Agave x victosa ‘Starfish’ is one of our prize agaves, a very rare hybrid between Agave victoriae-reginae and Agave bracteosa, which we planted in 2004. Knowing that it was approaching flowering size, at which point, it would die, and since it has never offset, we chose to drill out the central core, to force it
Where there’s a Will, There is a Way Read More »
It’s always exciting for us when we finally are able to build up enough stock of a new agave we’ve selected, so we can finally publicly share. Since some agaves never offset naturally, they must first spend years confined to our 50 Shades of Gray torture bench, where we perform unthinkable deeds to force them
New Releases from The Tortured Agave Department Read More »
This week, we spotted a variegated sport on a large hedge of Thuja ‘Green Giant’ at JLBG. Sports are a common term used to refer to plant mutations. These mutations, which are often chimeral in nature, occur due to an error during the cell division process. This is similar to what happens when cancers develop
Are you a Good Sport or a Bad Sport? Read More »
In 2024, I happened to check out one of the plant auction sites, and was shocked to see a listing for an edged form of Agave utahensis ssp. utahensis var. nevadensis. I had only seen one listed twice before, and each time, the price for a tiny, unrooted division topped $10,000 USD. Both times, the
Gambling with Liberty and Death Read More »
We always like to try new techniques, and when it comes to encouraging poorly offsetting century plants to produce offsets, anything is on the table. While we typically drill out the central core as we’ve show before, we thought we’d try a little Henry XIII action on this one. When agaves age, they often produce
Off with it’s Head Read More »
One of the frustrations of creating so many amazing new baptisia cultivars is the difficulty in getting them propagated to share. The propagation part of baptisias is actually easy, but it’s the overwintering of cuttings that is not. We root our baptisia cuttings in 48 count cell packs early in the growing season, and by
This Bud’s for You Read More »
One of the most coveted plants in our garden are the variegated forms of the Asian broadleaf evergreen, Daphniphyllum. Of the 30 species, only two have named variegated forms, Daphniphyllum macropodum and Daphniphyllum teysmannii . As best we know, these were first brought into the US from Japan in the early 1990s, by Barry Yinger of
Daphniphyllum ‘Mountain Dove’ Read More »
We have long been fascinated with tissue culture, and it’s ability to produce a large number of difficult to propagate plants in a short time. Without tissue culture, many of the plants we grow in our gardens today, simply wouldn’t be available. New hostas, that we all enjoy, would still be priced north of $200
The Great Lab Experiment Read More »
With all the odd plants we grow, we are constantly experimenting with new propagation techniques. An idea we’ve played around with for years is being able to root agaves from leaf cuttings. Below is our latest success rooting a variegated selection of Agave ghiesbrichtii from a single leaf. The leaf was stuck right at 12
It only takes a Leaf Read More »
JLBG/PDN was thrilled to recently host the attendees of the Southeastern Region meeting of the International Plant Propagators Society (IPPS) in late October. The society is open to anyone actively involved in the art/science of plant propagation. Attendees are usually split between green industry professional, allied trades, academic educators, and horticultural students. This is the
The Came, They Saw, They Shared, and They Propgated Read More »
