In late January, I was handed a small stack of mail, and on top was an envelope from the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), which I assumed to be a journal renewal notice. Upon opening the letter below, I sat stunned, unable to even fall from my chair, which would have been the appropriate response. After […]
Passion drives everything at NC State — the donors’ passions fuel our students’ passions, and our students’ passions inspire our donors’ passions. NC State University is hosting their annual Day of Giving on Wednesday, March 26, 2025. Please consider donating in support of Juniper Level Botanic Garden to preserve this world-class resource for future generations. You can
Passion Inspired, Donor Fueled Read More »
We wanted to share another thought-provoking column by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume about the myths of the invasive species movement. Clear-cutting is Clear-cutting, No Matter Where the Trees are From: A rant against dogma and eradication As regular readers know, critiquing the “invasive plant” narrative is one of my main themes here. The name of the
Clearing the Muddy Water Read More »
We were recently checking some surprising winter damage on one of our Schefflera delavayi specimens in the garden, and when we sliced open a stem, we found a lovely example of a chambered pith arrangement. Pith is a lightweight polystyrene like material, composed of parenchyma cells, and found in the center of stems of dicot
I’ve recently returned from a speaking tour in the Pacific Northwest, that included talks at the Bellevue Botanical Garden and the Northwest Flower and Garden Festival, both in the Seattle area. This is my second opportunity to speak at the show, which I’d rate as one of the top in the county. I was also
Flowering now in the garden is the Japanese wild ginger, Asarum fudsinoi. The glossy foliage on this 15″ wide clumper makes it one of the largest of the Japanese native Asarum species. Because of its tropical roots from the Southern Ryukyu Island, Amami-Oshimi (just south of Okinawa), it’s used to flowering quite early in the
Addition by Subduction Read More »
We always like to try new techniques, and when it comes to encouraging poorly offsetting century plants to produce offsets, anything is on the table. While we typically drill out the central core as we’ve show before, we thought we’d try a little Henry XIII action on this one. When agaves age, they often produce
Off with it’s Head Read More »
One of the frustrations of creating so many amazing new baptisia cultivars is the difficulty in getting them propagated to share. The propagation part of baptisias is actually easy, but it’s the overwintering of cuttings that is not. We root our baptisia cuttings in 48 count cell packs early in the growing season, and by
This Bud’s for You Read More »
Most years in fall, we sell off several of our large potted specimen century plants to make room in our overwintering greenhouse. 2024 was no different, but as is usually the case, all of the plants don’t sell. One that didn’t move was our large pot of Agave asperrima ‘Grand Duke’, so we decided to
Grand Duke Surprise Read More »
This January, we first flowered Hippeastrum idimae, a 2017 published species from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that we received from our friends at Yucca Do in 2015. This new species was discovered by amateur Brazilian botanist, Idimá Gonçalves da Costa, in a long-ago deforested area, where it had survived among a few granite outcrops. This
Not your Average Amaryllis Read More »
