors') by Gerris2

2 people gave for post #935753 in "Wind Vane" by Zanymuse

2 people gave for post #935784 in "Daylily of the Day: Raspberry Candy" by floota

2 people gave for post #935915 in "Announcing the winners!" by Joy

2 people gave for post #937477 in "Banner for August 27, 2015 by Calif_Sue" by Calif_Sue

The most active threads this week:

Subject OP Area Replies
Announcing the winners!daveThe August 2015 Not-A-Raffle-Raffle!120
Crepe myrtlesAnderwoodSandbox forum71
The Final FrontierMuddymittsIrises forum51
Are the winners posted?mandollsSandbox forum45
Who grows vegetables and fruit in FloridbeckygardenerFlorida Gardening forum44
DemonicMuddymittsIrises forum44
Banner for August 28, 2015 by DinuDinuSite Banners forum33
Looking for these blyth irisBoxergirlIrises forum30
which mail order company would you reconmendcreativecloverIrises forum27

Some new reviews from the ATP Green Pages:

springcolor recommended SMG Succulents and wrote:

Ordered from SMG Succulents 4 or 5 times and every order is consistently fabulous. Don has such a wonderful easy to use site and always replies to E-mails. I love this company, maybe just a little to much.

DogsNDaylilies recommended 5 Acre Farm Daylilies and wrote:

I LOVE working with Rod at 5 Acre Farms Daylilies! He is so personable and you can tell he REALLY gets into daylilies, which I love! He's a very good communicator and will give recommendations when asked or will help you in any other way you need help. He bent over backwards for me in the past and I have a LONG list of emails back and forth between the two of us that most people probably would've considered not worth their time. Unfortunately, I have not been able to order as many daylilies from 5 Acre Farms as I would have liked because I just keep going to his website at the worst times (financially) for me, but I will be ordering from 5 Acre Farms again and I suggest you do, too! As a side note, they seem to do beginning of the season and end of the season sales, so definitely keep an eye out around those times to get the cultivars you didn't think you could afford during the normal season! I didn't get any bonus plants or fans that I recollect, but I made my first/most recent purchase during their early-season sale, so it was already a GREAT price. And honestly, even if there weren't sales and even without bonus plants, I would still highly recommend them because the customer service is phenomenal!

DogsNDaylilies recommended 'The Farm' (Bill and Margaret Cook) and wrote:

I have been to 'The Farm' 2-3 times now. They have good prices and a lot of selection. Their gardens are gorgeous with beautiful layouts, although surprisingly shady for a daylily garden (but the daylilies grow beautifully nonetheless!) and CAN get difficult to traverse during extremely rainy conditions (there was an inaccessible part of their gardens the day after a rainstorm) so make sure to go BEFORE the rains hit! I definitely recommend taking a look at their gardens, Bill is a hoot and is a really nice guy and they have a nice young lady that works for them, who is a pleasure to talk with in the down-time between daylily digs. Bill and Margaret don't have an email or website (as far as I am aware of). I think they just prefer the simpler life, which I definitely respect. They do have a phone number, which I will not post here, but feel free to contact me if you are serious about visiting their farm and I will be happy to give you their phone number. They are very well-organized about their daylily busineses (every cultivar was placed in its own paper bag and labeled, and an itemized reciept was given to me with tax figured out, and then they helped me get the daylilies into the car). It's worth it to just go see their gardens, but if you're looking to purchase daylilies there, a nice bonus you may find is that they occasionally give clump-sized portions even when you only purchase a DF. I think it just depends on the cultivar. I also got 4 fans of a bonus plant on my first visit (none on my other 1-2 visits...I'm not sure whether they give bonus plants for first-time visitors, for certain price-points, or just when they have extras they want to give away, but you might end up with a bonus fan or two when you go.)

DogsNDaylilies recommended Dancing Daylily Garden and wrote:

Becky from Dancing Daylilies is a wonderful person to order from and I highly recommend her daylilies to anyone interested in purchasing daylilies. I just ordered from her recently and I am SO PLEASED with my order! Her customer service is excellent and she shipped my order promptly at the first opportunity that the weather allowed her. She was helpful every step of the way and, when my order arrived, I was stunned at the number of extra fans I got. I purchased double fans of 7 varieties. Of those 7, 1 was on a clump sale and the other two she was kind enough to give me a GREAT discount on. I didn't expect anything extra after those great deals, but she gave me extra fans of several of the DFs that I purchased! She has something for nearly everyone, too, whether you're a dip or tet enthusiast, have a passion for spiders, UFOs, or round form daylilies. (The only thing she doesn't have a lot of yet is toothy cultivars, but I'd imagine she'll probably adopt more of those into her daylily collection as time goes on.) The selection is wonderful and she has pictures for almost every last cultivar on her list, which is nice and not always the case with every daylily garden website. Bottom line, you will be happy with your purchase from Dancing Daylilies!

DogsNDaylilies recommended Miss Becky's Lily Farm and wrote:

I am fortunate enough to be within (somewhat reasonable) driving distance of Miss Becky, and her daylily farm was the first one that I ever visited. Miss Becky took me under her wing and has spent hours and hours with me discussing hybridizers, daylily types, etc. Although our tastes in daylilies are pretty different, I love visiting her and her daylily gardens. I highly recommend her and her gardens to anyone looking for daylilies, newbie or experienced. You will not be disappointed. She focuses on tets and UFOs, but she has dips, too! She also has unbeatable prices and I always walk away from her place with more fans than I thought I would (and more than I paid for). I really cannot say enough good things about Miss Becky.

GaNinFl recommended Blue Ridge Daylilies and wrote:

I purchased from Bob on the Lily Auction. My selection was a two-fan CV, but when it arrived it was a clump of 6 fans! Along with it were two wonderful gift daylilies! The CVs arrived neatly packaged and arranged in a box in order that no damage would occur unless pure negligence occurred during handling. The plants were healthy with great root systems. Let's just say that I wouldn’t hesitate buying from Blue Ridge again. Thanks, Bob!

JKing recommended Mountain Crest Gardens and wrote:

I've ordered twice from Mountain Crest and both times the plants came in excellent condition. Their packing was better than another mail-order nursery I purchased from, which meant that the plants had almost no debris in the succulent leaves that had to be painstakingly teased out. Plants were healthy and larger than I expected.

We keep growing, because ATP is where all the excitement is these days! Check out these numbers from last week: