Welcome to our blog!

This winter was great at sorting out winter hardiness of several plants, and one of the nice surprises was Musa ‘Helen’s Hybrid’…a cross of Musa sikkimensis with nice reddish leaf backs.  Here it is today at 10′ tall…survived with no mulch or protection.

Looking quite lovely in the garden now is our native Sabatia kennedyana.  This easy-to-grow perennial needs slightly moist soil and several hours of sun daily.  Sabatia is a rather small plant, with all the flowering stems emerging from a rather tiny basal rosette.  Sabatia is first cousin to the better known gentians.

Here’s a fun combination in the garden today where we used the airy ornamental grass, Sporobolus wrightii as a backdrop for the bold texture of Canna ‘Australia’.  You’ll see this and more if you drop by this weekend for the final three days of our Summer Open Nursery and Garden.

We’ve had great flowering on the sotols this year as shown here with our clump of Dasylirion berlandieri.  Unlike agave, dasylirions don’t die after flowering.  These North American native are incredible insect attractants when in flower.  Hot, sunny, and well-drained are the keys to growing good sotols.

We’ve spent the last two weeks renovating our alpine scree berm plantings, which were originally installed in 1998.  This meant digging up virtually all the plants, adding additional compost to the soil, and then rearranging and replanting.  Here’s a new shot of the finished plantings on the inside of the bed…we love transplanting in midsummer! 

Here’s a fun combination in the garden today…Miscanthus ‘Gold Bar‘ and Tanacetum ‘Isla Gold’, showing how you can echo colors while contrasting forms and textures.