(For Release On Or After 05/30/08) You’ve got to think that a vegetable with a name like yardlong bean would be incredibly productive – and you would be right.

(For Release On Or After 05/23/08) My introduction to the angel’s trumpet came when I moved to New Orleans. Wandering around a friend’s garden at dusk, I caught a whiff of an amazing fragrance hanging in the air.

(For Release On Or After 05/16/08) The orchid family contains more species than any other family of flowering plants. No other group of plants can provide more beauty, color and diversity.

(For Release On Or After 05/09/08) Nearly any plant may be grown in a container outdoors as long as you provide the cultural requirements the plant needs.

(For Release On Or After 05/02/08) As time goes by, more and more plants have become available with chartreuse, yellow-green or golden foliage. For some gardeners it takes a little getting used to.

(For Release On Or After 04/25/08) Nature never created a houseplant. The plants we call houseplants are native to various, generally tropical, areas of the world, and in all cases their natural habitat is outdoors.

(For Release On Or After 04/18/08) When you think about adding color to your landscape, flowering bedding plants are usually the first thing that comes to mind. Many plants with colorful foliage, however, can serve the same purpose.

(For Release On Or After 04/11/08) Interest in growing herbs has been rising over the years as Louisiana gardeners increasingly have planted herbs in herb gardens or containers or in beds among existing plants.

(For Release On Or After 04/04/08) It’s amazing how many times I’ve gotten questions about growing grass in shady areas. This is a common issue because shade trees in a landscape grow larger over time.

(For Release On Or After 03/21/08) I am often asked about low-maintenance landscaping. After a brief conversation, however, I often get the feeling that what the person actually is looking for is a no-maintenance landscape. Unfortunately, if you are going to have a landscape with trees, a lawn, shrubs and flowers, maintenance is going to be involved.

(For Release On Or After 03/28/08) The cucumber family, properly known as the cucurbitaceae (cu-cur-bit-A-cee-ee), provides a wide variety of vegetables popular for the spring, summer and fall home vegetable garden.

(For Release On Or After 03/14/08) Almost every landscape has shady areas, and ferns are a great group of plants that are just perfect for shady spots.

(For Release On Or After 03/07/08) Gardening is no different from any other human endeavor. Whether you want to repair your own car or cook a fancy meal, there is information you must understand and techniques you have to learn and do properly.

(For Release On Or After 02/29/08) Mention blooming wildflowers and most people think of country meadows and drives along rural roads. Wildflowers, however, can be found everywhere – even along the Interstates and in major metropolitan areas.

(For Release On Or After 02/22/08) Color is very important to us. We use it everywhere in our surroundings, including in our landscapes and on our bodies.

(For Release On Or After 02/15/08) Most trees are just beginning to enter a growth phase – or they will within a few weeks. Fertilizing this month provides them with nutrients just when they can use them most effectively.

(For Release On Or After 02/08/08) Homeowners often are dismayed to find trees that existed on their lots when their houses were build start declining in health or dying a few years after construction. But this tragedy can be avoided if existing trees are properly protected during construction around them.

(For Release On Or After 02/01/2008) At some point, many gardeners discover there is a much greater selection of annual flowers and vegetables available in seed catalogs than can be found at local nurseries. To grow those wonderful plants, however, you must be able to grow your own transplants from seed.

(For Release On Or After 01-25-2008) It would be hard to dispute that the most popular summer flowering shrub is the rose. Most roses need at least some annual pruning to maintain an attractive shape, remove dead wood and encourage vigorous growth and blooming. This is generally done from the last week of January (South Louisiana) through mid-February (North Louisiana).

(For Release On Or After 01/18/2008) The third Friday in January is Arbor Day in Louisiana, a day we set aside to appreciate trees and plant them. If you are thinking about adding some trees to your existing landscape, planting should ideally be done now through early March while it is cool and plants will have a chance to make root growth before it gets hot.

(For Release On Or After 01/11/2008) Although winter temperatures in Louisiana are generally relatively mild, they are punctuated by periods of moderate to severe freezes. Freezing weather is often followed by extended periods when temperatures stay above freezing.

(For Release On Or After 01/04/2008) All-America Selections is a nonprofit organization for evaluating for home garden performance new seed-grown flowers and vegetables from around the world. Although using an All-America Selection Winner in your garden doesn’t guarantee success, these plants are often a good choice for reliable performance.

(For Release On Or After 12/28/2007) The basic techniques of gardening today are not that much different than those our great grandparents used. Still, technology and the age of communication are definitely changing the way we live, work and garden. Gardeners will, with greater ease and frequency than ever before, exchange ideas and be exposed to new concepts about how and why we garden. How will the new trends affect the plants we use and how we design with them and care for them?

(For Release On Or After 12/21/2007) The pace of things tends to slow down a bit this time of year in the garden. Although we may continue to plant, prepare beds, harvest winter vegetables and enjoy cool-season flowers, most gardeners find this a more relaxed time of year. This is especially true for high-maintenance jobs like mowing lawns, shearing hedges and watering, since lawn grasses and shrubs are dormant, and cooler, wetter weather reduces the need for extra irrigation.

(For Release On Or After 12/07/2007) We use a variety of decorative plants to dress up our homes during the holidays. Poinsettias, holiday cactuses and living Christmas trees, in particular, play an important part in decking the halls. How well you care for them once you get them home has a lot to do with how long they will stay attractive.

(For Release On Or After 11/30/07) The vegetables we grow here during the cool season are some of the most delicious and nutritious that our home gardens can produce. Many of the vegetables that we planted in late summer and early fall are ready to harvest – or will be soon. It is important to harvest vegetables at the proper stage for best results, so here are a few guidelines for some common cool season crops.

(For Release On Or After 11/23/07) Many plants seem to save up all summer for the spectacular display of flowers, fruit and foliage showing up in our gardens now. If you want to punch up the color level in your garden from October through December, here are some trees, shrubs and perennials you might consider including in your landscape.

(For Release On Or After 11/16/07) Botany lessons are often helpful for gardeners to understand some of the underlying reasons why plants behave the way they do and why we do things a certain way. When growing a plant that is expected to produce fruit, knowing something about the reproductive workings of the plant is in the gardener’s best interest to prevent disappointment.

(For Release On Or After 11/09/07) Fresh, ripe strawberries are a favorite with just about everybody, and now is a great time to plant them into your garden. Strawberries are best planted from late October through November for production next spring. They are easy enough that growing a crop is a fun project for kids at home or in school.

(For Release On Or After 11/2/07) Gardening is a well-documented and beneficial form of exercise. It contributes to a healthy lifestyle.

(For Release On Or After 10/05/07) Fall is a prime planting season in Louisiana. Cool-season flowering bedding plants and cool-season vegetables are planted from now through February, and November through February is the best time to plant hardy shrubs, ground covers and perennials in the landscape. How well you prepare the soil before planting has an enormous effect on the health and growth of your plants.

(For Release On Or After 10/26/07) October is a transitional month in Louisiana flower gardens. Many warm-season annuals have finished or are finishing, and gardeners’ thoughts begin to turn to cool-season bedding plants for fall, winter and spring color.

(For Release On Or After 10/19/07) We’ve become accustomed to running out and buying flats or pots of blooming bedding plants to create “instant flower gardens.” This last-minute approach, however, will simply not work when using spring-flowering bulbs in the landscape. If you want beautiful beds of daffodils, tulips or Dutch irises next spring, you should think about planting them now.

(For Release On Or After 10/12/07) Cooler mornings in October make it a joy to get out and work in the home vegetable garden. A number of delicious and nutritious vegetables will thrive in the coming cool season. Indeed, some of our favorite vegetables can only be grown in Louisiana October through April.

(For Release On Or After 09/28/07) As we move toward October, it is not too early to make plans for houseplants that spent the summer outdoors. You will need to bring them back inside when it starts to get cold, and there are a variety of jobs you can look at doing now.

(For Release On Or After 09/21/07) Bromeliads are a beautiful group of tropical plants. With their many shapes and colors and their ease of culture, once you have one bromeliad you are likely to want more.

(For Release On Or After 09/14/07) In late summer gardeners need to think about two important points of landscape maintenance – fertilizing and pruning.

(For Release On Or After 09/07/07) September is a transitional month in the vegetable garden. Toward the end of this month we should see some relief from the intense heat of mid- to late summer. Still, September can be quite warm, and daytime highs in the 80s are common well into October.

(For Release On Or After 08/31/07) In Louisiana our ever-blooming roses fortunately provide us with two really great seasons of bloom, and now is the time to prune in preparation for one of those seasons.

(For Release On Or After 08/24/07) Sharing plants is one of the pleasures of gardening. When gardeners get together and a plant is complimented, it is not unusual for the admirer to be offered a "piece" to take home and root.

(For Release On Or After 08/17/07) Flower beds that are past their prime and overrun with weeds can be a common sight in our late-summer landscape. But you don’t have to just give up and accept such sad-looking elements in your landscape, since there are ways you can freshen up these tired beds.

(For Release On Or After 08/10/07) Growing plants in containers outdoors is popular for a variety of reasons, and such plants can be used to enhance your outdoor landscape.

(For Release On Or After 08/03/07) Our yards and gardens generally look a little frayed around the edges by this time of the year. On top of heat stress, plants also are more vulnerable to insect and disease problems now.

(For Release On Or After 07/27/07) If you haven’t paid a lot of attention to sunflowers for your garden lately, you may think only of the gigantic sunflowers that reach for their namesake in the sky – towering to heights of 8 feet or more. You also may think they only come in yellow. But the truth is that today’s gardeners have a lot of choices when selecting sunflowers.

(For Release On Or After 07/20/07) When it comes to vegetable gardening in Louisiana, gardeners should take advantage of our year-round growing season. Yes, even in the torrid depths of summer there are delicious, heat-tolerant vegetables you can plant now to keep your garden productive.

(For Release On Or After 07/13/07) I recently came across some poison ivy as I was working in an out-of-the-way area of my landscape. I keep a sharp eye out for this plant, since I’m quite allergic, and I promptly and ruthlessly deal with any as soon as I see it.

(For Release On Or After 07/06/07) One of the great joys of gardening is discovering new and attractive plants that thrive in our climate. An outstanding summer bedding plant called angelonia (Angelonia angustifolia) falls precisely into this category.

(For Release On Or After 06/29/07) The heat is on, and we can expect daytime highs around 90 or above and nighttime lows in the 70s from now until September.Trees that shade the house during the summer can lower air-conditioning bills by blocking the sun from the windows, exterior walls and roof.

(For Release On Or After 06/22/07) There is still time to add colorful bedding plants to your landscape, but it’s important for you to choose plants that are able to thrive in the intense heat of a Louisiana summer.

(For Release On Or After 06/15/07) Adequate moisture is critically important to landscape plants during hot weather, but too much rain or excessive watering also can bring problems. Wet soil combined with high temperatures can create stressful conditions for bedding plants, vegetables, shrubs and even trees – especially those just planted this year.

(For Release On Or After 06/08/07) One of the most popular summer bedding plants is the periwinkle or vinca. Known for its prolific and long blooming season, it is heat- and drought-tolerant and thrives in our climate.

(For Release On Or After 06/01/07) June marks the beginning of hurricane season, and it’s important to understand powerful hurricanes can affect the entire state – not just the southern portions. As you make your plans, remember there are things that need to be done to prepare a landscape for the possibility of storm and things to do when a storm threatens.

(For Release On Or After 04/08/05) The more thought you put into your planting decisions, the more satisfactory the results are likely to be.

(For Relsease On Or After 04/01/05) This message is for tomato lovers. It’s time to plant! More specifically, if you want to grow fresh, flavorful, vine-ripened tomatoes in your garden, you need to get them planted by the middle of April. Early planting ensures more production and higher-quality tomatoes.

(For Release On Or After 04/22/05) There’s much more to the cucumber family than cucumbers. Members of the family that can be planted now include summer squash, winter squash, mirlitons, pumpkins, gourds, cucuzzis, watermelons, cantaloupes, cushaws, luffa gourds and, of course, cucumbers.

(For Release On Or After 04/29/05) Mulching makes gardening easier, and I think more gardeners should take advantage of this important labor-saving technique.