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Plant Profiles

Edible

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Sunny Floral Desserts

I’ve told you that edible flowers are so much more versatile in the kitchen than just used in desserts.  They are.  But they also make incredible, mouth-watering desserts!  The main thing to remember is that edible flowers can be important ingredients in your dessert concoctions, not just decorations.  While candied violets are lovely, ...

Sheryl Campbell

Fiber

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Plant-Based Dyes: Indigo, Madder, and Weld

On my journey to creating natural color, I was deeply inspired by a workshop I attended at Darthia Farm in my hometown of Gouldsboro, which is located on the rural coast of Maine. These artists and farmers were growing the traditional primary-color dye plants of madder, weld, and indigo, and they were saving and sharing seeds. I’m forever grateful to have received my first ...

Sasha Duerr

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Medicinal

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Homemade Witch Hazel Toner

Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is one of my favorite local shrubs. I can’t decide whether I like it most for its unique leaves or its spectacular flowers. The yellow flowers bloom from September through November, most startlingly after the leaves have dropped in fall. Yellow explosions of floral fireworks set off against the bare, dark gray of the smooth bark. In North ...

Dawn Combs and DIY Natural

Ornamental

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Growing Sunflowers for Efficiency and Elegance

There’s hardly a flower that can hit you in the face with more happy, hi, nice to see ya! than a sunflower. And as far as cuts go, what a sad state the late summer cutting garden would be in without them. As a garden companion, Helianthus annuus will not play well with others thanks to allellopathy, a biochemical process that sees sunflower roots telling other plants to go ...

Lynsey Sable

Mother Earth Gardener

Expert advice on all aspects of growing.