Our thyme is blooming, with its light pink flowers adding a bit of additional interest to the variegated leaves of the fragrant plant. At about two years old, our thyme has grown to over eight times the size of the young plant in the two-inch pot we purchased at the locale garden center. We've given it little attention other than occasionally watering its garden bed and cutting a few sprigs every now and then for cooking.

Thyme is a very hardy plant, only really requiring nicely drained soil. It does best when planted in full sun. When planting, work some compost or other organic material into the soil to help the soil drain better and to provide nutrients to the young plant. Thyme also does well in containers.

After three or four years, thyme starts getting increasingly woody. When this happens, it's time to divide your plant. In April, dig up your thyme and shake or brush as much of the soil from the roots as you can. Gently tear the plant in to three or four pieces and replant them. Give them a few months to gain back their strength. Harvesting can start again in mid- to late-summer.

Thyme is a very flavorful and fragrant herb, used in many different types of dishes. I like to mash it up with sage and rosemary from my herb garden and cook some Herby Flank Steak. It's also great when added to gravy, sauces, vegetable stock or even sprinkled lightly over scrambled eggs.

If you've got a spare sunny spot in your garden, you should definitely plant a small bush of this easy-to-grow herb. In no time, you'll have plenty of thyme.

• http://gardenaction.co.uk
• http://www.ehow.com/how_322_grow-thyme.html

Bishop's weed is perfectly suited for its garden bed on our property. It fills in a long, 3-foot wide strip of land between our house and our driveway. It's bordered on all sides by concrete, so it will not be spreading anywhere soon. It's also on the shady, north-facing side of our house that is not reached by our sprinkler system. Despite the lack of sun and the dry earth, it remains bushy and colorful throughout the summer, adding a bit of interest along an otherwise boring bit of driveway.

For next spring, I am planning on planting either tulips or daffodil bulbs along this same strip of ground. The flowers will bloom just as the bishop's weed begins to peek out of the dirt. As the flowers and their greenery fade, the bishop's weed will just be reaching its 10 to 12 inches of height and will take over the strip for the summer.

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Given the large number of blossoms on our apple tree, we get surprisingly few apples in late summer and fall. One big factor in this is that we have a lonely tree. It's the only one in our yard and none of the neighbors bordering our backyard have an apple tree. Apple trees are considered self-incompatible, or in other words, they cannot pollinate their own flowers or any flowers of trees of the same variety. If an apple tree can get cross-pollinated from a tree of another apple type, it will greatly improve the quality and yield of the apple harvest.

Our apple tree is large and its small apple production is still way too much for Carol and I to take advantage of, so we're not too concerned about improving the apple production. If we were, though, we'd have to be sure to pick out another apple tree that blooms at the same time as ours, since the flowers only bloom for a short time. A crabapple tree could also provide suitable pollination if both trees bloom at the same time.

References:

• http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8301.html
• http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/stateline/000928.html

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Dahlias should not be planted until all danger of frost has passed, and the soil temperature reaches 58-60 degrees F. Excessively wet soil may cause the tubers to rot, so if your weather has been wet and stormy, you may want to wait for a drying trend.

Dig and prepare a 12 inch diameter by 12 inch deep planting hole. Mix a shovel full of compost, a handful of bone meal, and a little Dolomite lime to the soil which was removed.
Fill the planting hole with the soil mixture until it is about six inches deep. Then place the tuber horizontally in the bottom of the hole with the eye pointing upward. Tall varieties will need staking, so this is a good time to set an appropriate size stake into the ground next to the tuber (near the eye). This will prevent damage which can result if it is added after the tuber has begin to grow.

Cover the tuber with about two inches of your soil mixture and water thoroughly. When the sprout begins to emerge from the soil, gradually add more soil mix until the hole is entirely filled. Once the plant attains sufficient height, secure it loosely to the stake. (I recommend using a length of an old nylon stocking because it will stretch as the plant grows, rather than cutting into the stem, as string will do.) Add more ties as the stem grows until the plant is supported approximately 24 inches below the eventual top of the plant.

A Dahlia in bloom is a heavy feeder, so you may want to consider using a water soluble "bloom type" fertilizer about a month before the plants begin to bloom.

Dahlias which have been started in pots may be planted in the prepared hole following the same procedures you would for any other perennial plant.

That sounds a bit fussy compared to what I've done with garden over the past year, but after seeing what a year of near neglect does, I'm ready to get my hands dirty in the yard again.

I was doing a bit of research into dahlias, since I'm planning on planting a bed of them next year. On Wikipedia, I found this interesting bit of information:

In 1872 a box of Dahlia roots were sent from Mexico to the Netherlands. Only one plant survived the trip, but produced spectacular red flowers with pointed petals. Nurserymen bred from this plant, which was named Dahlia juarezii with parents of Dahlias discovered earlier and these are the progenitors of all modern Dahlia hybrids. Ever since, plant breeders have been actively breeding Dahlias to produce hundreds of cultivars, usually chosen for their stunning and brightly coloured flowers.

It's amazing that so many of the beautiful dahlias that are all over my neighborhood are decendants of a single plant that survived a sail aross the Atlantic ocean.

The picture above was taken at the Point Defiance gardens in Tacoma, WA.

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The state flower of Maryland, black-eyed susans are of the genus Rudbeckia, named after Olaus Olai Rudbeck, a botanist and physician from Sweden in the early 1700s. The flower can be either an annual or perennial and often spreads itself naturally through its seeds, resulting in a late-summer wildflower show along country roads.

Black-eyed susans are available in many varieties, some with short flowers and others that reach five feet in height. The petals vary from bright yellow to orange to almost brown and the flower's "black" eye can be large or small and actually be green.

Black-eyed susans are available in many varieties, some with short flowers and others that reach five feet in height. The petals vary from bright yellow to orange to almost brown and the flower's "black" eye can be large or small and actually be green.

Black-eyed susans provide quite a show in the late summer and fall gardens, attracting butterflies and the occasional curious passerby. Their yellow bursts of color are a great addition to just about any landscape.

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By the way, Dreamhost is running some great deals right now through the end of August. I got triple the normal bandwith allowance and triple normal disk space, as well as 60% off of monthly fees for as long as I maintain an active account.

It starts out as a bare, dark-barked tree and as the temperatures start to reach the mid- to upper-40s and the daylight is still around after the day's commute home, small dark pink flower buds add a hint of color to the branch tips. Then, suddenly, the flower buds burst open, covering the tree with a perfumed layer of delicate blossoms. The flowers are tiny with almost-white petals and with dark pink stamens protruding from their centers.

After a week or so of sweet smelling blooms, the petals start falling like a mid-March snow. While the plum tree sheds is blossoms, its leaves start to emerge. The young leaves, shiny and soft, surround the ever-thinning flowers, slowly turning the tree from a light strawberry-frosting-pink to a dark, well, plum-colored purple. At times, when the light is right, the tree is almost black; when the sun shines through the leaves from behind the tree, however, it glows with a merlot-tinted hue.

As the summer burns on, small plums appear throughout the branches. Our plum tree has small fruit--plums only an inch across. The seeds take up the majority of the plum's insides; the rest, however, is filled with an intensly sweet juice. It's no wonder the local birds love them. Last year a regular group of birds would fly back and forth from the tree, taking plums to who-knows-where in their beaks. Smaller birds would perch on the branches and pierce the plums and lap up the juice. Luckily, they left a few for us to enjoy.

After all of the plums have been eaten and the temperatures start to drop, the flowering plum tree starts to let go of its leaves, covering the ground this time with its dark red litter. Most of the leaves fell into our flowerbeds; I just left them where they fell to act as a mulch to keep the tulip bulbs a bit warmer over the winter. The rest were raked up and spread among the other flowerbeds. Finally, the tree's dark branches contrasted against the gray winter skies, resting up for the next year's spring show.

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Other varieties of the bleeding heart are the Dicentra Formosa (western bleeding heart) and Dicentra eximia (Fringed bleeding heart). They are similar to each other in appearance, with fern-like bluish-green leaves.

Resources:

• http://www.robsplants.com/plants/DicenSpect.php
• http://www.webindia123.com/garden/flowers/blheart.htm

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The hyacinth blooms in relatively early spring, with its fragrant flowers available in a multitude of colors: red, blue, yellow, white, pink, and purple, to name a few. During their first year, the flowers are packed thickly around its central stalk. As the years go by, though, the flowers become less densly packed.

Hyacinths need well-drained soil and benefit from a sunny location. However, if they are being treated as annuals, they can be planted in a shadier location since the bulbs won't need to recover for another season's flowering.

Resources:

• http://www.bulb.com/hyacinths/history.asp

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The monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) is native to the foothills of the Andes mountains in Chile and Argentina. This living fossil is considered to be the nearest relative to the trees of the Carboniferous period (300 million years ago). The tree definitely has a prehistoric look, with its heavy coating of overlapped, spiny leaves.

Those very sharp leaves are what give the monkey puzzle tree its name. Observing the tree's spiny armor, a 19th-century Englishman purportedly commented that climbing the tree would be quite a puzzle for a monkey. (Never mind that there are no monkeys in the monkey puzzle tree's indigenous region.)

The monkey puzzle tree was brought to England in the late 18th century by Archibald Menzies. While visiting Chile, Menzies was served some of the tree's edible seeds. Having never seen them before, he pocketed some of them, several of which sprouted on his voyage back to Europe. This unusual tree quickly found its way into the rare-plant gardens of Europe and later North America. Araucaria araucana is a relatively common sight as an ornamental tree in Pacific Northwest.

The monkey puzzle tree is dioecious, meaning that there are both male and female specimens of the tree, both of which are needed for the production of viable seeds. The female tree produces large, round cones while the male produces cucumber shaped, dangling cones. Without a pollenating male, the seeds of the female Araucaria araucana are mostly or completely hollow.

Unfortunately, the monkey puzzle tree may be headed for extinction, according to the Global Trees Campaign. During 2001-2002, thousands of hectares of Araucaria araucanaforests in Chile were destroyed by fire. The tree is listed in Appendix I of CITES, meaning that international trade of the tree is forbidden.

Resources:

• http://www.victorialodging.com/monkey_puzzle_tree.htm
• http://www.washington.edu/home/treetour/mpuzzle.html
• http://forestry.about.com/b/a/018424.htm

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For some background, I'm new to gardening. My wife and I bought our first house in February 2004 in the South Puget Sound area. After years of apartment living, our new nicely landscaped yard is quite a change. The first flowers started coming up a few weeks after we moved into the house, and each passing day brings a new surprise. Crocus, daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips have sprung from bare ground. Camellias, crabapples, and flowering plums have practically burst with flowers. Azaleas and rhododendrons are getting ready to reveal their colors. The first springtime in a new house can be a magical time.

It's hard not to get caught up in it all. As I learn about each of the plants growing in my garden, I'll add new articles to the site. Hopefully someone will find some use of them. Comments and feedback are always welcome.

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