ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — A pair of University of Michigan researchers are putting the “pee” in peony.
Rather, they're putting pee ON peonies.
Environmental engineering professors Nancy Love and Krista Wigginton are regular visitors to the Ann Arbor school's Nichols Arboretum, where they have been applying urine-based fertilizer to the heirloom peony beds ahead of the flowers' annual spring bloom.
IRPIN, Ukraine (AP) — There are no walls any longer. The broad wooden roof beams lie splintered and scattered, and random pieces of clothing dangle from damaged water pipes. But among the rubble of what used to be her home, the house that her grandparents built, Anna Shevchenko sees a glimmer of hope.
The annual sunflower (Helianthus annus) has a long history in North America, with evidence of its cultivation for food, ceremonial and medical use by Native Americans dating back to at least 1,000 B.C.
HALLE, Belgium (AP) — Nature’s beauty is rapturous again this springtime — flaunting its purple haze of bluebells in the woods south of Brussels.
This time though, any and all can enjoy the spectacle following two years of pandemic measures that had kept visitors to a trickle.
ALMERE, Netherlands (AP) — Tulips herald the advent of spring — and the Dutch believe they can also highlight ways to fight climate change.
In Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play, “Our Town,” heliotrope flowers connect two sets of characters who gather to inhale their intoxicating scent in the moonlight. Heliotropes, then common, are, indeed, wonderfully fragranced.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Nearly 60 years ago, a historic Black community founded as a home for newly freed slaves was demolished to expand a national park commemorating the Battle of New Orleans and Civil War casualties.
Gardeners are made, not born. If you want your children to become enthusiastic gardeners, take steps early to get them going down the proverbial path.
It isn’t difficult, but it might require an adjustment to your attitude about children in the garden.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed designating critical habitat for a Nevada wildflower it plans to list as endangered amid a conflict over a mine to produce lithium batteries for electric vehicles critical to the Biden administration’s plans to combat climate change.
Easter has lilies. Thanksgiving has gourds. Christmas has poinsettias. And Valentine’s Day should have amaryllis.
For the uninitiated, amaryllises are big bulbs that can produce among the biggest and showiest flowers a gardener can grow indoors (maybe outdoors too).
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The rare ghost orchid faces mounting threats in Florida from poaching, loss of habitat and climate change and needs federal protection, environmental groups said Monday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — On a warm spring day in Ukraine 26 years ago, three men smiled for cameras as they planted symbolic sunflower seedlings in freshly tilled earth where Soviet nuclear missiles had once stood ready.
AMSTERDAM (AP) — As stores in Amsterdam and across the Netherlands cautiously reopened after weeks of being under a coronavirus lockdown, the Dutch capital's mood was lightened further Saturday by dashes of color from thousands of free bunches of tulips being handed out.
Farewell, fellow gardener. After almost 30 years of sharing my gardening experience, expertise, and enthusiasm in columns for The Associated Press, I’ve decided to focus my time and energy in other directions.
BANGKOK (AP) — Thais flocked to rivers and lakes on Friday evening to release small floats adorned with flowers and candles in an annual festival honoring the goddess of water, with thousands of the tiny boats ending up clogging and polluting the country’s waterways.
ENCINITAS, Calif. (AP) — The bloom of a giant and stinky Sumatran flower nicknamed the “corpse plant” because it smells like a dead body is drawing huge crowds to a Southern California botanical garden.
At a recent dinner party, my host launched into a monologue about a plant he had discovered in his garden and was delighted with.
It had, he said, green leaves (what a clue!) and large, yellow flowers.
Nobody ever said gardening offers instant gratification. With this limitation in mind, I dug and made over one of my flower beds last weekend.
For the plants, fall is a fine time for a flower-bed makeover.
PARIS (AP) — Yet again, Naomi Campbell stole the show at Paris Fashion Week. The 51-year-old runway veteran trod the boards of Lanvin’s flower-themed collection Sunday to screams from guests in a dramatic black cloak.
TOKYO (AP) — Of course, an Olympic medal has significance. But the bouquet of flowers that every medal winner is being handed at the Tokyo Olympics has deeper meaning. Much deeper.
The sunflowers and all the other flowers in the bouquet were grown in the three northeastern Japanese prefectures that were devastated by the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and the subsequent meltdown of three nuclear reactors.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The endangered Sumatran Titan arum, a giant foul-smelling blossom also known as the corpse flower, went into a rare, short bloom at a botanical garden in Warsaw, drawing crowds who waited for hours to see it.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — An extremely rare wildflower that grows only in Nevada’s high desert where an Australian mining company wants to dig for lithium should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S.
OK, so you’ve got your vegetable and flower transplants in the ground, their roots are reaching out into surrounding soil, and stems are starting to grow.
NEW YORK (AP) — A whimsical new park that appears to float on pilings above the Hudson River opened to the public just off the Manhattan shoreline Friday, four years after a fight between media mogul Barry Diller and a billionaire real estate developer threatened to derail it.
GIVERNY, France (AP) — Beneath the scudding clouds and amid the luscious blooms, the gardeners tend the flowerbeds that were the pride and joy of impressionist painter Claude Monet, with pink and white striped tulips, diaphanous peonies, sky-blue forget-me-nots and myriad other flowers together creating a living art work.
HALLE, Belgium (AP) — There is no stopping flowers when they bloom, blossoms when they burst. Unfortunately, people have been stopped from enjoying them these days...
WINDSOR, England — Hundreds of people have lined the streets outside Windsor Castle to pay their respects to Prince Philip...
An expansive new show featuring works by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, famous for mesmerizing polka dots, speckled pumpkins and fascination with the natural world, has opened at The New York Botanical Garden...
LISSE, Netherlands (AP) — Finally, after bleak winter months of a coronavirus lockdown, springtime shoots of hope emerged Friday as restrictions were relaxed at a Dutch flower garden and other public venues...
Spring in the vegetable or flower garden is a carefully orchestrated series of events. The goal is to keep things moving forward with the warming season, taking into account weather predictions and, because those are just predictions, average spring warming trends where you garden...
If you’ve never grown your own transplants for your garden, perhaps this is the year to do it. It’s economical, it allows you to grow varieties you might not be able to buy as transplants, it’s satisfying and it’s easy...
Not so long ago, orchids were regarded as rare and exotic. But these days, thanks to new propagation techniques, certain varieties are mass-produced...
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — An exceptionally rare 15th century porcelain bowl made in China that somehow turned up at a Connecticut yard sale and sold for just $35 was auctioned off Wednesday for nearly $722,000...
If you want to freshen up your kitchen, look no further than Grandma’s old casserole dishes.
Vintage kitchenware is back in style -– pieces from the mid-20th century painted with flowers, bright colors, and specific functions, such as bracketed chip and dip bowls or four-piece refrigerator storage sets...
HONG KONG (AP) — The Lunar New Year holiday is usually a busy period for flower farms in Hong Kong, which gear up to sell plum blossoms, orchids and daffodils at flower markets during the festive season...
When the coronavirus upended daily life, Amy Baird was frightened, like much of the world — for her children and what would become of their school and friends, for her in-laws in their 70s, for her own health marked by a pulmonary embolism...
NEW YORK (AP) — They designed epic floral statements in limited time with some very intense judges, but the contestants on the new reality competition series “Full Bloom” did not wilt under pressure...
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Driven by new solidarity, Poles have been buying armloads of chrysanthemums to help out flower vendors who unexpectedly faced bankruptcy when the government ordered all cemeteries locked due to COVID-19 during a traditional memorial weekend...