Despite a summer with a month of incessant rains, our patch of Acantholimoni halophilum continues to thrive. This native to very dry regions of Central Turkey should not have a chance in our hot, rainy summer climate. This shows how habitat creation can can often serve to mitigate the effects of weather on plants from […]
If Life gives you Climatic Lemons, try Acantholimon Read More »
While we don’t use the plastic types, with metal ground stakes, we do have one Pink Flamingo that we allow in our garden. That would be Muhlenbergia ‘Pink Flamingos’, the hybrid of two native grasses, Muhlenbergia sericea and Muhlenbergia lindheimeri. It’s hard to argue with the dazzling effect of the plumes of this Yucca Do
Fashionable Pink Flamingos Read More »
The final surprise lily to flower in our collection is Lycoris x lajolla (pronounced La Hoya). This Sam Caldwell cross of Lycoris aurea x Lycoris traubii was first published by the late Hamilton Traub in 1958, but sadly has never made it into cultivation. We are fortunate to have acquired several clones, of which we
After going 0 for 3 in the past couple of decades to even get spores to even germinate, we now have the amazing, dwarf rock garden fern, Aspidotis densea (dense lace fern) thriving in the crevice garden. Because of it’s native range from Canada south through central California, we started with two strikes against us,
While all of the pitcher plants in the genus, Sarracenia produce pitchers in spring, some also produce new sets of pitchers in fall. The star of the fall show, with the best autumn pitcher production is the white-topped pitcher, Sarracenia leucophylla, a native to bogs from Georgia west to Mississipppi. Below are a few plants
The Tall Pitchers of Fall Read More »
Although the title sounds like it, we’re not promoting a new Woody Allen flick. It seems that despite having 27 agaves in the garden flower this spring and summer, three more have taken leave of their proverbial senses, and started sending up flower spikes that won’t open until fall, including the top Agave x amourifolia
The Smell of Love and Death is in the Fall Air Read More »
We love our adult ivies…the well behaved adult shrub forms of the pesky vines. Based on our observations, so do the native pollinators, which flock to them like nothing else in our fall garden. Pictured below is our nine year-old clump of Hedera colchica ‘Green Spice’ flowering in early October. This is an adult form
Our Favorite Spice Girl – Green Spice Read More »
One of our favorite textural plants in the woodland garden is the amazing Alpinia japonica ‘Green Waves’. This ginger rarely flowers here, unless we have a particularly mild winter, but who cares when you have great foliage like this. The ruffled foliage of this form, from the late specialty nurseryman, Don Jacobs garden, is not
Riding the Green Waves Read More »
Here’s our latest bit of mangave related plant breeding craziness. In 2015, we (Zac Hill) used pollen from a Jon Lindstrom xPolifreda hybrid (Manfreda maculosa x Polianthes geminiflora) to pollinate a flowering Agave victoriae-reginae. To our surprise, we got a single viable seed, creating a tri-generic x Hansara (name unpublished), that we named H. ‘Queen
Recreating Frankenstein? Read More »
In 1994, when I first saw the tree yucca, Yucca filifera, growing in the mountains of Northern Mexico, it immediately went on my plant lust list. My first plants, acquired under the old name, Yucca australis, all met with a demise as untimely as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. I thought our garden spots
Climbing to the Hairy Top Read More »
