We love the winter color forms of the fascinating spikemoss, Selaginella tamariscina. This Asian (China, Japan, Korea, Russia, India, Taiwan, Thailand, and Philipines) native naturally has solid green foliage, but through the centuries, Japanese gardeners have made countless selections with colored foliage. I’m particularly fond of Selaginella ‘Golden Sprite’ (below). In growth, these make very
Our plant of Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘Snow Cream’ is jam packed with flower buds in early January. These will begin to open, usually in early February, as bright yellow, incredibly fragrant flowers. This particular specimen celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. We didn’t name or introduce it until 2000, but since that time, it’s made its
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We have long had a fascination for evergreen oaks, and one we absolutely love is the Asian, Lithocarpus hancei var. ternaticupula. I have never seen this in another botanical collection, although a few certainly must exist. We tried two seedlings from different Taiwanese collections, and the lowland collection quickly succumbed to our cold winters. The
Looking great in the garden, as we turn the page on a new year is the Japanese bay tree. I first met Machilus thunbergii (Lauraceae) thanks to my horticultural mentor, the late J.C. Raulston, who extolled the virtues of this evergreen tree, native to Taiwan, Southern China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. J.C. had been frustrated,
Looking great new in the woodland garden now is the evergreen Selaginella braunii. Native to ten provinces in Southern China, this evergreen spikemoss can either grow in the ground (terrestrial), or as an epilith (on rocks), but always as a xerophyte (adapted to the driest of conditions), and always below 5,500′ elevation. The plants slowly
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
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While many woodland ferns go dormant in fall, there are actually quite a few that remain evergreen through the winter months. One of our favorites is the compact Asian (China, Japan, Korea) native, Dryopteris uniformis ‘Cristata’, with each pinnae ending in a ruffled petticoat. Below is our 20″ tall x 2′ wide clump in early
Looking lovely this fall/early winter is the fascinating Asian beautyberry, Callicarpa rubella, planted here beside the golden, Juniperus conferta ‘All Gold’. This little-known beautyberry species has been a star for us in the garden since 2015. Thanks to the US National Arboretum for sharing their wild collection.
Looking lovely in December are the Japanese Laurels of the genus, Aucuba. If you’ve hung around any southern gardeners, you already know that we often have some peculiar pronunciations. I’m from the south and still remember thinking, whaaat, the first time I heard someone talking about the A Coobers in their garden. Perhaps many folks
You’d need to be a pretty serious plant nerd to grow members of the obscure evergreen genus, Eurya, in your garden. Of the 160 species in the genus, we’ve tried four, which is possibly some sort of record. Eurya‘s family, Pentaphyllaceae, tells us that it has some other better known relatives, such as Ternstroemia and
