Author's posts
Jan 31
Purple Cosmos Flowers: Best Varieties, Shades & Growing Guide
Purple cosmos flowers bring cool, dramatic color to summer gardens, but there is an important distinction to make before choosing a variety: not every cosmos described as purple produces a true violet-purple flower. Many so-called purple cosmos actually fall somewhere between magenta, purplish pink, wine red, burgundy, crimson-purple, and bluish red. True cool violet is …
Jan 31
Cosmos Leaves: Identification, Leaf Shape & Common Problems
Cosmos is best known for its colorful daisy-like flowers, but the foliage is nearly as distinctive as the blooms. Healthy cosmos leaves can be delicate and thread-like, broader and deeply divided, or somewhere in between depending on the species. Learning what normal cosmos foliage looks like makes it much easier to identify young plants before …
Jan 31
Do Blue Cosmos Flowers Exist? Colors, Varieties & Best Alternatives
Blue cosmos flowers appear regularly in online photographs, social media posts, seed listings, and garden inspiration boards. The flowers may look cobalt blue, sky blue, turquoise, or even electric blue, often with the familiar yellow center and feathery foliage of garden cosmos. But are those flowers real? True blue cosmos is not an established garden …
Jan 31
White Cosmos Flowers: Best Varieties, Meaning & Growing Guide
White cosmos flowers combine the airy growth of classic garden cosmos with one of the easiest colors to use in a landscape. Their bright petals and yellow centers work equally well in cottage gardens, cutting beds, pollinator plantings, moon gardens, wedding gardens, and large meadow-style displays. Most white garden cosmos belongs to Cosmos bipinnatus, the …
Jan 31
Yellow Cosmos Flowers: Best Varieties, Colors & Growing Guide
Yellow cosmos flowers can range from soft lemon and creamy yellow to brilliant gold and warm yellow-orange. Although gardeners often group all of these flowers together as “yellow cosmos,” they actually come from two different parts of the cosmos family. The classic bright-yellow cosmos is usually Cosmos sulphureus, an annual species whose natural color range …
Jan 30
Urban Gardening Guide: How to Grow Food & Flowers in Small Spaces
You do not need a large backyard to grow tomatoes, herbs, salad greens, or a balcony filled with flowers. Urban gardening is all about making smart use of the space you already have, whether that means a sunny apartment balcony, a narrow patio, a small courtyard, a rooftop, a front porch, or a few containers …
Jan 29
Ranunculus Flowers: How to Grow, Plant & Care for Ranunculus
Ranunculus flowers have the kind of blooms that almost look too perfect to be real. Their densely layered petals form rounded, rose-like flowers in shades ranging from creamy white and soft blush pink to yellow, orange, coral, red, and deep burgundy. Add their slender stems and delicate green foliage, and it is easy to understand …
Jan 25
Watermelon Peperomia: How to Grow & Care for Peperomia argyreia
Watermelon peperomia is one of those houseplants that manages to look unusual without being particularly intimidating to grow. Its rounded leaves are marked with alternating bands of silver and deep green, creating a pattern remarkably similar to the rind of a watermelon. Reddish leaf stems provide even more contrast, giving this compact tropical plant plenty …
Jan 22
Indoor Herb Garden: How to Grow Fresh Herbs Indoors Year-Round
An indoor herb garden can put fresh basil, parsley, chives, thyme, mint, and other flavorful herbs within arm’s reach of your kitchen throughout the year. You don’t need a backyard, greenhouse, or even much floor space. A bright windowsill, a handful of containers, and an understanding of what herbs actually need indoors can be enough …
Jan 20
Sweet Alyssum: How to Grow & Care for Lobularia maritima
Sweet alyssum is a small flower with an outsized impact in the garden. Its low mounds become covered with clusters of tiny white, pink, lavender, or purple flowers, and many varieties add a noticeable honey-like fragrance to garden beds, containers, pathways, and hanging baskets. Botanically known as Lobularia maritima, sweet alyssum is especially useful when …
