Tag: plant of the month
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5 Final Fast Growing Perennials to Quickly Grow Your Edible Landscape
Welcome back to the last installment of this fast growing plants series. These last five fast-growing plants all happen to be perennials. I’ll discuss each plant briefly, covering its benefits and uses, growing and harvesting tips, and design ideas and varieties to consider. These fast growing perennials are excellent options (depending on your climate) to…
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Beloved Bee Balm: Uses, Varieties, and Growing Tips
The Plant of the Month for August is bee balm (Monarda spp.). I love this plant because it’s so pretty and fragrant, bees love it, mosquitoes hate it, and it makes a lovely herbal tea. With all of these great bee balm uses, I just had to plant some in my backyard, and maybe after…
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Growing Raspberries, the Ruby of the Permaculture Garden
Raspberries take center stage this month, both on the blog and in many of our gardens. Growing raspberries is one of my favorite parts of summer. July is the month these little jewels shine the brightest in my garden, and since they’re one of the yummiest harvests I’m bringing inside these days, I wanted to…
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Saskatoon Berry: Beautiful and Useful Plant of Many Names
Serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.), commonly known as Juneberry or saskatoon berry, offers a highly nutritious berry, adaptability, and multi-season ornamental appeal. This large shrub or tree, native to North America, thrives in various sunlight, water, and soil conditions, making it a versatile addition to many gardens. The fruits, particularly the saskatoon berry (Amelanchier alnifolia), have gained…
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Maypop (A Hardy Passionflower): Underappreciated Gem of the Garden
What better plant to talk about this month than the Maypop? A hardy perennial vine, also known as wild passionflower, or apricot vine, the Maypop passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) is a southeastern United States native admired for its intricate purple flowers, interesting foliage, and tropical-like fruit. Permaculture gardens are designed to be self-sufficient, regenerative, mini ecosystems…
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Comfrey Uses in the Garden: The Quintessential Permaculture Plant
Let’s talk about the many uses of comfrey in the garden. In permaculture, we give comfrey as a prime example of multi-functional plants so often that it’s now a cliche. I almost didn’t want to write about comfrey for this reason. But it’s an excellent permaculture plant, I have it growing in my food forest,…
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The Remarkable Green Globe Artichoke
The plant of the month this month is the green globe artichoke, not to be confused with the Jerusalem artichoke, which is also an excellent plant for the food forest, but quite different from globe artichokes. I have fond memories of eating artichoke “leaves” (actually bracts) dipped in butter as a child. They taste great…
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Hawthorn: “Fairy Tree” and Treasure of the Food Forest
While considering what plant to feature this month, I took a stroll through my backyard and noticed a few bright red berries on the ground—hawberries, or haws—which had fallen from one of our hawthorn trees. We were fortunate to inherit two hawthorns when we moved into our house. Even though I knew what the two…
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December Plant of the Month: The Chestnut Tree
This month we’re talking about the chestnut tree. Also check out my previous Plant of the Month for November, The American Persimmon. December is the perfect month to talk about chestnuts (Castanea spp). The old-fashioned tradition of roasting chestnuts for the holidays conjures a cozy image, but most people alive today likely have never experienced…
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All About the Mulberry: 10 Reasons to Grow This Remarkable Tree
If this title has put “Pop Goes the Weasel” in your head then my job here is done. Just kidding. This post is all about mulberry trees – the many reasons you might want to grow a mulberry tree, and some reasons why you might not want to. If you’re thinking about growing a mulberry…