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Sweet potato vines (Ipomoea batatas) and the ornamental cultivars are the same species, one grown for its tubers and the other for its pretty leaves. Hardy in USDA zones 9-11, all parts are edible except the seeds.
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To treat scale on sago palms, start with cultural treatments, such as pruning affected fronds and hosing off scale. Attracting natural predators and using horticultural oil can also help.
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Basic money tree (Pachira aquatica) care includes repotting when it's outgrown its current pot. To repot a money tree, choose a slightly larger pot, slide the tree out of the old pot, check the roots and replant in fresh potting mix.
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Small green bugs on petunias are often aphids, which are tiny, pear-shaped insects that can cause sooty mold when these pests are found in large numbers.
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Tiny white flying insects on tomato plants are whiteflies. These insects can transmit disease, so it's important to control them. Use a jet of water from the garden hose to dislodge them or ready-to-use neem oil to kill them.
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Rose buds turn brown before opening for a variety of reasons, including frost damage, gray mold and thrips. Treating the specific cause can help save the rose bush so you can still enjoy fragrant blooms.
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If something is eating the flowers on your petunia plants, it could be the tobacco budworm, which eats petunia buds and flower ovaries. Rabbits and deer also sometimes dine on petunias and other flowers.
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A lemon tree's leaves get sticky when sap-draining insects attack and leave behind honeydew. Managing the insects can correct the issue and prevent additional issues with the lemon tree.
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Grow lavender in a pot that keeps the plant's roots tight with slightly alkaline soil that's full of nutrients. Choose a sunny spot for your potted lavender plant.
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Insects and spider mites that make meals of money trees typically infest indoor plants. Get rid of them with cultural methods or nontoxic insecticidal soap.
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Worms on petunias can be tobacco budworms, variegated cutworms or yellow serpentine leafminer worms. Handpicking and destroying the worms is often effective no matter what type of worms you have.
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Japanese maples (Acer palmatum), hardy in USDA zones 5 through 8, may be infested with bagworms in summer. To get rid of bagworms on Japanese maples, consider handpicking, encouraging parasitic predators, or spraying with Bt. Large trees may require a hydraulic sprayer.
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The worst thing sucking aphids can do to your cilantro is to infect it with one of a plethora of incurable plant viruses. Fortunately, you can decimate the little beasties organically.
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When caterpillars are eating your desert roses, you can prune the affected areas and apply sprays to control the caterpillar populations before and after the eggs hatch.
Read MoreAlthough untested as a miticide, safely diluted food-grade hydrogen peroxide may be helpful in controlling spider mites.
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Not lilies at all, but herbaceous perennials native to the jungles of Central and South America, peace lilies (Spathiphyllum spp.) grow outdoors in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 11 through 12. Everywhere else, they grow as indoor plants and do double duty by removing air pollutants.
Read MoreAnimals digging in mulch piles or mulched garden beds at night leave identifying signs, and wildlife isn't always responsible..
Read MoreMaximize the fragrance of blooming jasmine plants with regular applications of flower-friendly, high-phosphorous fertilizer.
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From a distance, your prized cactus looks as if a group of passing school children had plastered it with freshly chewed white gum. Closer inspection reveals something different, and it's not mold. Depending on the type of cactus you have, the waxy white splotching is a cochineal scale or mealybug colony.
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Long relied on for their use in low-maintenance hedges, Ligustrum shrubs, commonly called privet shrubs (Ligustrum spp.), are hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 through 11, depending on the variety.
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Form flowers are the colorful, large and often unusually shaped blooms floral designers use to center their pieces. They are the first to draw a viewer's eye into an arrangement. Expensive and high-impact, form flowers are best used in moderation. Think "too much of a good thing,"
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Languid spring or summer afternoons, fragrant with the scent of magnolia (Magnolia spp.) blossoms, may present an idealized vision of Southern living, but the reality of these breathtaking trees is quite different. Depending on variety, magnolia trees handle conditions from the northern winters of U.S.
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Prized for the voluptuously curvaceous blooms that earned artist Georgia O’Keefe the title “lady of the lilies,” calla lilies (Zantedeschia spp.) grow as perennials in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 7 through 10, depending on variety.
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Having a tiny yard -- or no yard -- and growing your own cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) need not be mutually exclusive concepts, if you let a container come to the rescue. Raising cukes in containers has some advantages over growing them the traditional way.
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Talk about an identity crisis: Mondo grass (Ophiopogon japonicus), or snake beard, is so often mistaken for lily turf (Liriope muscari) that both perennials are known as monkey grass. Though the arching, grassy plants ape each other in appearance, lily turf tolerates temperatures in [U.S.
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Grown for their dramatic foliage, exotic calatheas (Calathea spp.) are among the splashiest of tropicals. Although star calathea "Lotus Pink" (Calathea loesneri "Lotus Pink") grows in U.S.
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