Viewing comments posted by sallyg

You might find a baby coffee plant, they are pretty common among the 3-4 inch starter plants. They will branch sideways. It seems pretty easy care for me (3-4 years) and has been in my low light bedroom all winter with barely a hiccup. Leaves are dark green, slightly wavy, and glossy- pretty! Wilts when dry, but recovers well, seems to be sort of a thirsty plant.
Adding this Feb 1 2020- I have a ripe bean on my plant, it must be self fertile or pollinate very easily, as I only noticed very few flowers on it in summer.
Update Feb 2021 Still have the plant, still thriving, looking great in a corner for winter between an east and a south window. Pest free.
Update April 2023 - Coffee had spent summers in shade outside and grown well. Fall of 2022 I took it to work for winter, set by tall windows. It is loaded with blooms right now, started in about March, blooms on new wood. But it gets dry quickly, (very dry air) has lost a lot of older leaves and got a bad case of mealybugs. The need for humidity and the problem of me making sure its watered properly at work are a bad combination for this big bush. I've brought it home and am planning a major prune and repot. I do have one of it's babies, from a cherry it made last year.
Update September 2023 - as the branches had lost most leaves and only have a few leaves at the wnds, I tried cutting a few branches in early summer to about halfway to induce new growth from the bare branches. None of them has any new growth. Mealybugs returned, and also found the baby plant. Alcohol and water mix spray knocks them back but you must always follow up.

I purchased this as an edible root 'yautia' from a grocery store. My googling says it is this plant. I sprouted and grew it. Native to lowland tropical South America, I expect it likes plenty of water. Like other elephant ear types, the spider mites like it. By the second year, it got over 3 feet tall. If you re patient and like trying things, this is a cheap way to get an elephant ear.

This plant is a real eyecatcher at my library- many people have never seen one. After 'what is that' they often ask 'where can I get one'. I think getting bulbs is easy but finding the plant in a nursery, pretty rare. Their stems are very fragile and I doubt it transports well.
A summer of growing in a pot outside will yield many of the funny 'mini pink pine cone' looking tubers. While actively growing, the tubers have a grey, juicy, carrot like segment at the bottom. I let the pots dry in fall, store them dry, in fall, then start them again. After storage for winter, they can be a little slow to get sprouted. Plant them crowded in the pot as they are "airy" and it takes a lot to look like a full plant. But after a growing season, that pot will be full of tubers.
It has been somewhat unfaithful indoors in winter for me, leaves dry off and drop. It is underplanted in my fan palm, which I bring inside. Pacific Bulb Society says this is native to marshy areas. Maybe it is indoor dryness that makes mine dry out, as I try not to overwater most other plants. More likely I think it likes bright light. They can take a lot of sun if planted outside and well watered.
May be winter hardy in zone 8 ish, I had them live one winter but not the next.

Unusual flowers and they bloom a long time. I rooted cuttings of Angelonia in fall by just sticking them in potting mix. They are growing under lights for winter. By spring they have gotten limp and leggy with bare stems. Probably not worth the effort and space under your lights.

Slow growing, bug free, the dark green leaves always look healthy. I have blooms every year following the rest period.

Very common in the woods around me, which may be why I regularly find seedlings under my trees in natural, leaf litter areas. Some I have transplanted are now about four feet tall and I hope to see flowers soon to know if they are male or female.

I've grown this Salvia for about five years now. It is very happy in my warmest garden which may be zone 8 due to southern exposure and the house wall behind. There it blooms well in full sun and spreads every year. It grows roots along just below the surface and odd, woody tubers. It also lived in average sites here which should be about zone 7, and in some shade, but may not spread or persist long term. I tried storing some tubers dry in the basement but they did not regrow come spring. Tubers do no look like they can be cut apart like potatoes to grow, but rather seem to need to keep the stem they have. Watch bumblebees visit and bite the base of the flower to steal nectar.

Comfrey grows quite well in my zone 7 average garden soil and full sun; it can take some shade. Leaves are large, oval and fuzzy, growing in a mound. Flower stalks grow up but then may lay over, it isn't a stiff plant. The roots are black.

I grew five plants from seed and kept two for my own garden in 2018. The plants were strong growers and yielded fruit with good 'Cherokee Purple like' taste, very tasty.
2019 update, growing 2 plants, both very healthy looking and setting lots of fruit. Some are convoluted and weigh over a pound, others are simple flattened globes, still that great taste.

This is an easy flowering annual with unusual pods. The ripened seed pods turn yellowish and then pop open at a gentle squeeze and fling their seeds. Great fun for kids.

I've tried several times to grow cilantro from seed, different sources, and have mostly failed. They germinate and get a couple leaves, then struggle and turn yellow. It may be easy to overwater the tiny seedlings. I've also read it prefers cool weather. It has not been easy to grow for me.

Certainly one of the most well known and widely planted shrubs in the US Mid Atlantic suburbs, Forsythia is a welcome sight for a week in spring. For the rest of the year, I find it not especially attractive, more so because it is often used along property lines or in foundation beds, where it outgrows its space and is subject to acts of pruning desperation. It is a rangy sprawling thing that could possibly stand to be cut down to a foot every spring after bloom and let regrow, as you would a butterfly bush (but that is cut late winter). If you must have a forsythia, give it about 12 feet of clear width all around. I'll admit I am basing all this on decades of experience with decades old cultivars planted in the 1960s and 1970s. Maybe some new ones are better behaved, but I doubt it.

I've had my single-flowered Kerria for about ten years. I admired a mature one, and was gifted a yanked-up clump to take home. Branches are thin, green and smooth, mostly in an upright spray, a lot of stems from the ground rather than having a lot of side branching. Mine does put out suckers. It is growing nicely in shade under trees, guessing it might sucker more aggressively with no root competition. It is 4-5 feet tall and wide, blooms dependably.

Grows very well in my zone 7 Maryland garden, may self sow a bit ( I have found maybe 3 seedlings in 10-12 years that is has been loaded with berries.) Blooms in February and honeybees will visit during a winter warm spell. The sweet lemony fragrance is delightful. Slow growing for me, with a nice structure that can be managed by pruning a few longer branches now and then to encourage new denser growth. Very prickly leaves, not one to have where people will walk in bare feet.

Bottlebrush buckeye grows well in my zone 7 garden in sandy loam soil. It is a large-scale specimen, needing to spread its branches to show off the big compound leaves and long bloom spikes. It has made several low branches that can be rooted by weighting with a brick. As for the 'showy' fruit, the developing nuts are novel, rather than 'pretty,' the ripe nuts, while not edible for humans, are pretty.

Tropical milkweed grows very well in my zone 7 Maryland garden as an annual, may self sow a bit. Easy to root from fall cuttings and can be kept inside over winter that way, and will grow quickly once planted back out. Monarch caterpillars do love it. Can get aphids some years, watch for aphids if you bring in seedlings or cuttings over winter..

I have had this about ten years, central Maryland, I was sent a small one bare-root in the mail. No trouble rooting and growing, it has begun to sucker a fair amount in my loamy sandy soil, and blooms a bit, in partial shade from trees on the north and east.

I have grown this for several years in central Maryland one of the 7 zones, and it has been hardy in a couple different places in my semi shaded, woodsy gardens. It even makes a few seedlings. The seed heads are unique.

This is a popular plant with a reputation for doing well in low light. I have kept a "petite" version for many years, both at home and in a commercial setting. The dark green leaves are pretty. It needs attention to watering. Good news is it wilts when dry and demands water; bad news is that such events cause some older leaves to turn yellow each time, so it will thin the plant if it happens too often. The dry air of the commercial setting seems to make it more prone to these drying events.

The traditional green and silver cultivars of this plant are one of the easiest to maintain in my workplace, under long days of artificial light, dry air, and temps that can swing due to an old HVAC system. I do fight mealybugs on them at times, but that is the only pest I have found. They never wilt, so they look pretty happy even if they get a little dry. Seems to be a slow grower, especially when you're watching new shoots emerge or rooting cuttings.