JLBG is now up to 61 cast iron plant species, making our collection mostly likely the world’s most extensive. One of the truly great garden cast iron plants we had the pleasure of introducing was Aspidistra basalis, which we first offered in 2010, nearly two years before it became an official species. Our clone, Aspidistra basalis ‘Green Jeans’, came from the late plantsman, Greg Speichert who obtained it from China’s Nanjing Botanical Garden. Aspidistra basalis ‘Green Jeans’ has made a great woodland garden plant here at Juniper Level for well over a decade, during which time, the Jiangsu native has formed a nice 4′ wide patch of very dark glossy green, 30″ tall x 1.5″ wide leaves. The photo below was taken this week. In the fifteen years we’ve grown it, it’s never shown any winter damage.
After selling this selection for over a decade, we never sold more than 150 plants. It has thus been retired from production, but makes quite a statement in the woodland garden.
Aspidistra basalis ‘Green Jeans’
I’ve always wondered when you say ‘retired from production’ does this mean the plants are in commercial production elsewhere or are they destined to disappear forever? That would be a shame.
Retired means that it will no longer be commercially available, usually due to poor sales. In most cases, but not all, there are no other vendors offering these plants.