Just because they aren’t flying around now because it’s winter doesn’t mean that we should forget about our pollinators. Gardeners are coming around to the idea of leaving some debris in place overwinter (for example: allowing fallen tree leaves…
Norfolk Island Pine, Araucaria heterophylla, is sold as a houseplant during the Christmas season. I’ve tried to grow it several times with limited success. (The success being limited by premature death.) Detailed cultural information available here from the North Carolina Extension Service. …
Last Saturday, I finally sort of got our Christmas tree up. This may have been the latest I have ever waited to put it up, but up it went. For some reason, I was not feeling up to decorating our…
Poinsettias at Behnke’s Largo growing location, November 20,2004 In our prime growing days, Behnke’s sold around 55,000 poinsettias a year, most of which we grew ourselves. This photo is part of one of the three greenhouses we had at Largo,…
One of my mom’s, Sonja Behnke Festerling favorite things to do after retiring from Behnke’s was ringing the Salvation Army bell at Behnke Nurseries. As a member of the Beltsville Rotary Club, which organized bell-ringing shifts from Thanksgiving through Christmas…
Happy Thanksgiving Out here in Wisconsin we have a lot of wild turkeys. Here is part of a group of a dozen well-fed wild turkeys at my sister-in-law Nancy’s bird feeder in central Wisconsin. We see them regularly here in…
Paint Branch Garden Club Talk This past Monday, I was invited by the Paint Branch Garden Club to give a talk about Behnke’s Early Years at their meeting. I had been looking forward to this ever since they told me…
Grainy photo of the week. Have you ever wondered what’s walking around your yard at night? I’m probably out of date as I don’t have any of those smart apps connected to cameras all around the house, but back in…
Stephanie usually writes about Behnke’s at Beltsville. I thought I would do a “shout out” to the retail store that we had at Largo, MD, which opened full-time in the spring of 1985 and closed in around 2008, when the…
One of my favorite shrubs I bought from Behnke’s is this Limelight hydrangea. Each summer I would see a giant plant blooming at Behnke’s as I walked from the back parking lot to the selling area. I just loved it…
Starting to think about Christmas decor. A couple of weeks ago I was visiting relatives in the U.P., which is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the part of Michigan that is sandwiched between Wisconsin’s northern border and the southern shore of…
I live next door to these beautiful maple trees, and I’ve enjoyed watching them change with the seasons for many years. My in-laws, Jane and Marshall, originally planted the trees in their backyard, and we spent many wonderful times under…