Looking great in our marginal wetland garden this month (November) is the African papyrus, Cyperus alternifolius….an African/Madagascar/Arabian peninsula native. This popular houseplant is also winter hardy outdoors if winter temperatures don’t drop below 10 degree F. Most winters, it remains evergreen or semi-evergreen for us, until late winter. We’ve also found that it will tolerate
Every now and then a new cultivar of an existing genus comes along, that completely re-writes what we know of, and think of that genus. Such is the case with the toad lily, Tricyrtis ‘Fluffy Orchid’. Most new breeding breakthroughs are the result of extensive, planned breeding projects, but this one just showed up. As
Fall Fluffy Orchid Read More »
Below is a current photo of our oldest plant of Sabal ‘Blackburniana’, planted in 2008. This plant is one of several elusive mysteries in the hardy palm world. Some references say it’s the same as Sabal palmetto, but our plants look nothing like that species, and our plant is dramatically more winter hardy than Sabal
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Since we last posted about our rock garden wall project, we’ve wrapped up the rock placement, led by rock garden design savant, Jeremy Schmidt of Hortco. All that remains is to finish the planting and re-work some of the nearby walkways, some, which have been disrupted by some significant tree root issues. Below is Jeremy
The Wall and New Plantings Really Rock Read More »
Just when you think you’ve seen it all… Walking through the garden this week, I noticed that one of our Amorphophallus konjac seedlings had decided to flower at the completely wrong time of year, and to make matters worse, in doing so, it suffered from a crotch blowout. You’ve gotta love Mother Natures’ sense of
There are few North American native shrubs that put on a better show for us and the native bees, than silver prairie clover, Dalea bicolor var. argyaea. This amazing dryland evergreen in the legume family, is clothed in small, bright silver foliage, which, starting for us in early October is adorned with hundreds of small
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Putting on an elegant show in the fall woodland garden is the hardy gesneriad, Briggsia mihieri. Some taxonomists have recently moved it to a sister genus, Glabrella mihieri, but we’ll let the dust settle before making the change. Native to only three Chinese provinces, Guangxi, Guizhou and Sichuan, it’s a high elevation plant, occurring between
A perennial that’s certainly not rare, and one I wouldn’t garden without, is the amazing South American (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay) native, bicolor purple shamrock. Perennial for us, here in Zone 7b/8a, Oxalis triangularis ‘Atropurpurea’ looks great in spring, goes on vacation during the heat of summer, then returns in fall with another glorious display. For
One of the most colorful plants of the fall garden is Clerodendrum speciosissimum ‘Arkansas Hardy’. This Indonesian native is rightly listed as only hardy to Zone 9 by most sources. Years ago, however, Arkansas customer, David Cockrell, told us about a form that was winter hardy there, which he later shared. His clone, shown below
Eysenhardtia is a small genus of only 13 species in the pea family, Fabaceae, native from the Southwestern US, south into Central America. The star of the genus in our climate is Eysenhardtia texana, in particular, a winter hardy Patrick McMillan collection from Uvalde, Texas. For us, this small, deciduous, dryland shrub, is adorned with
Flocking to Eysenhardt Read More »
