Growing Guides

Spearmint is the classic, sweet, mild mint for cooking and tea, with bright green crinkled leaves and a fresh, cooling scent. It is a vigorous, easy-to-grow perennial that returns bigger every year, so most gardeners grow it in a pot...

Dill (Anethum graveolens) is one of the easiest herbs to grow from seed, and learning how to grow dill takes little more than a sunny spot and a bit of patience. This feathery annual gives you fresh leaves for the...

Red Acre is a compact, early-maturing red cabbage that produces firm, round heads in deep purple-red. Maturing in about 75 days, it is smaller and quicker than most green cabbages, which makes it a great fit for smaller gardens and...

Fordhook Giant is a vigorous, dependable Swiss chard with large, dark-green savoyed leaves and broad, bright white stems. Ready for cut-and-come-again harvest in about 55 days, it keeps producing all season as you pick the outer stalks. Both the crisp...

Poinsett is a dependable, disease-resistant slicing cucumber prized for its long, straight, dark-green fruit. The vigorous vines shrug off common leaf diseases and keep producing smooth 7 to 8 inch cucumbers over a long season, maturing in about 65 days....

The English daisy (Bellis perennis) is the sweet, button-flowered little plant that carpets cool-climate lawns and edges cottage paths in white, pink, and rose. It is a cool-season charmer, blooming in spring, drawing early bees, and naturalizing gently by self-seeding...

Love Lies Bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus) is the showstopper at the back of the summer border, sending down long, rope-like crimson tassels that can trail two feet from a plant standing three to five feet tall. It is a warm-season annual...

Cape forget-me-not (Anchusa capensis) gives you months of tiny, true-blue flowers from a single easy sowing, and it is one of the simplest ways to keep bees and butterflies working your garden. Though it is technically a short-lived biennial, most...

Evening primrose (Oenothera biennis) is one of the easiest wildflowers to grow from seed, and its bowl-shaped, lemon-yellow blooms have a party trick: they open at dusk and glow through the night for the moths and bees. It is a...