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National Perennials

Do Warm Days Mean Its OK to Wake Up the Garden?

The unseasonably warm weather has been absolutely delightful, especially for gardeners in the northern part of the country. It's usually mid-...
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Lacy foliage of Tasmanian tree fern eventually gets considerable height.

The trunk of a tree fern is really just tough compressed roots growing downward through dead organic material left behind by earlier growth. The...
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Land Institute's Wes Jackson honored by Yes as 1 of 15 making a difference

This past December, the Land Institute's Wes Jackson was honored by Yes Magazine as one of fifteen people making a difference.Jackson received...
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A nonconformist like beaked yucca makes a bold statement

The fifty or so specie of yucca that are native to North and Central America are horticultural nonconformists. Like most of the related agaves and...
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Mondo grass is nether mondo nor grass.

The thick clumps of evergreen grass-like foliage of mondo grass, Ophiopogon japonicas, make a nice lumpy ground cover for small spaces. Because it...
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The best bulbs are neither incandescent nor fluorescent.

Some of the most familiar flowers to bloom in the earliest of spring get planted now as bulbs. They sit and wait in the garden to finish their...
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Dark bronzy foliage adds color to the interesting form of Aeonium arboreum.

The once traditional Aeonium arboreum, with round, dense rosettes of slightly serrate, olive green leaves has become less popular than its more...
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Our Lord's candle puts the 'yuc' in 'yucca'.

The one or two foot long and nearly inch wide leaves of our Lord's candle, Yucca whipplei, certainly do not look as painful as they really are....
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Some classics never die. Bear's breech can even become a weed.

Like some other Victorian perennials that are still happy after a century, bear's breech, Acanthus mollis, can get to be too much of a good...
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Tea time can be anytime if there is chamomile in the garden.

Once naturalized in the garden, chamomile, Matricaria recutita, can get to be too much of a good thing. Seed sown in at the end of winter or early...
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