Rosie Lerner

rosie@purdue.edu

716 articles by this author

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Gardenia: A Gardener’s Challenge

Gardenias have a well-earned reputation for being difficult specimens for even the experienced indoor gardener. Gardenias thrive on bright light, high humidity, and an even supply of moisture and nutrients. When gardenias are freshly delivered from a greenhouse grower, their glossy leaves and heavenly-scented blooms just about cause the plant to leap into your arms, whether a gift for yourself or for a loved-one. But, then, the plant enters the home environment where hot, dry […]
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Holiday Gifts for the Gardener

‘Tis the season for giving, so why not give a gift that lasts all year? A plant is a special gift that brings beauty to the home and to the heart as you help a living thing grow. The poinsettia is undoubtedly the most popular gift plant, but many others are equally festive for the holiday season. Christmas cactus, begonias, cyclamen and azaleas offer attractive blossoms on compact plants and can brighten any room in […]
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The Color Purple

Purple is all the rage among gardeners and Mother Nature’s palette is well endowed with shades of purple flowers, fruit and foliage. Looking for perennials with purple flowers? Consider bear’s britches (Acanthus), Agapanthus, ornamental onion (Allium), columbine (Aquilegia), Aster, Astilbe,Baptisia, swan river daisy (Brachycome), Siberian bugloss (Brunnera), bellflower (Campanula), Delphinium, foxglove (Digitalis), coneflower (Echinacea), joepye weed (Eupatorium), Hosta, Iris, lavender, Liatris, flax (Linum), purple toadflax (Linaria), bluebells (Mertensia), catmint (Nepeta), Russian sage (Perovskia), Jacob’s ladder […]
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Q. We have a forsythia bush that for the past three or four years has bloomed between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Is this a normal thing considering the warmer weather we have had over the past few years? If we trim the bush now, will it still bloom in the spring? Thanks. – Nancy Folger A. It’s fairly common for some plants to jump the gun and bloom in the fall, especially if the weather is […]
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All-American Selections New Flowers and Vegetables for 2005

If you’re looking to add some new bold and beautiful colors to your garden next season, All-America Selections (AAS) has selected some outstanding new plants for 2005. These new cultivars have been judged superior in their class, based on their performance in test gardens all over the country.   Gaillardia ‘Arizona Sun’ is a dwarf perennial blanket flower that packs loads of blossoms in its first season from seed, making it just as useful as […]
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Purdue Offers Plant Propagation CD for Home Gardeners

If you’re a gardener interested in propagating your own garden and landscape plants, Purdue has just the tool for you. Purdue University’s “Plant Propagation” CD-ROM is kind of like a well-illustrated book AND a hands-on class — only better! In “Plant Propagation,” you can read about each technique and immediately see how it’s done. There are 52 videos and hundreds of photos, animations, and graphics that show everything from the simplest planting of a seed […]
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Q. Our tomatoes have had blight the last two years. Is there anything we can do to keep them from getting it again? — Mrs. George Bowen, Plymouth, Ind. A. There are three major blights that can attack your tomatoes: Septoria leaf spot, early blight and late blight. All are fungal diseases spread by spores, which require dew or rain to infect the plant. These are most severe in wet weather. Septoria leaf spot, sometimes […]
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Assess Pruning Needs

Now that other yard chores have slowed down, many gardeners turn to their landscape plants to assess their pruning needs. Dead limbs can and should be taken down whenever they are present. But cutting into live tissue should be delayed until late winter or early spring. That is the time of year when the pruning cuts will heal most rapidly. Pruning at the wrong time of year will not kill a tree or shrub outright, […]
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Water To The Rescue

Though drought in summer is more the norm, lack of rain this fall has resulted in late-season wilting of landscape plants. Such drought-stressed plants will be in poor condition to face winter, unless gardeners take action. Though trees, shrubs and hardy perennials will be dormant in the winter, they continue to lose moisture through the biological process known as transpiration. Once the ground freezes, plant roots will no longer be able to take up water […]
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Q. I ordered a lot of spring-flowering daffodils and tulips and expect the shipment to arrive soon. Is there any trick to planting them? — Cindy Cunningham, Terre Haute, Ind. A. Start with a design first. I like working with large groups of plants, depending upon the size of your garden. For most residential sites, two dozen bulbs can make quite a show. If you plant three daffodils in one spot, three different ones in […]
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