With winter quickly receding into the background, we turn our attention to a subject of perennial interest: how to develop foliar barriers. You may want to cover up a fence or a building, create the illusion of size by installing circuitous pathways, or simply enhance privacy. In our subtropical world, there are many species that…
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Firespike can really fool you. You might think that a plant native to Central America would perform poorly in cold weather, but this species is capable of doing quite well along a huge swath of the U.S. running almost uninterrupted from southern South Carolina to southern Washington. And it’s beautiful to boot! This evergreen shrub, known botanically as Odontonema…
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It sounds like a headline out of the National Enquirer, but it’s true. Hibiscus sabdariffa, commonly known as roselle, not only has the capacity to taste like our popular condiment, but it has other tasty and valuable properties as well. As with many plants whose usefulness has led to their introduction to lots of places,…
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Dichrostachys cinerea is a long-lived, spiny, moderate-sized Old World legume that may be just the thing to add something unusual to your yard. In the wild it ranges from 5-23 ft. in height, and it bears a resemblance to an Acacia. Its thin trunk produces a rough and often fissured bark. Young twigs are slightly…
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Names are so confusing sometimes. I mean, we seem to have trouble with directions. How did Cleveland, Ohio end up in the midwest? Probably not from continental drift. And we certainly can’t tell verbs from adjectives from nouns, so in football we play contain defense instead of containment defense, and in Congress we lock in the sequester instead of sequestration. Perhaps the explanation is…
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