Popular Ornamental Grasses for Fall Color and Texture

Ornamental grasses are an adaptable, easy to grow addition for your landscape. Your fall and winter landscape will look more appealing with added texture and color that ornamental grasses provide.

Ornamental grasses really give you bang for your landscaping buck. Most will give you year round beauty, texture and color, and they require very little maintenance. What could be better than that?

Many ornamental grasses are tolerant to any soil type. They come in various heights to fit in any type of landscape or garden. You can even grow them in pots to create seasonal decorations that you can change as you desire and display them indoors or out.

Preserving Winter Squash

Winter squash like butternut, acorn, and turban are gorgeous vitamin-filled fruits that are adaptable to a variety of recipes and uses. The plants are easy to grow and will usually reward the gardener with a wheelbarrow full of beautiful gourds. Winter squash store for up to three months in a cool dark location. For longer storage they may be oiled or waxed to prevent small rot and mold spots from taking hold in any imperfection on the skin. The surface of the skin needs to be washed and completely dried before waxing or oiling. Each squash will need just a light coating of your preferred preservation formula.

The History of the Bayberry Candle

One of the most important autumn tasks of the colonial American housewife was candle dipping. Probably few candles were as pleasant to work with as those made from bayberry wax.

The bayberry shrub, which the settlers also called the Virginia myrtle or candleberry bush, is a North American native shrub found mostly along the Eastern seaboard. Varieties of the bayberry, including the northern bayberry (Morella pensylvanica) and southern bayberry (Morella cerifera), grow from Maine to Florida, most abundantly along the coast of the Atlantic.