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 ...

I always enjoy having something in my garden that makes my neighbors say "What the heck is THAT?". In the past it's been black tomatoes and pretzel bean vines. This year it's my castor bean plants, ...

Dear Master Gardener: I was given a small plant as a gift last spring. It grew into a gigantic plant with striking leaves and spiky pink seed pods. I've learned it is a castor bean plant. I'd like to ...

Q: I want to grow the huge, gorgeous red-leafed plants I've seen on my neighbors' stoops. But I've been told they are ricinus, the plant that was used to assassinate the Bulgarian dissident Georgi I.

I was looking at the delightfully spiky fruit of a castor bean plant recently, and speaking to the horticulturist who grows them where I work at Washington State University. Castor bean plants are an ...