WHAT GAVE SUSAN HER BLACK EYE?
It’s All Botanical
What gave Susan her black eye? Her central florets, that’s what. Black-eyed Susan flowers, blooming now and for the next few weeks, are actually made up of two kinds of florets, or small flowers. In the center of each flower are small, tubular flowers called disk florets. Those tubular petals are dark. Hence the black eye.
Black-eyed Susan disk flowers
Florets around the outside edge of the eye are called ray florets, and each one has one petal, large and orange-yellow. The petals point outward around the black eye, like a sunburst. The disk flowers and the ray flowers give black-eyed Susans the characteristic look of a daisy, “day’s eye,” which is the origin of the word. Read more
DINNERPLATE DAHLIAS, AND MORE
Flowers are the ephemerals of the garden. The plants vanish without a trace at the end of each season, so you would hardly think them worth pruning during their brief stay. Still, pruning can help make more flowers, as well as either make the plants bushier or increase the size of individual flowers. So grab your hand shears and sharpen your thumbnail and let’s go for a stroll among the flowers.
Dahlia, Kelvin Floodlight
A Single Pinch’ll Do It
Pinching out the tips of growing stems stops, at least temporarily, their growth, in so doing coaxing growth of side shoots. The result: bushier plants. Even though plants Read more
ENOUGH WATER?
Delusion
Although you water your plants with the best of intentions, whether by drowsily spritzing your tomato leaves with spray from a hose or by sloshing buckets of water beneath your roses, your efforts might be ineffective. One way to judge this is to scratch the surface of the ground right after you water. Don’t be surprised if the ground bone dry an eighth of an inch deep.
Because feeder roots of plants are mostly in the top foot of soil, that is the depth of soil to be moist. Read more
