Growing summer squash in your Alabama garden Story by Mallory Kelley In Alabama, a summer garden would not be complete without your favorite summer squash plants. These vegetables are members of the cucurbit family and have many cousins in the vegetable garden. Now, you may be asking, “What plants are in the cucurbit family anyway?” …
Sharing bountiful blooms Story and Photos by Loretta Gillespie Lisa Steele is a true renaissance woman. After retiring from the Lawrence County school system, she decided to return to school to pursue a degree as a nurse practitioner. Since graduating, she has been busy at work in a clinic, but somehow she still finds time …
Story by Peggy Hill Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea) was chosen as the featured native plant for the 2018 Birmingham Botanical Gardens spring plant sale, and Gail Snyder, Native Plant Group chairperson, explains why: “Zizia aurea is one of our lesser-known native plants, and therefore it is sadly underutilized. We hope that featuring Zizia will encourage …
Problems you can solve in your warm-season vegetable garden Story and Photos by Kate Musso Every vegetable gardener starts the growing season with starry-eyed hopes for a bountiful, blemish-free harvest. It doesn’t take long, however, for reality to set in. Perhaps it’s a failure of seed to germinate or the sudden death of a healthy-looking …
Story by Peggy Hill I live in rural Alabama, the boonies. When you leave my house, you are on a gravel road for a half a mile. There are no houses or fields on this stretch of road. It’s old, undeveloped timberland, still checkerboarded with pine trees. I walk my dogs down that road almost …
A continuing garden profile Story and Photography by Peggy Hill Long-time readers of Alabama Gardener magazine might recall an article in the September 2011 issue about Barry and Connie Methvin’s quirky, imaginative garden titled Paradise Found. The article focused on how they created an amazing garden by decorating with art fashioned from found objects. It’s …
Curbside plantings that filter the pollutants of the street Story by Rachel Williams Natural chi flows to our homes right at its start – the curb! Unfortunately so does pollution. An easily dismissed aspect of this is noise pollution, which we can never totally drown out. Constant noise has many negative impacts, including hearing loss, …
The appeal of miniature tomatoes in Alabama Story and Photos by Katharine Musso The term “cherry tomato” commonly refers to a group of plants bearing fruit from as large as 1½ inches to as small as ¼ inch. Technically, a true cherry tomato is the perfectly round and red fruit of the plant Solanum lycopersicum …
Growing hot and hotter peppers in the home garden Story by Katharine Musso Hot peppers are used to add heat to dishes across the globe: Mexican salsa, Ethiopian Berbere stew, and Thai red curry, to name just a few. Fresh hot peppers can be used for an authentic classic pasta sauce arrabbiata, which means “angry” …
A profile of ‘Soft Caress’ mahonia Story and Photos by Peggy Hill Many people make the mistake of designing their gardens around flowers. They concentrate on creating pleasing blends of colors and flower shapes. While blooms are important, your focus should be on exciting foliage combinations; the flowers that come and go are merely the …
