(Distributed 04/25/14) Senorita Rosalita cleome and its new cousin, Senorita Blanca, are great plants for flowers from late spring through frost. Also known as spider flower because the projecting stamens of the flowers give these plants a spidery look, this plant can take summer's heat and is drought-tolerant.

(Distributed 04/25/14) HAMMOND, La. – We all crave color in our landscapes. Beds full of annual and perennial flowering plants are often the primary source of landscape color, but they require a lot of work to keep them looking nice.

(Distributed 04/24/14) ROBERT, La. – Whether petting an alligator, planting native wetland plants or sampling macronvertebrates, Girl Scouts visiting Shell’s Robert Training & Conference Center got an up-close lesson on the diversity of animals and plant life found in Louisiana wetlands as part of the LSU AgCenter’s 4-H Youth Wetlands Week.

(Distributed 04/24/14) BATON ROUGE, La. – The Building Green Cities Baton Rouge organization has scheduled a day-long workshop on May 12 to discuss water issues in the parish.

(Distributed 04/23/14) BATON ROUGE, La. – Dinah Schuster has been named senior director of development for agriculture at LSU. In this newly created LSU Foundation position, she will develop a comprehensive fundraising plan for the LSU AgCenter and College of Agriculture.

(Distributed 04/22/14) BATON ROUGE, La. – Transforming home kitchen recipes into products that can be sold in stores involves more science than some people may realize. Fortunately for LSU AgCenter Food Incubator tenants, food scientist Luis Espinoza is on hand to help them do everything from keeping better records to making a product all natural.

(Distributed 04/17/14) Many coreopsis are available for our Louisiana landscapes. Coreopsis, sometimes called tickseed, are herbaceous perennial flowers. We sometimes treat these as annuals and sometimes as perennials. The larger-flowered varieties are usually most popular with home gardeners.

(Distributed 04/17/14) BATON ROUGE, La. — The LSU College of Agriculture’s Poultry Judging Team swept the competition at the USPOULTRY National Poultry Judging Contest April 2-4 on the LSU campus. LSU’s team competed against nine other universities.

(Distributed 04/17/14) BATON ROUGE, La. – 4-H’ers from across the state competed in the state 4-H Commodity Ambassador contests on April 15 on the LSU campus in Baton Rouge. In all, 116 4-H’ers competed in the Chicken, Egg, Seafood, Sugar and Turkey Ambassador contests.

(Distributed 04/17/14) HAMMOND, La. – Buddleia, known by most home gardeners as butterfly bush, is becoming an increasingly popular plant in the home landscape. Mostly because this perennial is highly favored by butterflies as a nectar plant.