The Houseplant Helpline – July 2025 Edition
This month, our houseplant expert, Evin Morrison, answers questions about aerial roots and browning leaves.
PERENNIAL: Agastache foeniculum (Anise or Blue Giant Hyssop)
#MGNV Tried and True #NativePlant Selections for the Mid-Atlantic Though indigenous in the Mid-Atlantic to only a few counties in Pennsylvania, Anise Hyssop grows easily throughout in well-drained soil. Purplish flower spikes, which attract pollinators all summer, add a vertical layer to the garden; leaves and seeds add anise flavor to food.
Weed Watch: What’s that sprawling plant with white, cross-shaped flowers in my summer garden?
Weed or #NativeWildflower?
Diodia virginiana (Virginia buttonweed) may be desirable as a native ground cover in its natural wet habitats, but in cultivated landscapes from the mid-Atlantic southward, it is considered an aggressive and difficult-to-remove weed. Learn how to identify and deal with it before it becomes (more) troublesome.
SHRUB: Vaccinium corymbosum ([Northern] Highbush Blueberry)
#MGNV Tried and True #NativePlant Selections for the Mid-Atlantic
Commercially valuable as a food crop, this species yields the best blueberries and autumn color when grown in full sun. Due to widespread hybridization, its distribution in Virginia has been difficult to map.
New to the Glossary: Glaucous
#MasterGardener #MGNV
Glabrous and glaucous often describe plant parts, especially stems, leaves, and fruits. Glabrous surfaces are smooth, lacking hairs, bristles, and glands. Glaucous surfaces have a whitish, gray, or bluish-green bloom. Most conspicuous on fruits, like blueberries and eastern redcedar, blooms are waxy or powdery coatings that tend to rub off.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! Veterans Memorial Rose Garden in Norwich, Connecticut is located on two acres of gently sloping land in Mohegan Park and displays ~2,500 rose bushes in 120 varieties. A video shows a common eastern bumble bee and a longhorn beetle foraging for pollen on neighboring roses in the garden.