We’ve long been fascinated with dwarf spruces that will survive our intense summer heat and humidity, and here are a few from our collection that are still looking great after a brutally hot, humid, and dry summer. The first is Picea abies ‘Hereny’. This dwarf Norway spruce was discovered in Hungary by Józsa Miklós, and
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In 2005, 21 years ago, we were botanizing in Northern Vietnam, when we decided to head east toward the town of Baba. After several hours, we arrived at the edge of a large river, only to find that the bridge, shown on our maps, had yet to be built. Instead of backtracking several hours, we
Looking great in the garden this week is one of our many favorite ferns, Microlepia strigosa ‘MacFaddeniae’. This interesting selection of the Japanese native fern was named for the garden of California’s Fay MacFadden, who got it from California’s Mr. Baldwin Nursery in the 1920s. Most winters it remains evergreen for us, but can become
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
Green Jeans in the Garden Read More »
Few shrubs we grow evoke an emotional response quite like Osmanthus fragrans ‘Beni Kim Mokusei’. For all its power to inspire devotion, however, it has no connection to the perfectly coiffed televangelist Benny Hinn. This amazing Chinese native evergreen comes in white, yellow, and orange flowered forms. The orange flowering clones are known as Osmanthus
Oh Beni, She is Really Keen Read More »
Last Thursday, our sunken garden rock wall construction project began, with the goal of converting a rather boring 130′, dry stacked rock wall, built in 2003, into a more imaginative, botanically diverse rock garden space. As mentioned in an earlier blog, we hired former JLBG staffer, Jerermy Schmidt, now of Hortco, to design and manage
Rockin’ Around the Redwood Trees Read More »
Over a period of years, we’ve tried three different clones of the Eastern Himalayan (India to Myanmar) native banana, Musa ornata, with no luck getting them to survive. We finally gave up, concluding that it simply wasn’t winter hardy here, living up to its on-line reputation of being a Zone 9-11 plant. That was before
On a 2015 visit to Judith Jones’, Washington-based Fancy Fronds Nursery, we left with many ferns, including a very lacy plant with a tag of Arachniodes sp. Chile. Back in NC, the fern thrived in the garden, and as we studied the tag closer, it turned out to actually say Arachniodes sp. China. This turned
Hemlock-leaf Bristle Fern Read More »
Flowering now is the amazing Coreopsis palustris ‘Summer Sunshine’, an award-winning 2000 Plant Delights/JLBG introduction. Although it’s native to swampy forests, from NC south to Florida. We have found that Coreopsis palustris makes an even better specimen in full sun, and in regular garden soil…as long as the soil doesn’t get bone dry. For us,
Summer Sunshine Swamp Tickseed Read More »
Early fall is Hemiboea time in the garden, and the the first to flower this year, is the little-known Hemiboea gracilis. The specific epithet, “gracile” means graceful. This hardy gesneriad (African violet family) naturally grows in mountain valleys and streamside among rocks, from 1,000 – 4,000′ elevation in South Central China. As you can see,
