Flowering for the first time this year is one of our favorite umbellifers (carrot family), Molopospermum peleponnesiacum. We grow this for the fernlike foliage, so flower stalks are just an add-on. Molopospermum is a monotypic genus, meaning there is only a single species, which in this case hails from the Alps (France, Italy), and Pyrenees
Moly’s po sperm…Umm Read More »
We’ve assemble a decent collection of Hydrangea through the years, and while we love them all, it’s hard to to beat the Japanese/Korean mountain hydrangea selection, ‘Mak20’. This creation was a seedling from Hydrangea serrata ‘Maiko’, selected by the breeders at Michigan’s Spring Meadow Nursery. Our oldest plants are now eleven years old, and they
Tuff Mountain Hydrangea Read More »
2025 sets a record as we welcomed 22 different century plants into flower. We’ve set up our ladders for the pollination ritual, where we hike to the top with pollen we forcefully extracted from potential suitors and do our best to impregnate the moms. Then, we wait and hope for viable seed. This is Agave
The End of the Century is Approaching Read More »
One of the little-grown, but fabulous native milkweed species is Asclepias perennis. In the wild, this amazing plant is found from Indiana south into Texas, where it grows in seasonal flood plains, swamps, ditches, and otherwise wet areas. In the garden, however, we have found it very happy in average to moist garden soils, as
White Swamp Milkweed Read More »
I first met Juniperus chinensis ‘Aurea’ at the JC Raulston Arboretum in 2018, grown from cuttings taken at Richmond, Virginia’s Maymont Garden. We struggled to find a cultivar name, toying first with naming it Juniperus ‘Maymont Gold’. It wasn’t until horticultural cultivar historian, Larry Hatch, of Cultivar.org, told us that this is the true Juniperus
Putting on quite a show now is the little-known Chinese crape myrtle species, Lagerostroemia limii. In the wild, this lowland species is only found in the Chinese provinces of Fujian, Hubei, and Zhejiang. Unlike, Lagerostroemia indica and L. faureii which have smooth bark, this species has rough, furrowed bark. The leaves are also many times larger
Limii Crape Myrtle Read More »
Just finishing up its flowering show in the garden is the baptisia cousin, Pediomelum piedmontanum ‘Columbia’, commonly known as Dixie breadroot. Commonly, probably isn’t exactly the right word, since this southeast native is anything but common. In fact, it’s only known from three counties, one in Georgia, and two in South Carollina, hence a G1
This combination recently caught our eye, where we planted the variegated tiger lily, Lilium lancifolium ‘Fukurin Fu’ in the midst of Clematis ‘Rain Dance’.
Looking lovely in the garden now is the Japanese selection of Osmanthus heterophyllus, known as ‘Goshiki’. The Japanese translation of Goshiki is literally, five colors, which accurately describes the intricate patterning and color changes in the foliage. The evergreen shrub, itself, is native to Japan, Korea, and into Taiwan. As the new growth emerges in
Go Seek Yee Five Colors Read More »
Putting on quite a show this week is the native bog orchid, Calopogon tuberosus…aka: grass pink. In the wild, these have a huge native range, from Canada south to Florida. Loving the same growing conditions as sarracenia (pitcher plants), they thrive here in full sun, in a bed of 50% peat/sand. If you have time
Grass Pink Swamp Orchid Read More »
