Looking like it’s covered by a dusting of snow is our garden specimen of Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘Kaori Hime’. This amazing plant is adorned, starting in early November, with thousands of sweetly scented, small white flowers. In Japan, the word “hime” literally translates to young lady of nobility, such as a princess. In plant names, however,
Tiny Leaves, Tiny Flowers, and a Big Belly Read More »
One of the first plants we ever put in the ground, when we purchased the first piece of land that would become JLBG, was the red-twigged Japanese maple, Acer palmatum ‘Sango Kaku’. It didn’t take long before the red no longer showed on the branches, and while we were quite disappointed, we allowed the specimen
Redneck Maple, All Grown Up Read More »
While most everyone knows about, or has had a first hand experience with a persimmon, few gardeners have ventured to grow anything outside of two species, our native, Diospyros virginiana, and the Japanese persimmon, Diospyros kaki. Would you believe that there are an astounding 787 species of persimmon. In fruit this week at JLBG is
Parsimonius Persimmon Read More »
While fall is the season for garden mums, most folks grow only the fancy hybrids. While we love these which make good perennials, we hope you won’t forget about some of the amazing wild species, especially Chrysanthemum zawadzki. This Eurasian species is a dwarf, reaching only 1′ in height. It was described in 1829 from
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 »
The amazing Southeast US native groundcover, Amsonia ciliata ‘Georgia Pancake’ is putting on a stunning fall show now, as the foliage changes from rich green to gold, before going dormant for the winter. This is truly one of the most amazing, garden-worthy native perennials we grow. Amsonia ciliata ‘Georgia Pancake’ has been slow to propagate
Looking superb in the garden in early November is Arum concinnatum ‘Far and Away’. This special selection is a 2024 Plant Delights/JLBG introduction of a superbly patterned form of the Cretan native Arum concinnatum, collected in 2004, by the late aroid specialist, Alan Galloway. Arum ‘Far and Away’ has the most heavily silver patterned leaf
Far and Away, but so Near Read More »
We first posted an image of Hemiboea cavaleriei last year, but wanted to share an update image, now that our clump is more established. What an amazing show for the October and November woodland garden, until a frost arrives. Our plant gets a couple of hours or morning sun, then shade in the afternoon, where
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 »
Posing for a photo this week behind Colocasia ‘Redemption’ is a patch of Sorghastrum nutans ‘Slim Pickens’. This amazing form of the US native Indian Grass, named both for it’s form, and nativity to Pickens County, SC, has surpassed all other clones in the trade, in our trials at JLBG. The blue foliage, narrow form,
The Redemption of Being Slim Read More »
