Focus on Flowers

Apr 10 2025 1762 ep. 18 mins 190
Focus on Flowers Podcast artwork

Focus on Flowers is a weekly podcast and public radio program about flower gardening hosted by master gardener Moya Andews.

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Globe Amaranth

Apr 10 2025 2 mins  
Globe amaranth has the botanical name Gomphrena globosa and adult butterflies love this pretty annual. The little round flower heads bloom for a long time in the sunny summer garden and into early fall and dry beautifully for winter bouquets. The pink and orange varieties are especially striking and hold up well in a vase, especially if only one bloom is cut per stem. Fortunately,

Cimicifuga racemosa

Apr 03 2025 2 mins  
Cimicifuga racemosa, commonly called bugbane, black snakeroot, or black cohosh, growing wild and planted it in his Pennsylvania garden. He then sent seeds to his friend Peter Collinson in England. The Native Americans told the colonists to use it to treat fevers, lumbago, rheumatism, and snake bites with a medicine made from the roots. Its common names became bugbane and squawroo

Soapwort

Mar 27 2025 2 mins  
The plant variety that produces double flowers is Saponaria ‘Flora Pleno’, which is pale pink and white with a delicate scent. Common names are soapwort and “bouncing bet.” The plant spreads a lot, as it will grow almost anywhere and is often found along railroad tracks and even in dust heaps. In gardens, it is best confined to the outskirts not the main flower borders. M

Flowers Across Time

Mar 20 2025 2 mins  
Sara Coleridge wrote this poem in the 1800s. "January brings snow, and makes our feet and fingers glow. February brings the rain and thaws the frozen lake again. March brings breezes loud and shrill, stirs the dancing daffodil....

Flower Anchors

Mar 13 2025 2 mins  
If you have a garden, you probably enjoy displaying your flowers in your home. I have many small vases and bottles with narrow necks, so that I can pop just one or two flowers into them. When I come indoors after my morning walk, I usually bring what I call my "Flower of the Day." It is the flower that has really caught my eye that I want to look at close-up.

Microwave Drying

Mar 06 2025 2 mins  
You may like to try drying your end of summer flowers in your microwave.

Drying Flowers

Feb 27 2025 2 mins  
The best way to air-dry most flowers is to hang them upside down in bunches in a dry dark place for 1-3 weeks. Take the leaves off the stems and bind 6-10 stems together tightly with rubber bands.

Beatrix's Higgledy-Piggledy Hill Top

Feb 20 2025 2 mins  
n 1906, Beatrix Potter acquired a farmhouse in the Lake District of England. Her new house and garden became incorporated into her stories about the famous characters in her books, such as Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Tabitha Twitchet, that still delight children today. She delighted in the plants that her neighbors gave to her: roses, hollyhocks, and phlox, and the fruit trees and ve

Pretty But Useful

Feb 13 2025 2 mins  
Even as early as the 15th century in England, a time when gardens focused mainly on plants used in medicines and for cooking, there were a few plants grown because they produced beautiful flowers.

Glory of the Garden

Feb 06 2025 2 mins  
The poem "Glory of the Garden" by Rudyard Kipling.