Zone 6b - Mid-Atlantic Gardening

The poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) was introduced to the U.S. in 1825 by Joel Robert Poinsett. The brightly colored “flowers” are actually leaves (called “bracts”); the real flower on the poinsettia is the insignificantly small, yellow center.
Here are tips for buying and maintaining poinsettias:

“Forcing” bulbs –conning them into blooming indoors during the winter – can be rewarding as winter approaches. Candidates for forcing include hyacinth, grape hyacinth, Narcissus (Paperwhites) and Hippeastrum (Amaryllis).

This weekend is the last hurrah before Thanksgiving arrives, attendant with all the preparations that follow in planning for the December holidays. So what should a gardener be doing?

Last week’s leaf-raking frenzy at our house yielded some interesting finds: a pair of sunglasses, a lacrosse ball, the collar/tags of a neighbor’s wayward cat, a mitten, a screwdriver, a glo-stick from Hallowe’en, and 37 cents.
You don’t have to rake; leaves provide a useful blanket in winter, then biodegrade to enrich the soil in […]

This week, the focus is on what to cut back and what to leave alone as we prepare for winter.