Vines are trailing plants that use stems, tendrils or adventitious roots to help them “climb” up surfaces like walls, bricks, stone, plants and trees to reach new heights.  The curious nature of two vining plants – Virginia creeper and poison ivy - came to light this past week. Both plants are native, herbaceous perennial vines with compound leaves commonly found throughout the woodlands of Ohio. Often, they grow near one another or even intertwined on the same tree. Can you tell these two plants apart?

On one of our jaunts through the woods and parks in NE Ohio, my wife was thrilled to see glorious blooms of intense yellows created by Caltha palustris or Marsh Marigold (MM).  The genus name “Caltha” is derived from the Latin meaning “yellow flower” and the specific epithet “palustris” means marsh-loving.  Therefore, the Latin binomial for this plant literally means “yellow flower marsh-loving”!!  This North American native plant thrives in bogs, ditches, swamps, forested swamps, wet meadows, marshes, and stream margins from as far east as...

The Rosaceae is the most influential plant family in our landscapes (and the angiosperms), from Spiraea to Physocarpus, Prunus to Alchemilla, and most notably for us at Secrest, Malus. While crabapples are showing their beauty at Secrest another member of the Rosaceae, Exochorda, is also putting on quite a display.

Over the last week I have received several inquiries from people wanting to know...