by Jan Cashman Peony (Genus Paeonia) is the perfect perennial flower for our climate. Peonies are fragrant, hardy, prefer our alkaline soils, and make a good cut flower. Long-lived peonies can be found, along with common purple lilacs and yellow shrub roses, in old, deserted farmyards, especially in the Midwest. Hist...

by Jan Cashman Growing up in Minnesota, my mother had me scrounging for wild asparagus behind our house near the railroad tracks, a duty I didn't mind because asparagus was one of the few vegetables I liked as a child. All this wild asparagus in the Midwest might make you think that it is native to North America, but ...