While walking around the garden recently, we spied a bright gold sport on a patch of Juniperus conferta ‘Sunsplash’, that had sent out several all gold branches. Sports are fairly common on an array of garden plants, but few ever wind up having any garden or commercial value. We like the brightness of the gold,
With 145 species in the fern genus, Ctenitis (pronounced tinnitus), you’d think everyone with a woodland garden would have at least one, but sadly, that isn’t the case. In fact, we’d bet there are few Ctenitis ferns grown anywhere is cultivation. Our favorite species is the tardily deciduous Ctenitis subglandulosa ‘Hoshizaki’, which hails from Bhutan
Ctenitis ringing in the Ears Read More »
Walmart may have official greeters, but we have check out Jasper. The twelve year-old Jasper Avent serves both as our official greeter, checkout guardian, and official tour guide. We’re sure many of you have had the chance to meet, chat, and walk the gardens with Jasper when you visited.
Standing out in the garden in October is the dramatic North American (Northwestern Mexico) native, Salvia madrensis ‘Red Neck Girl’. This 2002 Plant Delights/JLBG introduction is still one of our most spectacular introductions. The winged red stems are the main feature through the summer months, but once fall arrives, the giant stalks of yellow flowers
In full flower now, is yet another member of the Chinese gesneriad genus, Hemiboea. Hemiboea cavaleriei is a rarely cultivated species and forms a spreading mass to 30″ tall x 7′ wide in only 2.5 years. For us, flowering started in early October, and will continue until frost. In China and neighboring Vietnam, it grows
Boea Unconstricted Read More »
This year, we introduced an amazing new Chinese collection of the shade-loving Mioga ginger, that we named Zingiber mioga ‘Lushan Gold’, from an Atlanta Botanical Garden expedition. It’s amazing, first, in that it clumps, instead or runs like many forms of the species. We grew quite a few from seed, looking for any that might
Despite it being 55 years ago, it’s still impossible to not flash back to Monty Python’s ridiculous “The Larch” skit, from their “How to Recognise Different Types of Trees from Quite a Long Way Away”. Although we’re limited in the true larches we can grow here, one that does thrive, and one of the earliest
Real News…Fake Larch Read More »
Looking great in the garden now is the amazing southeast US (coastal NC south to northern Florida) native, Coreopsis palustris ‘Summer Sunshine’. Our 2000 introduction has rated at the top of the list at the famed Mt. Cuba native plant trials. It’s nice when one of our introductions get the independent adulation it deserves. Although
Looking amazing this month is the evergreen, southeast US native groundcover, Houstonia procumbens. Our selection of roundleaf bluets, Houstonia ‘White Clay’, is our 2003 cutting collection from Clay County, Florida. Originally discovered in 1902 in Charleston, South Carolina, and hailing from the southeastern US, (southeastern South Carolina west to eastern Louisiana), roundleaf bluets live their
Florida’s Houston-ia Read More »
Apologies for writing about this two years in a row, but few plants give us more joy in the fall garden that Allium kiiense. A couple of years ago, nursery sales of this were so poor that we planted about 40 plants to create a green mass on 1′ centers, as one would do with
Making sense with Kiiense Read More »
