5 Comments

I had hibiscus bugs on my althea last year and, although they did not damage the shrub, they did affect the flower buds so I did not have as many blooms as usual. I did not have a problem with them this year, thank goodness.

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for letting us know Melissa. I appreciate it! I guess hers were on the dead blooms so I didn't think about them eating the fresh ones. Of course they would!~~Dee

Expand full comment

Another good fall gardening book is Fallscaping by Nancy Ondra. Perhaps Allen Lacy wrote the first book about autumn gardening in the U.S., but EA Bowles wrote My Garden in Autumn and Winter in 1915, long before Lacy did.

Expand full comment
author

Yes, we've talked about Fallscaping by Nan Ondra a couple of different times so decided to mix it up a bit by profiling Allen Lacy's book this year. Whoever said it was the first book for fall gardening probably was referring to books written by American authors. E. A. Bowles, a British author, also wrote My Garden in Spring and My Garden in Summer. And he wrote some handbooks on crocuses and narcissus that I would love to find someday!

Expand full comment

The crocus book also has colchicums in it: A Handbook of Crocus and Colchicum. For years it was the most authoritative source (outside of scholarly papers) on colchicums, and I have a reprint copy of it. There is a much more comprehensive book on Crocuses by Janis Ruksans and the RHS recently published a 500 page book on colchicums, so the only reason to get Bowles' book on the subject is if you want to the history of previous understanding of the subject.

Expand full comment