Growing Annual Vines in Pots
Growing with plants By Matt Mattus
by admin Matt
1y ago
Over the past three years I’ve been growing various annual vines in containers, trying about 6-8 different varieties of the most commonly found annual vines, each year. As you may have discovered yourself, annual vines like morning glories while beautiful and easy to germinate, can, and do, grow too quickly and with such vigor that they can, and will, get out-of-hand often before they bloom. Yet other annual vines are more tidy and manageable. I wanted to see what vines were the most manageable, and which ones were the most beautiful as a container plant, and which ones are best left to the t ..read more
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My Surprising Nicotiana Trial Results
Growing with plants By Matt Mattus
by admin Matt
1y ago
A border of 5 foot tall nicotiana after my interesting trial that I conducted to test various cultural methods to see if I could get better results from what is typically a ho-hum flower. We, gardeners, are all familiar with the genus Nicotiana. While we may not know that was named for Jean Nicot, a French diplomat in 1559 . Mssr. Nicot first saw a tobacco plant shortly after it arrived in some plant collections made in South America a few years earlier. Convinced that is had medicinal properties, he presented the plant to the French queen, Catherine de Médicis, as a remedy for her headaches ..read more
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Salpiglossis Techniques and Trials
Growing with plants By Matt Mattus
by admin Matt
1y ago
My 2022 Salpiglossis trial was an incredible success. My last post, (which was surprisingly this past February) proves not only how busy I’ve been, but how time can fly by. First, just so you know – I’m mostly posting to my Instagram account lately (mostly everyday). So if you need more updates than my blog offers, follow me at @matt_mattus on Instagram and see what’s happening in the garden, greenhouse and sometimes in the kitchen. My 2022 trials we as obsessive as usual, but perhaps even mores this year as we were honored to have our garden included as a Garden Conservancy Open Days garden i ..read more
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A Comprehensive review of all the wrong ways to grow Salpiglossis found on the Internet.
Growing with plants By Matt Mattus
by admin Matt
1y ago
Maybe you’ve never noticed it, but a lot of information found on the internet is sometimes incorrect. After spending a week researching how to grow salpiglossis, or Bearded Tongue, an old fashioned and rarely seen annual, I discovered that all my information that I once so trusted might have been wrong all along. My advice to you? If your source for information regarding seed starting does’nt show pictures of the process and their results from the methods they are suggesting, question the method. Today, I look at some more unusual annuals – specifically Salpiglossis. A notoriously fussy annual ..read more
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Looking back as well as toward the future
Growing with plants By Matt Mattus
by admin Matt
1y ago
In July the garden never looked so green, thanks to a month of record rainfall that proved to be a curse more than a gift. 2021 proved to be a record breaking year wherever one gardens. While gardeners are notorious about complaining about the weather 2021 proved to be extraordinary across much of the planet. Usually I brush off little brushes with irregular weather – after all, I live and garden in New England – but last year proved to be noteworthy in many ways. While the garden suffered with record breaking weather container plants faired a bit better particularly the standard fuchsias that ..read more
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Growing Cup and Saucer Vines
Growing with plants By Matt Mattus
by admin Matt
1y ago
The annual vine known as the Cup and Saucer vine is beloved by many gardeners. Their large, cup-shaped purple or white blossoms and their distinctive flaring corollas look very much like teacups. Many of us never really think about that, like. Like so many familiar garden flowers, the Cup and Saucer Vine or Cobaea scandens belong to a much bigger clan – it has many close relatives within the genus CObaea, all native to South and Central America. However, most if not all are still relatively unknown or even discovered. I decided to do a deep dive on the genus cobaea (or at least as deep as I c ..read more
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Driveway Re-invention – Part 2
Growing with plants By Matt Mattus
by admin Matt
1y ago
On the left in early April the driveway is nearly ready for landscape material. On the right just after planting in mid May. If you’ve been following along regarding the first phase of our big driveway reinvention project, I’m thrilled to share that we are nearly complete. The last of the really difficult trees to be removed has finally been completed (another 70-foot tall blue spruce that was nearly dead and a second one the died a few years ago but was being held up by Bittersweet vines!), so now – nearly a year later, I am onto the landscaping. Laying in the gravel and granite rock ended j ..read more
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Our Driveway Re-Invention Part 1
Growing with plants By Matt Mattus
by admin Matt
1y ago
I know that people find it fascinating that I live and now garden in the house where I was born and where my father was born (he died in 2014 at a healthy 100). It not all that unusual, I think, in much of New England, and oddly enough, it’s not that odd for my neighborhood for some reason. In fact – on this driveway upgrade project, I had two friends help me from up the street who went to elementary school and high school with me. Our driveway before reconstruction in March 2020. Our house of off the the right by our first driveway, the grey house in the back was our garage and my sisters hou ..read more
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Re-Thinking Scented Violets
Growing with plants By Matt Mattus
by admin Matt
1y ago
An old print of women harvesting violets in the south of France. (Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol 18 No. 2)    Great confustion exists not only amongst us gardeners about what is and what isn’t a scented violet, but also with botanists. Luckly, with recient DNA sequencing the problem seems to have been solved. Yet while we those of us who care about such things will change what we write about and perhaps grow, plan on continuing to see lots confusing and incorrect information about Scented violets both in written media and on social media. Then, of course, there are those countles ..read more
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Artichokes in the North
Growing with plants By Matt Mattus
by admin Matt
1y ago
I like to use the analogy of cooks vs. bakers when providing advice on annual artichoke culture. The fact is that artichoke culture isn’t exactly easy, at least in the north where few, if any of us have been able to grow artichokes as they can in California, but things have changed given new methods and new varieties. It’s going to take some time to catch on, but expect your local farmer’s markets and farm stands to start featuring artichokes as more and more local growers are discovering the potential given new methods. The best part here is home gardeners don’t need to wait, you can start r ..read more
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