It is so tempting to dress up a densely conical dwarf Alberta spruce, Picea glauca ‘Conica’, as a garden gnome for Halloween. They are so symmetrical that they seem to have been shorn that way. They are too small to be classified as trees, but are not as shrubby as most shrubbery either. Their practicality is rather limited to formal situations where their strict symmetry is desirable.
Dwarf Alberta spruce is very different from the straight (not dwarf) species that can get to almost fifty feet tall. It instead grows very slowly, and stays quite small, although it can eventually reach downstairs eaves. The finely textured evergreen foliage is soft but slightly bristly. The tiny individual needles are only about half an inch long. The aroma of crushed foliage might be objectionable.
Dwarf Alberta spruce is popularly grown as a potted Christmas tree, and happens to be one of the few coniferous plants that can stay potted long enough to functions as such for a few years. In the ground, it wants rich but well drained soil. It can rot if the soil stays too damp. Red spider mite can be a potential problem. Although it likes full sun exposure, it can get roasted in hot situations.
Their creamy white exteriors do not reveal much about the flavor within. They looks like they might taste like vanilla, or coconut, . . . or maybe Swiss cheese. Below the white skins, white pumpkins (Curcubita pepo) have orange flesh that really tastes like other pumpkins, but maybe a bit milder, like ‘pumpkin-light’. They are popular because they look so cool, and make great jack-o-lanterns.
It is impossible to fit enough information about chrysanthemums into just a few sentences. Centuries of breeding have produced too many cultivars to document. Flower color ranges through many shades and hues of yellow, orange, red, pink, bronze, cream, lavender and almost purple, as well as white. (True purple is purportedly lacking.) Many have yellow centers. The deeply lobed leaves are strongly aromatic.
It is native from the extreme southern tip of Alaska to the extreme southwestern corner of California, but not many of us will see bigleaf maple, Acer macrophyllum, in our neighborhoods. It is planted only rarely, particularly where winters are mild. Relative to other maples, its roots can be more aggressive, and its shade can be darker, so is likely to interfere with lawn and other plants.
It is hard to believe that such a delightfully robust and luxuriant tree like the Indian laurel, 
In the first year, Mexican bush sage, Salvia leucantha, does not get very big. Then it gets cut back to the ground at the end of winter. It gets about twice as big in the second year, only to get cut back again as winter ends. By the third or fourth year, healthy maturing plants can grow to five feet tall and seven feet wide each season. While cut back, big clumps can be divided to propagate.
The three most popular specie of Dianthus are sweet William, garden pink and carnation. Sweet William and garden pink are light duty perennial bedding plants that are often grown as annuals. Carnation blooms are more familiar as fragrant cut flowers than as home garden flowers. Then there is dwarf carnation, Dianthus caryophyllus, that combines the best characteristics of all three.
There are those of us who can grow cabbage well, and there are the majority of us who wish we could. Mild winters allow cabbage to be grown in autumn as well as in spring; but warm weather can also compromise flavor and promote premature bolting (blooming), which ruins the heads. Cabbage demands rich soil and regular watering. If the weather is evenly mild, they dig that too.
Since modern cultivars became trendy several years ago, the old fashioned ‘common’ fringe flower, Loropetalum chinense, has become even more uncommon than it already was. It does not grow fast enough to function as large scale shrubbery, but slowly gets too big to work as small shrubbery. Without pruning, old plants take many years to get to fifteen feet tall.
The common name sounds funny, but it is easier to pronounce then than the Latin name. Mulla mulla, Ptilotus exaltus, is an Australian species that has been locally available longer than its limited popularity suggests. It may seem to be more peculiar than it is because it is grown primarily by specialty growers, who happen to grow many cool plants that should be more popular than they are.
Tony Tomeo 