Dear Master Gardener: I was given a small plant as a gift last spring. It grew into a gigantic plant with striking leaves and spiky pink seed pods. I've learned it is a castor bean plant. I'd like to ...

Hardy fuschias waiting to be planted since the Canby plant sale in the ground: check Miscellaneous sundry plants acquired in the past few weeks in the ground: check If I keep this up, what am I going ...

Castor bean plants (Ricinus ommunis) are easy to grow from seed when provided with sun and moist, loamy soil. The seeds produce a vibrant plant with large, star-shaped foliage that can grow up to 10 ...

Description: The tender, shrubby castor bean is a half-hardy annual that often performs like a short-lived evergreen perennial in our region, growing from 3 to 15 feet tall and 3 feet wide with broad, ...

Sweltering heat and bright sunlight do not a tropical garden make, even if many common garden plants, from marigolds to okra, do hail from the tropics. That tropical look comes from lush, bold foliage ...

Sweltering heat and bright sunlight do not a tropical garden make, even if many common garden plants, from marigolds to okra, do hail from the tropics. That tropical look comes from lush, bold foliage ...

Sweltering heat and bright sunlight do not a tropical garden make, even if many common garden plants, from marigolds to okra, do hail from the tropics. That tropical look comes from lush, bold foliage ...

Q: What can you tell me about the old-fashioned castor-bean plant? I believe my parents had them for shade for the chickens. Also, I planted several camellia seeds, but none sprouted. What's wrong? A: ...

Native to Africa, the castor bean plant (Ricinus communis), has been cultivated for nearly 4,000 years. The Egyptians grew it for lamp oil and Thomas Jefferson grew it to deter moles. It is now grown ...

Q: We were in England this summer and saw some very colorful examples of Victorian bedding in the parks that we thought would be fun and different to try in part of our garden. These plantings were ...

DISSIDENT BULGARIAN journalist Georgi Markov died mysteriously in 1978. The Scotland Yard postmortem revealed, imbedded in his leg, a BB studded with tiny holes. It had been shot into Markov with an ...