This week, we spotted a variegated sport on a large hedge of Thuja ‘Green Giant’ at JLBG. Sports are a common term used to refer to plant mutations. These mutations, which are often chimeral in nature, occur due to an error during the cell division process. This is similar to what happens when cancers develop […]
Are you a Good Sport or a Bad Sport? Read More »
The seed pots below may not look particularly exciting, but to us, this birthing moment is one worth celebrating. Just over a year ago, we flowered our first plant of the North American native (New York south to Louisiana), Frasera caroliniensis. Like an agave, frasera takes up to two decades to flower, after which it
Frasera in Re-runs Read More »
We wanted to remind you of a couple of immenent deadlines. The first is our on-site class this Saturday at PDN/JLBG, about Understanding Soils in the Garden, from 10-noon. This annual class for the last 30 years, is chance to take a deep dive into understanding the importance of garden soils, and how to manage
Don’t Miss Deadlines Read More »
We were delighted to host two phenomenal UK plantsmen last week, John Grimshaw (l), and Tom Christian (r). John is the Editor and Tom, the Assistant Editor, of the encyclopedic Trees and Shrubs On-Line project, which we’ve written about before. Sponsored by the International Dendrology Society, their goal is to update and expand their on-line
A Day of Dendrology Read More »
We often mention our horticultural mentor, the late Dr. J.C. Raulston, but sadly, most young, and even middle age gardeners, are not familiar with his life story, despite his influence still strongly being felt throughout the horticultural world. To commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death in 2026, UNC Press is reprinting Bobby Ward’s original
Chlorophyll in his Veins Read More »
One of our favorite fall-flowering trees is the tropical-looking Schefflera delavayi. As a child, I was always enamored with schefflera on our family vacations to Florida, never dreaming it would be possible to grow these “tropicals” in our Raleigh garden. Fast forward 60 years, a number of “hardy” schefflera species in the Arailaceae family have
Delavay’s Schefflera is a now a Heap of Pleureum Read More »
Now that we’ve passed 2,600 blogs, which equates to one blog per day for 7.17 years, I thought it might be interesting to pull back the curtain on how we organize the images we share. Much of the way we look at images was influenced by our mentor, the late J.C. Raulston. J.C. once lamented
Pulling Back the Image Curtain Read More »
Back in 2016, we were fortunate to flower a plant of Agave victoriae-reginae in the garden. We were intrigued to see if we could create a hybrid with it, and the amazing Agave ovatifolia. Since we didn’t have Agave ovatifolia (pictured below) in flower that year, we used pollen we’d saved from a 2013 flowering,
Victor Victoria – Sex in Reverse Read More »
There are more ways to add color to the fall garden other than planting a new crop of mums. Each fall, we enjoy the colors provided when the Red-spotted Purple butterflies, Limenitis arthemis, stop by to feed on the sweet nectar secreted by the white-topped pitcher plant, Sarracenia leucophylla. Depending on the angle of the
Sipping from a Dangerous Pitcher Read More »
We’ve not had the greatest of luck growing many of the super showy fritilarias (bulbs), but we’ve fared far better with fritillarys. The common name for both the plant and insect, derive from the Latin word fritillus, which loosely translates to “checkerboard pattern”, in particular, the stunningly beautiful, Gulf Coast Fritillary, Dione vanillae, which showed up
A Checkered Past…from Fritillaria to Fritillarys Read More »
