Tuesday September 1 – The Redneck Alps For day two of field work, we headed north into the Apennine Mountains. We stopped for a supply of bottled water, now we had realized the extent of the heat and humidity we were facing. I am truly impressed with the cheese and meat section of the area
Pizza, Pasta, and Plants – Botanizing in Italy and Corsica (Part 2) Read More »
In 2019, I received an invitation to speak at the 2020 Murabilia Plant Festival in Lucca, Italy. As we got closer to the festival date in September of that year, it became obvious to festival organizers that the severity of the COVID epidemic in Italy would not allow the festival to be held for several years.
Pizza, Pasta, and Plants – Botanizing in Italy and Corsica (Part 1) Read More »
Flowering this week in our part shade rock garden, is the amazing, fall-flowered gesneriad, Titanotrichium oldhamii. This is simply an amazing plant that we grown for more than two decades. Several years ago, we were lucky enough to see in the wilds of Taiwan, where it grew from vertical rock walls. Light, but open shade,
Falling for False Gloxinia Read More »
Looking great in the garden in summer is our new selection of bamboo muhly grass, Muhlenbergia dumosa ‘Patagonia’. Prior to this introduction, this splendid ornamental grass could only be overwintered from Zone 9 south. This Patrick McMillan collection adds at least one additional hardiness zone for gardeners. To achieve maximum winter hardiness, it needs summer
Amorphophallus krausii ‘Son of La’ is a giant, winter hardy selection of the non-offsetting Amorphophallus krausii, from an Alan Galloway collection, on our 2005 expedition, when it was discovered in the province of Son La, Vietnam, near Dien Bien Phu, at 4,573′ elevation. Alan had grown this selection outdoors in his Raleigh garden for years,
La, La, La, and now, Son of La Read More »
Looking good in a JLBG container now is the amazing Agave ovatifolia ‘Orca’. This splendid creamy-edge selection of the whale-tongue century is a plant that probably shouldn’t exist, but the story is almost impossible to believe. In the early 2000s, a small group of intrepid west coast agave explorers were botanizing in remote regions of
Orca – A Whale of a Tale Read More »
While most folks from Zone 7 and north are quite familiar the English, Japanese, and European boxwoods of the genus, Buxus, gardeners in hotter climates had to turn to a substitue plant with similar traits for their climate. That plant is Myrsine africana, a woody member of the Primula family, which gained the common name,
Twenty years ago (2006), we were botanizing in Southern Alabama, when I spied a particularly unique clump of Adiantum pedatum with finely divided fronds. Despite the common name, Northern maidenhair fern, this was growing at the Southern extreme of its natural range. A small division returned back with us to NC, where it has formed
A Lust-worthy Alabama Maiden Read More »
Last week, we were thrilled to welcome the staff of SC’s Woodlanders Nursery to visit JLBG. We have been huge fans of this small nursery, based in Aiken SC, since its inception in the late 1970s. Woodlanders was founded by architects, Robert and Julia Macintosh (deceased), who settled in Aiken, SC in the 1970s, after
Woodlanders – Reloaded Read More »
While we love the typical redbuds that we’re all familiar with in our garden, only one plant stands out in the genus, as a true shade tree. While most redbuds that gardeners know, mature at 10-20′ tall, Cercis glabra towers above them all at a whopping 50-60′. This long-lived redbud is sadly virtually absent in
