Plants

Mulberry trees are among the oldest cultivated trees in the world, grown for thousands of years for their sweet, dark berries and for their leaves, which are the preferred food of silkworms. The tree has shaped trade, farming, and even legislation, and it now grows on nearly every inhabited continent. The name covers a group … Read more

The tamarack tree, also called eastern larch, is one of the most unusual conifers in North America because it is deciduous, turning golden yellow each autumn and dropping every needle before winter. It is the only conifer in Minnesota that sheds all of its needles every year, and its name comes from an Algonquian word … Read more

Tamarack, also called eastern larch, is a deciduous conifer, which means it bears cones and needles like a pine but drops all of its needles each autumn. Its soft, bright green needles are about an inch long and grow in tufts on short spur shoots, and they turn golden yellow before falling. It is the … Read more

Drought tolerant plants survive dry spells through a handful of well-documented adaptations, including deep roots that reach water far below the surface, small, waxy, or hairy leaves that lose less moisture to the wind, silvery foliage that reflects heat, and fleshy tissue that stores water for later. Australia is the ideal testing ground for these … Read more

I have been growing pumpkins for quite some time, and one thing I have learned is that no two varieties behave exactly the same in the garden. Some spread aggressively and need plenty of room, while others are more compact. The pumpkins can also differ greatly in size, shape, color, skin texture, and the time … Read more

Most gourds throughout history have been grown for their dried, hardened shell rather than for eating, valued as containers, dippers, and instruments long before anyone thought to harvest them for the table. A genuine subset of the broader gourd family breaks from that pattern entirely, cultivated specifically to be picked young and tender, while the … Read more

Bottle gourd is genuinely one of the oldest domesticated plants on Earth, with archaeological evidence of human use dating back as far as 13,000 BC, predating the domestication of most food crops by thousands of years. For decades, scientists were genuinely puzzled by how a plant native to Africa turned up in ancient archaeological sites … Read more

Japanese eggplant refers to a genuine horticultural type within the broader eggplant species, distinguished by its long, slender, cylindrical shape and notably thin, glossy purple skin, quite different from the large, rounder globe eggplant more commonly sold in American grocery stores. A typical Japanese eggplant runs about 12 to 15 centimeters long with an oval … Read more

Eggplant is botanically a fruit, technically classified as a berry, even though it’s cooked and eaten as a vegetable in virtually every cuisine that grows it. It belongs to the nightshade family alongside tomato, potato, and pepper, and its glossy skin owes its deep purple color to nasunin, an anthocyanin pigment concentrated specifically in the … Read more

Plants and flowers that squirrels won’t eat cover considerably more ground than just the toxic bulbs most repellent-plant advice focuses on, since squirrel food preference actually comes down to a genuinely predictable pattern once you understand what they’re naturally looking for. Squirrels evolved to seek out nuts, seeds, bulbs, soft fruit, and tender new growth … Read more