A vertical as well as horizontal view in the garden is important for both planting beds and containers. That means you need both short and tall plants. A plant that adds height with a tropical and ...

Q: A friend of mine gave me some seeds of castor bean. I understand the plant is very poisonous but it is beautiful and I would like to grow it. Someone else told me it might be illegal to grow. Your ...

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 ...

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: 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

In 1978, a Bulgarian dissident died after KGB assassins jabbed him in the leg with an umbrella containing a poison pellet on a London street. Fast-forward to February 2003, when former Secretary of ...

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

*Refers to the latest 2 years of stltoday.com stories. Cancel anytime. Castor bean (ricinus communis). Photo from mobot.org. Q • Three years ago, I planted castor beans in my garden, and they thrived.