Ever since hearing the hit song, Signs, in 1970, I’ve been fascinated with collecting images of signs around the world, as a reflection of the public conscience. Signs show the entire range human consciousness, from edgy satire to a lack of educational basics. This week, when picking up a new pair of eyeglasses, I was […]
Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign Read More »
In Greek mythology, chimeras are imaginary creatures, often formed by combining parts of several other creatures together into one. Classic examples are centaurs and mermaids. In plants, there are three types of foliage chimeras, sectoral, mericlinal, and periclinal. Sectorial is represented by plants like Philodendron ‘Thai Constellation, which has randomly flecked leaves. Periclinal chimeras are
The Mystery of Chimeras Read More »
Flowering now in a shaded part of the crevice garden is the lovely Cunila origanoides (American Dittany). Of the 20 species in the genus of shrub mints, all from the Americas, this is the only one with a US distribution, being found from in a wide band from New York west to Texas. These are
The genus Pancratium in the Amaryllid family has long been a garden favorite, despite few others gardeners growing them. There seem to be several etymological theories on the derivation of the name. The root, “Pagkration” means almighty in Greek. Consequently, some folks think the genus name refers to ancient Greek sport of pankration, which involves
Sickenberg’s Pancreas Flower Read More »
Eurybia hemispherica ‘Baby Blues’ (southern prairie aster), formerly known as Aster hemispherica, is a little-grown South Central US (Kansas south to Florida) native aster that’s thrived in our full sun garden since 2011. This Van der Giessen Nursery collection of this little-known mesic (moderately moist) to dryland species hails from the Black Belt region of
The Aster hemisphere Read More »
Every year, we post photos from our years long experiment growing the African native lithops (living stones) in the garden. Our success underscore our contention that so much of the information you find on-line and in books, is simply incorrect. As we’ve discussed in the past, lithops are much more winter hardy than is generally
Mythops – The Art of Living Stoned Read More »
I first met orchid trees on a Florida vacation when I was quite young, amazed at both the fascinating leaves and the unique flowers. At the time, I assumed the entire genus to be tropical. I was decades later, when I discovered that in fact there are a few Zone 7 winter hardy species. Our
Hardy Orchid Tree Read More »
Three years ago, we wrote about a new, winter hardy selection of bushy muhly grass, Muhlenbergia dumosa, collected by Patrick McMillan in the Patagonia mountains of Arizona, that should be much more winter hardy than the Zone 9 genetics that have been in the trade since the 1980s. From our initial planting in 2020, our
From Patagonia with Love Read More »
A splendid native ornamental grass that is virtually unknown in both gardens and Google, is the East Coast (Rhode Island south to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula) coastal native, Panicum amarulum or dune switchgrass. It was named in 1900 from specimens in Virginia Beach, and for years lived a free and independent life, until someone decided that
Another Panic-ed Name Change Read More »
We love any plants that attract our native blue-winged wasps, Scolia dubia, to the garden, and few plants do that better in fall than the beautiful Sedum ‘Frosted Fire’. These amazing beneficial pollinators attack pesky insects like Japanese beetle grubs, so this is an insect you want to attract to your garden. In our area,
Blue wings and Pink flowers Read More »
