Plants
Pages in the “plants” menu.
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Episode 1: History & Definition of Winter Sowing YouTube videos I mention:
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Delosperma
Published by Brian Wagner on 9/18/25 in “Growing Flowers from Seed.” Delosperma (commonly called ice plant) species are native to South Africa, and they are sun worshippers. Delosperma cooperi is hardy to Zone 5 and is one of the most cold-tolerant in the genus. They are a succulent groundcover, hoarding water into their swollen, evergreen leaves. The leaves
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Not All Plant Names Are Latin! A Brief History of Popular Plant Names
Have you ever noticed that some flowers have common names that sound exactly like their scientific names? Rose and Rosa. Tulip and Tulipa. Iris and… Iris. Meanwhile, other plants have scientific names that look like they escaped from a spelling bee gone wrong: Helianthus annuus, Myosotis sylvatica, Chrysanthemum x morifolium. So what gives? Why do
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Lathyrus latifolius
Published by Brian Wagner on 10/9/25 in “Growing Flowers from Seed.” Lathyrus latifolius (commonly known as perennial sweet pea) is a perennial in many climates, but an annual in its native Sicily (where it behaves like a winter annual, germinating in autumn, flowering in spring, dying in summer). Among cottage gardeners, annual sweet peas (Lathyrus
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Erysimum cheiri
Published by Brian Wagner on 10/13/25 in “Growing Flowers from Seed.” Erysimum cheiri (commonly called fragrant wallflower) belongs in cottage gardens. It is a short-lived, base-woody perennial often grown as a biennial. In the United Kingdom, the classic spring ‘bedding wallflowers’ are various cultivars of this species. Embed from Getty Images Native to Europe, E. cheiri thrive
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Prunella vulgaris
Published by Brian Wagner on 11/21/25 in “Growing Flowers from Seed.” Prunella vulgaris L. (commonly referred to as Heal-All or Self-Heal) is a flowering perennial native to much of Europe and western Asia. It creeps along the ground and roots itself with its stolons (like strawberries) and can tolerate many different soils and sunlight availability. In
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Polemonium caeruleum
Published by Brian Wagner on 11/20/25 in “Growing Flowers from Seed.” Polemonium caeruleum L. (commonly called Jacob’s Ladder & referred to as ‘Greek Valerian’) is an herbaceous flowering perennial native to probably the entire European and Asian continent. It is very widespread but it favors cool, moist conditions in which to colonize. It is hardy
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Top 10 Visual Cues for Telling Plants Apart: A Beginner’s Guide to Plant Identification
If you’ve ever wandered through a garden center and felt overwhelmed by how many plants look the same, you’re not alone. Plant identification can feel overwhelming, but the good news is that most of it comes down to simple visual clues you can spot in a second once you know what to look for. In
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Double-Check Your Plant Names!
Modern Phylogenetic Reclassification for Home Gardeners If you’ve ever picked up a plant tag and thought, “Wait… wasn’t this called something else?” — you’re not imagining things. Over the past few decades, botanists have been busy reshuffling plant genera based on modern DNA analysis. This field of study, called phylogenetics, looks at evolutionary relationships between
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Full Plant List
There are a lot of plants out there & there’s no way to list them all on this website, but if I found something interesting to say about a plant, I created a reference page for it and listed it here! The focus is mainly on common garden plants, but a few of them are