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Moths appear in a huge variety of shapes and colors, often visiting nighttime barbeques or flitting through the garden after dark. Unlike so many other insects, moths are helpful pollinators that never cause garden damage, right? Unfortunately, some moths are the parents of unruly offspring like the pickleworm. These obnoxious pests are serious trouble when it comes to cucurbit plants. What are Pickleworms? Pickleworms are the larval stage of the pickleworm moth (Diaphania nitidalis) and much like the caterpillars of beautiful butterflies, this stage of development can be extremely damaging to gardens....

Growing vegetables isn’t something you have to be an expert at to be able to do. A good choice for any gardener is the Pineapple tomato. With Hawaiian Pineapple tomatoes, there’s only a little info that you need to read up on before you go out and buy some seeds. Check out the following Pineapple tomato information so you can grow your best crop yet. What is a Hawaiian Pineapple Tomato Plant?...

The stems are covered with tiny white, nodding bell-shaped flowers that have a sweet perfume and medium-bright green leaves that are lance-shaped, 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm.) high and 3 to 5 inches (7.5 to12.5 cm.) wide. This moisture-loving plant forms a spreading mass with red seed pods remaining after flowering, which makes lily of the valley attractive after blooming and very carefree. Growing lily of the valley plants (Convallaria majalis) is easy, as they will remain perennial in USDA Zones 2-9....

How to Prune Climbing Roses First and foremost, a good rule of thumb for pruning climbing rosebushes is to not prune them for two or three years, thus allowing them to form their long arching canes. Some die back pruning may be required but hold it to a minimum! The two or three years is a “training time” for you to keep them trained to a trellis or other feature of your garden; keeping them tied back and growing in the desired direction early on is of the highest importance....

Sanguine Ameliore Lettuce Information Butter lettuces are known for their tender, sweet leaves, bright green colors, and loosely packed, softball-sized heads. What makes the Sanguine Ameliore variety different and special is the deep red speckling on the bright green leaves. Sanguine Ameliore is a fairly rare variety of lettuce, but you can find seeds online. It originated in France and was introduced in the U.S. in the early 1900s. The word ‘sanguine’ means blood and refers to the blood-red spots on the leaves....

What is a Sassafras Tree and Where Do Sassafras Trees Grow? A deciduous tree (or shrub) native to North America, growing sassafras trees can grow to 30 to 60 feet (9 to 18.5 m.) tall by 25 to 40 feet (7.5 to 12 m.) wide with a rounded canopy made up of short layered branches. Long grown for its medicinal properties as well as its fine powder (powdered leaves), the leaves of growing sassafras trees are initially a vibrant green but come autumn they turn glorious colors of orange-pink, yellow-red, and scarlet-purple....

For many students, school can be a boring but necessary exercise where paying attention and retaining information become a tedious endeavor. When an active teacher decides to teach science through gardening and hands on experience, he/she will find more engaged students with a high voluntary participation rate. Using Gardens to Teach Science Children can learn chemistry through composting, biology through interaction with the organisms they encounter, the quantitative and qualitative processes through planting and managing seeds, ecology as they become part of the environment, life sciences as they watch a seed grow, and meteorology and weather studies through their assessment of the weather and its effects on the garden....

What is Softened Water? Softened water is water that has been treated, normally with sodium or potassium, to help remove minerals from hard water. Can You Use Softened Water on Plants? Most of the time it is not a good idea to water your garden with softened water. The reason for this is that softened water typically has a high amount of sodium, which is attained from salt. Most plants cannot tolerate high amounts of salt....

One of the most crucial parts of growing evergreen container plants is the soil. Your evergreen tree pots need to be filled with soil that will not only meet the nutrient and water needs of your evergreen container plants, but provide stabilization for your container tree as well. Soil Mix for Evergreen Plantings The first thing to consider is the weight and size of your container. If your tree container is very heavy and very wide, than you probably do not have to worry too much about the possibility of the tree and the container falling over in the wind....

Water Garden Supplies If you don’t have much space, or if you don’t have any soil, an actual pond may be out of your reach. Don’t worry — any container that holds water can be turned into a small water garden and kept on a patio or balcony. If you’re looking to actually dig a pond, get a sense ahead of time of how big you want it to be, as well as how big your local laws will allow....

Propagating Sweet Olive Trees If you want to learn how to root a sweet olive tree, you’ll be glad to know that sweet olive propagation is not difficult. The most effective propagation method for this small tree is rooting sweet olive cuttings. Sweet olive tree propagation works best with semi-hardwood cuttings. This means you need to take cuttings from the tree in late autumn. Before you take the cuttings, prepare the pots to plant them in....

Thai Eggplant Varieties What does a Thai eggplant look like? Thai eggplant varieties may be purple, white, red, or green and are smaller than other eggplant varietals. Native to Thailand, these eggplants range from the round green variety to slender, elongated Thai yellow eggplant or Thai white eggplant. Thai eggplants thrive in tropical climates and have a tender skin and delicate flavor. Of the many varietals, Thai green eggplant is the most popular and the one most likely found at specialty Asian markets....

Tiger lily flowers grow in mass atop a single stem, featuring curved sepals that complement the black-flecked orange petals above. Black bulbils will appear in the axils above the leaves. Learning how to grow tiger lilies involves planting the bulbils and waiting, as it may be five years before these produce tiger lily flowers. If you have tiger lilies growing in your existing garden, keep them happy with soil amendments as you learn how to grow tiger lilies from the bulbils....

Types of Cucumbers There are two main types of cucumbers: slicing and pickling. Each type comes in several different varieties. The slicing types are long and usually grow to about 6 or 8 inches (15-20 cm.) in length while the pickling types are shorter, reaching around 3 to 4 inches (8-10 cm.) once mature. There are now many bush or compact varieties of cucumbers available that are ideal for growing in limited spaces....

Sweet Corn vs. Traditional Corn So what’s the difference between growing traditional field corn and growing sweet corn? Simple — the taste. Many people grow corn, but what is known as field corn has a starchier flavor and a slightly harder cob. Sweet corn, on the other hand, is softer and has a pleasantly sweet taste. Planting sweet corn is fairly easy and not much different than growing traditional corn. Practicing proper planting will keep it growing healthy throughout the summer so you can be eating fresh corn on the cob in no time....

What is a Titanopsis Living Rock? The Titanopsis living rock, also called concrete leaf plant, is a clumping, mat-forming succulent that stores water in its sizeable basal rosettes. There are a few different species and the jewel plant is one of the most colorful of succulent plants. Leaf colors vary from green, blue, and grey with red to purple tubercules (jewels) to varying forms of white and reddish brown. The jewels, or warts, are on top of the plant in most cases and sometimes line the sides....

Tips for Lowering Soil Nitrogen Content Using Plants That Will Reduce Nitrogen in Garden Soil In order to remove excess nitrogen in soil, you need to bind the nitrogen that is in the soil to something else. Fortunately, as a gardener, you probably grow many things that bind nitrogen — in other words, plants. Any plant will use some nitrogen in the soil, but plants like squash, cabbage, broccoli and corn use up large amounts of nitrogen while growing....

What are Water Walls? Water walls for plants are most commonly used for tomatoes but work well for any vegetable plant and allow gardeners the opportunity to set out plants several weeks before the last expected frost. You can also extend the season on the other end, growing your plants beyond the first fall frost for a bit. Water walls can be purchased from retail providers or made at home. A wall of water is basically a heavy piece of plastic that is sectioned into cells that you fill with water....

Tulare Cherry Info Tulare cherry trees originated completely by chance in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Although they were initially discovered in 1974, these cherry trees weren’t patented until 1988. Like most sweet cherries, these attractive, heart-shaped fruits are ideal for nearly any purpose, from eating fresh to canning or freezing. You can also incorporate them in a number of savory or baked desserts. How to Grow Tulare Cherry Trees Caring for Tulare cherry in the home landscape is a relatively easy endeavor provided you follow a few basic tips....

What Do Dioecious and Monoecious Mean? These are some high-level botany terms. They actually have simple meanings, but if you start throwing these words around at your next garden club meeting, you’ll leave everyone assuming you have a Ph.D. in botany. A monoecious plant is one that has male and female flowers on the same plant, or that has flowers on every plant that contain both male and female reproductive components....