Flowering here in early January, is the little-known snowdrop, Galanthus snogerupii. This species hails from as very small region in central Greece. These are sometimes confused with Galanthus woronowii, and listed by some as a subspecies of Galanthus ikariae. Who says that plants can’t cheer you up on even the dreariest of days.
Hard to spell Snowdrop Read More »
Looking good in its full fruit mode in mid January is the holly, Ilex ‘Emily Brunner’. This hybrid of Ilex cornuta and Ilex latifolia has proven to be one of the best specimen hollies we grow. A mature specimen is 20′ tall x 20′ wide, so if you’re planting this, give it enough space. Years
Being Fruity isn’t always a Bad Thing Read More »
I remember first seeing on-line images of Agave bracteosa ‘Monaco Princess’ over two decades ago, and it was lust at first sight. Tracking down my new found target of desire proved much more difficult than I could have ever imagined. After some deep on-line dives, I was able to determine that the plant was discovered
Lusting after the Princess of Monaco Read More »
We have long had a fascination for evergreen oaks, and one we absolutely love is the Asian, Lithocarpus hancei var. ternaticupula. I have never seen this in another botanical collection, although a few certainly must exist. We tried two seedlings from different Taiwanese collections, and the lowland collection quickly succumbed to our cold winters. The
We’ve tried many times to grow the common rock garden perennial, Cerastium tomentosum, commonly known as Snow in Summer. Its origin in the European Alps, has not exactly been a climate match for our hot, humid summers. A few years ago, we were excited to obtain seed from a Balkan native cerastium from Greek plantsman,
Snow in a Real Summer Read More »
In fall, when everyone is rushing to bring their fern baskets indoors when the weather forecast calls for frost, we can be focusing on other garden chores, because our fern baskets remain outside during the winter. That’s because, instead of selecting tropical ferns, we use epiphytic (that naturally grow on trees) ferns of the genus,
Winter Fern Baskets Read More »
This is the time of year that we’re harvesting seed from our windmill palms, Trachycarpus fortunei. Unlike our native Sabal palms, which have both male and female flowers on each plant, Trachycarpus are usually either male or female. Consequently, if you’d like to have a seed crop, it’s best to plant these in groups of
Fortunate to get Seed Read More »
We had a number of hybrid Cycas (sago palms) to flower this year, but almost all were females. Unfortunately, we had only one male plant to flower, and it opened long after the females were receptive. Despite this, one of our females is still holding on to the unfertilized ovules, which result in these seasonally
It’s that time we look forward to each year…the on-line launch of the new Plant Delights catalog. 2025 makes our 39th year of a journey we could never have imagined would have lasted this long when we began. The 100+ new plants in this years catalog, include over 40 that are first time introductions anywhere
The Launch Window – A few Appetizers Read More »
We love planting garden combinations that cause visitors to have a moment of cognitive dissonance. One of those moments in the garden currently is illustrated in the combination of Picea orientalis with Sabal ‘DeFuniak’. I remember a visitor once commenting that they didn’t like it that we had planted cactus with ferns, since they found
Hot and Cold Detente Read More »
