Tony Avent

Also flowering this weekend was  the “lovely” pig’s butt arum, Helicodiceros muscivorus.  This odd aroid produces flowers that look, feel, and smell like the back side of a pig.  There should of these be more in flower for the second open house weekend, so be sure and sniff around the gardens while you’re here.  After

Here’s another hybrid fern that I would hate to garden without, Athyrium ‘Ocean’s Fury’.  This gem from NC’s Thurman Maness is a cross of our native lady fern with the Japanese painted fern.  The silvery leaves and petticoat tips are just fabulous!

Open house visitors also got to see our newest garden installation…a four seasons garden near the sales greenhouses that features many of the smaller plants which are at peak show during each of our four open house seasons.  Our own research horticulturist Jeremy Schmidt did the the bed design and rock work and here’s garden

It was great to see so many visitors for our first spring open nursery and garden weekend.  If you didn’t make it, or haven’t been in a while, here’s a photo of the main nursery and garden entrance driveway from this weekend…the Chionanthus virginicus (fringe trees) were in full bloom.

Here’s a native rock garden plant that’s just been so superb this spring that I had to share this photo…Silene caroliniana ‘Short and Sweet‘…full sun in the rock garden, growing among the agaves.

I was so thrilled this week to see that Agapanthus ‘Notfred‘ has overwintered this year.  We’ve never has any of the variegated leaf agapanthus cultivars to survive a cold winter, so this is a real eureka moment.