276,800 - plants in the permanent collection
  272,000 - visitors in 2008
  28,666 - hours of volunteer service in 2008
  12,000 - member households
  9,000 - types of plants
  600 - active volunteers
  100 - approximate number of weddings on grounds per year

Q. What plants are toxic to pets? A. Plants that could affect the heart include nerium oleander, rhododendron species, lily of the valley, oleander, azalea, rosebay and foxglove. Plants that could cause kidney failure include lilies (lilium and hemerocallis species, in cats only); rhubarb (rheum species—leaves only); and shamrock (oxalis species).

Establishing a butterfly habitat is as simple as choosing the right plants. Your garden will need host plants, which caterpillars feed on, and nectar plants, the food of adult butterflies. “Butterflies like waves of plants, not onesies and twosies,“ said Peggy Singlemann, horticulture director at Maymont. “With a mass grouping, they don’t destroy your one plant. They have more food to choose from.“

Looking to beautify your garden and bolster your culinary prowess? Pick up a variety of rich green, aromatic potted herbs. They’re easy to grow, add variety to your landscape and provide fresh flavor to anything you cook. A good place to start is at Herbs Galore & More, which celebrates its 25th anniversary at Maymont tomorrow. The area’s first big plant sale of the season drew almost 5,000 people last year, according to Cathie Rosenberg, Maymont’s director of marketing.

Matt Goldman wants everyone with a backyard, balcony or pot full of dirt to try growing fruit. Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, figs, even certain species of kiwi will thrive in Richmond, said Goldman, nursery manager at Virginia Berry Farm, a Ruther Glen business that sells plants through catalogs and retail garden centers.

Hardy flowers—Winter pansies in yellows and purples and flowering cabbages and kale in purples and whites will bloom throughout winter until temperatures drop into single digits.

Erica Gilliam says winter is a gardener’s time to dream. “Winter is absolutely the most ideal time to sit down with a blanket, cuddle up in the sunlight by a window and enjoy those plant and seed catalogs,“ said Gilliam, a master gardener in Henrico County. It’s also a time to ready your garden for spring. There are plants to prune, tools to clean, seeds to buy, structures to repair, compost heaps to turn and vegetable and flower beds to plan.

The frugal buying habits of worried consumers are translating into more job losses in the Richmond area. Now, the industry that makes packaging for products ranging from DVDs to cosmetics is taking a hit—and that’s a bad signal for the economy at large this year, economists say. MeadWestvaco Corp., a Fortune 500 packaging and paper-products company, announced yesterday that it would cut 2,000 jobs—10 percent of its worldwide work force—by the end of the year to save money as it contends with the recession. About 800 of the cuts will come in the first quarter.

Mark Landa and his staff at Boulevard Flower Gardens in Colonial Heights are busy preparing the company’s more than 10,000plant poinsettia crop for the upcoming holidays. The colorful plants, everything from red to a Jinglebell mix, take up nine greenhouses. The company grows poinsettias along with in-season bedding plants and vegetables.

Mark Landa and his staff at Boulevard Flower Gardens in Colonial Heights are busy preparing the company’s more than 10,000plant poinsettia crop for the upcoming holidays. The colorful plants, everything from red to a Jinglebell mix, take up nine greenhouses. The company grows poinsettias along with in-season bedding plants and vegetables.

WASHINGTON—Scientists who are seeking new sources of clean energy are trying to mimic the way plants and trees do it, by converting sunlight into fuel. Unlike standard solar panels on rooftops or arrays of solar collectors in the desert, this is a form of “artificial photosynthesis.“ It tries to imitate the elaborate system that microbes, algae and green plants developed over 3 billion of years of evolution.