botanical interest only

Pternopetalum latipinnulatum

Cornering the market for plants which have no market – Pternopetalum

Flowering this week is the little-known Asian member of the carrot (Apiaceae) family, Pternopetalum latipinnulatum. This oddity hails from both China and a single population in Arunachal, India, where it grows on forested slopes between 2,000′ and 7,500′ elevation. The 15″ tall clumps are perfect for gardeners who are really into BIO (botanical interest only)

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Camellia euryoides

Eurya-like Camellia

We’ve spent the last few years assembling a collection of species camellias, many of which are quite dainty, and very different from what most gardeners think of, when they hear the genus Camellia mentioned. Flowering today is Camellia euryoides, the camellia that looks like a Eurya, with small pendant white flowers. Eurya is an even

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Zhejiang Wintersweet

Here’s a winter-flowering shrub that few people have grown. Flowering now in the garden is the evergreen Chimonanthus zhejiangensis, a little-known relative to the more popular, deciduous Chimonanthus praecox. This is a small genus of only six species in the Calycanthaceae family, all native to China. Our plants originated from seed from the Shanghai Botanical

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Strumming on a Strumaria

Flowering in the crevice garden in early November is the little-known South African bulb, Strumaria discifera ssp. bulbifera. These hail from the winter wet/dry summer region of the Western Cape, and have been right at home in the ground here since 2018. Okay, so it’s not as flashy as a tulip of daffodil, but to

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Blink and You’ve missed it

I doubt any of our garden visitors actually slow down enough to notice some of the smaller treasures flowering now, like the dwarf Chinese gesneriad, Petrocosmea oblata. When I say small, I’m talking 2″ in full flower. We are fascinated by the array of Asian gesneriads that thrive in rock cracks, most of which are

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Euonymus…a New Take

We were thrilled to see that our Euonymus myrianthus sailed through our recent cold snap. This fascinating species was first introduced to Western horticulture by renown plant explorer, Ernest Wilson in 1908, and has been quite slow to get around. Recent collections have finally made this available for trial in the US. This small evergreen

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Anchors Away

I’m going to go out and a limb and guess that few people grow Colletia paradoxa…commonly known as anchor plant. Colletia was named to honor French botanist Philibert Collet (1643-1718). I’m not quite sure what we find so fascinating about this botanical oddity, but something causes us to be drawn to a plant with large spines,

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