 While I relish our warm months, winter forms our character, and brings out our best
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Feeding Birds in Your Backyard or Garden
Watching birds in your garden and at feeders is one of the most pleasurable ways to enjoy nature during any season. Curl up in front of the fire and spend a snowy afternoon observing their colors, listening to their sounds, and watching their antics. |  |
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How to Grow and Care for Lantanas
Prized for its nonstop show of colorful flowers, lantana is a tough, adaptable, and low-maintenance plant, producing multicolor blooms in vibrant hues. All are magnets for butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators. |  |
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How to Make Homemade Stock
Homemade stock is an invaluable ingredient in a creative kitchen. Here are recipes for two traditional stocks from southern France that can serve as nutritious bases for all sorts of soups and sauces. Neither requires much time to prepare, and both keep up to three months frozen. |  |
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Identify Plants in Winter
Although it often seems that as soon as the leaves fall, trees and shrubs lose their character and are hard to identify. Most woody plants have striking characteristics that can be used to ID them, such as bark, buds, and twigs, as well as any fruits lingering on the tree. |  |
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A Snowy Landscape Provides a Blank Canvas
With the outdoor color palette limited to shades of white, brown, and gray, it's time to dream about the coming growing season. Without the distraction of summer's bounty, we can paint any garden we want! What would be in your dream landscape? Soon the days will begin to lengthen noticeably, and before you know it buds will begin to swell and the songbirds will return to the landscape. |  |
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Winter Exercise for Your Green Thumb
With the holidays behind us, there's more time for taking a leisurely walk instead of dashing through the mall. This is the time of year when gardeners in colder climes are itching for new beginnings, yet planting time is weeks away. Here are some ways we can exercise our mental and physical green thumbs so we're ready for spring. |  |
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Take Care of Those Holiday Plants
With a little attention to the details of plant care, you can keep your holiday plants looking great for a long time. The very first thing you should do before bringing a new blooming plant into your home is to check it over carefully for pests. Here are more tips for some seasonal favorites. |  |
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Together with Victory Seed Company Have you ever heard of micro tomatoes? These tiny little micro dwarf tomatoes are perfect for containers, small gardens, railroad/alpine gardens, or even growing in your regular gardens outside. They are a true conversation piece because most people have never seen a fruiting tomato plant at less than 12 inches tall!
They are particularly well suited for indoor growing, especially under growlights. Enjoy home-grown tomatoes all winter long and when springtime comes, move them to the patio where they will continue to produce harvest after harvest throughout the season. They do well in 6" pots, or you can group them together in larger pots.
If you want tomatoes, we've got them. Victory Seed Company offers 568 tomato varieties alongside our hundreds of every other kind of vegetable you want for your 2023 vegetable garden. Take a look at our micro tomatoes collection.
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English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
Plant Habit: Shrub
Sun Requirements: Full Sun, Full Sun to Partial Shade
Water Preferences: Mesic, Dry Mesic, Dry
Minimum cold hardiness: Zone 5a -28.9 °C (-20 °F) to -26.1 °C (-15 °F)
Plant Height: 1.5-2 feet
Plant Spread: 2-4 feet
Leaves: Good fall color, Unusual foliage color, Fragrant, Evergreen, Other, Semi-evergreen
Flowers: Showy, Fragrant
Flower Color: White, Blue, Mauve, Purple, Lavender
Flower Time: Late spring or early summer, Summer, Late summer or early fall, Other
Suitable Locations: Xeriscapic
Uses: Windbreak or Hedge, Culinary Herb, Medicinal Herb, Cut Flower, Dried Flower, Suitable as Annual, Provides winter interest
Eating Methods: Tea
Wildlife Attractant: Butterflies, Bees
Resistances: Deer Resistant, Rabbit Resistant, Salt tolerant, Drought tolerant
Toxicity: Other
Pollinators: Bees, Moths and Butterflies
Containers: Suitable in 3 gallon or larger, Needs excellent drainage in pots
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Baby Rubber Plant (Peperomia obtusifolia 'Variegata')
Plant Habit: Herb/Forb, Cactus/Succulent
Life cycle: Perennial
Sun Requirements: Partial or Dappled Shade
Minimum cold hardiness: Zone 9b -3.9 °C (25 °F) to -1.1 °C (30 °F)
Plant Height: 6-10 inches
Leaves: Evergreen
Flowers: Inconspicuous
Suitable Locations: Houseplant
Containers: Needs excellent drainage in pots
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Aloe 'Tiki Tahi'
Plant Habit: Cactus/Succulent
Life cycle: Perennial
Leaves: Evergreen
Flowers: Showy
Suitable Locations: Xeriscapic
Uses: Will Naturalize
Wildlife Attractant: Hummingbirds
Containers: Needs excellent drainage in pots
Parentage: Gonialoe variegata x unknown
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Snowflake Euphorbia (Euphorbia leucocephala)
Plant Habit: Shrub, Tree
Sun Requirements: Full Sun
Water Preferences: Mesic, Dry Mesic
Minimum cold hardiness: Zone 10a -1.1 °C (30 °F) to +1.7 °C (35 °F)
Plant Height: 8 feet to 12 feet, should be pruned for shape in late spring after flowering
Plant Spread: 4 feet to 6 feet
Leaves: Fragrant, Evergreen, Semi-evergreen
Fruiting Time: Late winter or early spring
Flowers: Fragrant, Other
Flower Color: White
Bloom Size: Under 1"
Flower Time: Late fall or early winter
Uses: Flowering Tree, Provides winter interest
Dynamic Accumulator: B (Boron)
Wildlife Attractant: Butterflies
Resistances: Humidity tolerant, Drought tolerant
Toxicity: Other
Containers: Suitable in 3 gallon or larger, Needs excellent drainage in pots
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Money Tree (Pachira aquatica)
Plant Habit: Tree
Life cycle: Perennial
Sun Requirements: Full Sun to Partial Shade, Partial or Dappled Shade, Partial Shade to Full Shade
Water Preferences: Wet, Wet Mesic, Mesic
Minimum cold hardiness: Zone 10a -1.1 °C (30 °F) to +1.7 °C (35 °F)
Plant Height: To 60 feet in its native habitat.
Leaves: Evergreen, Broadleaf
Fruit: Edible to birds, Other
Flowers: Showy, Fragrant, Other
Flower Color: Other
Bloom Size: 3"-4"
Flower Time: Year Round
Suitable Locations: Street Tree, Houseplant
Uses: Shade Tree, Flowering Tree
Edible Parts: Fruit, Flowers, Leaves
Eating Methods: Raw, Cooked
Resistances: Humidity tolerant
Containers: Suitable in 3 gallon or larger, Needs excellent drainage in pots
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 Photo by plantladylin
"Background is the water in the swimming pool; this Salvia is growing in a container next to the pool."
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 Photo by Valery33
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 Photo by TheCreekKid
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 Photo by RuuddeBlock
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 Photo by treehugger
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 Photo by RuuddeBlock
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 Photo by Valery33
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 Photo by GigiPlumeria
"My kalanchoe cuttings blooms are long lasting and picture perfect."
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 Photo by TheCreekKid
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 Photo by HamiltonSquare
"Haworthia “Specticle” is a George Theodorus TC hybrid. Good pink tones all year round."
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Active threads from our forums:
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The numbers from this week:
145 members joined.
2,776 posts written in our forums.
1,006 photos posted to the plant database.
249 plants added to personal inventory lists.
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 If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
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