The main attraction of the zebra plant is its foliage.

Tired of winter? Looking for a challenging gardening project?

Try growing a zebra plant — not the easiest to care for but well worth the effort

Like many gardeners I heave a sigh of relief when February arrives, knowing that we are past the midway mark through winter. At this point we are also pretty tired of the season and looking for something to perk us up as we wait for spring. For some that may mean a warm holiday get-away,

Big Betony, an AAS winner, is a hardy, dependable perennial for a Prairie garden.

Dreaming of gardens to come

Now is a good time to plan and dream about the 2019 garden

At this time of year we begin to dream about the summer gardens, and as seed catalogues arrive in the mail, we study them, looking with interest at the new varieties. Many horticultural organizations publish annual plant pick lists, the Perennial Plant Association being one of them. For 2019 it has chosen a perennial commonly


These small offshoots of G. maculata have been detached from the parent plant and planted into a container for future use.

Looking for a low-maintenance indoor plant?

Succulents have the ability to hold large amounts of water in their tissues

Several of my gardening friends are very knowledgeable about plant classification and their Latin names and can identify the family name. This doesn’t interest me much but I do use this information quite frequently such as when researching a plant such as a succulent. Succulent is a term applied to plants which have the ability

Jasmine polyanthus is a vine that must be trained onto some kind of support.

Jasmine is a high-maintenance plant but really worth the effort

When the perfume of the scented flowers fills the room you’ll be glad you gave it all that TLC

Many flowering houseplants don’t bloom much during the winter, so finding one that does is a great discovery, even if the plant is rather high maintenance. Jasmine is one such plant. The type most commonly used as a houseplant is Jasmine polyanthus — a perennial vine. Plants that have buds are usually available in garden


The amount of silver on the leaves will depend on how much light
the plant gets.

‘Silver Queen’ is often called Chinese evergreen

Foliage of rich-green leaves with silver patches is main attraction of this easy-care plant

Last month I wrote about houseplants with metal in their name, such as copper, iron, or aluminum. Here’s one with silver in its name — Aglaonema “Silver Queen.” Aglaonema plants are often referred to as Chinese evergreens since they originated in Asia. There are dozens of cultivars but my favourite is “Silver Queen” which has

The leaves of “Copper Spoons” get their colour from a covering of fine cinnamon-coloured hairs.

‘Metal’ houseplants with mettle

Here’s some tough plants that will thrive even under less-than-ideal growing conditions

Some of the most resilient and tough houseplants have a lot of mettle — they can endure inhospitable conditions and will thrive even when somewhat neglected. Is it any wonder that some of these plants have the names of metals in them? I call them “metal plants with mettle!” Aspidistra Elatior (cast iron plant) Probably


Some slips finally rooted and produced new plants.

Propagating a polka-dot plant

They do have a short lifespan but it is possible to get new plants from cuttings

Last spring I bought a lovely pink polka-dot plant, big and bushy and about 20 cm tall. The single plant filled a six-inch pot, and I think it had either been kept over for the winter or else grown from seed planted months earlier. I was fascinated by the speckled leaves and the plant’s tidy

Plants compete for space in front of a sunny window.

Don’t forget to check those plants that were brought indoors

Now’s a good time to examine each one and make sure there are no problems developing

It has been a couple of months since we brought all those plants indoors for the winter. We took slips and cuttings, dug up and repotted some, and simply moved some potted plants inside without doing anything to them. We were also (hopefully) diligent about avoiding bringing unwanted visitors indoors with the plants. We cleaned


The shell-pink blooms are small compared to those of recent geranium hybrids.

A geranium with sentimental value

My mother-in-law had given me a slip of this plant almost 50 years ago

Many of the plants in my collection have sentimental value, often coming from someone who is important to me and sometimes those people are no longer with us. Such is the case with one of my geraniums which I fondly call “Elsie.” Elsie was my late mother-in-law’s name and she gave me a slip of

The artillery fern is an attractive tabletop plant.

Pilea plant family has lots of species

This family contains over 600 species that are easy to grow and not demanding

Often the common name of a plant perfectly describes it, but the name is inaccurate botanically. The common name has developed over the years because of the plant’s appearance or because of some other unique attribute. Such is the case with the artillery fern, which is not really a fern at all. It got its