Monterey cypress
Cupressus macrocarpa Hartw.                                     
Cypress family (Cupressaceae)
Post-Cook introduction
Medium-sized to large introduced aromatic evergreen
tree with small scalelike leaves. Trunk straight, to 110 ft
(34 m) high and commonly 21⁄2 ft (0.8 m) in diameter,
with conical or spreading crown. Bark dark gray, rough,
thick, furrowed into flat ridges. Inner bark light brown
with outer dark brown layer, slightly bitter, resinous.
Twigs [...]

Glorious beauty! As a little girl, my fantasy was to be surrounded by gorgeous, cheerful, fresh flowers. I just knew my home would have flowers everywhere – huge vases filled with buds and blooms of every color [...]

The primary purpose of a flower is reproduction. Flowers are the reproductive organs and mediate the joining of the sperm contained within pollen to the ovules, normally from one plant to another but many plants also can pollinate their own flowers. The fertilized ovules produce seeds that are the next generation. Sexual reproduction produces genetically [...]

On this spring afternoon one corner of our vegetable garden is dominated by a clump of volunteer coriander, from seed I ‘missed’ last year. The opposite corner is marked by a bright spray of canary yellow broccoli flowers, from a few side shoots we left in place when we harvested the crop. A few feet [...]

The Rose Bug. - “The Rose-chafer, or Rose-bug, as it is more commonly and incorrectly called, is also a diurnal insect. It is the Melolontha subspinota of Fabricius, by whom it was first described, and belongs to the modern genus Macrodactylus of Latreille. Common as this insect is in the vicinity of Boston, it is, [...]

Sure, insects cause flower growers some noticeable heartaches, but they can be controlled organically—with [...]