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,
Back in June 1998, I was botanizing in Southern Georgia, with Woodlander’s Bob McMartney, when I spied a spectacular patch of ornamental grass, growing alongside the road in remote Warren County. We turned around and dug a small division, before heading on. While I was excited at the prospect of a heat tolerant, blue-foliaged grass
You would think with 220 new Aspidistra (cast iron plant) species discovered since 1980 that botanists would have found them all, but that seems to be far from the case. This oddity just flowered in our collection this month, and is obviously yet another new species. This is one of the final collections (2018) made
Cast-ing a Wider Net Read More »
We’ve long been fans of the tropical crepe ginger, Costus speciosus. We’ve trialed it several times, however, with no long term winter hardiness here in Zone 7b…until…a group of friends were botanizing in far Northern Vietnam, near the Chinese border, when plantsman Ozzie Johnson spotted it growing there at 3,900′ elevation. Returning home with a
Costumed in the Garden Read More »
Flowering in early December, this is our first time to see blooms on a cast iron plant collected for us in 2018, by the late Alan Galloway in northern Vietnam. It didn’t take but a glance to realize that it represents another new, undescribed cast iron plant species. Our taxonomist, Zac Hill, has already been
A Cast of Hundreds Read More »
Looking great in our trials in early November is Symphotrichium dumosum ‘HillandSchmidtii’. Also, known as Aster dumosus before its name change, this fascinating 2018 Zac Hill/Jeremy Schmidt collection from Wilkes County, Georgia has proven to be quite a winner, so it will certainly be slated for a future Plant Delights catalog. We initially though this
An aster by any other name Read More »
One of the top pollinator plants in the garden this month is this clump of adult ivy. All ivies clump, instead of run, once they gone through horticultural puberty, which usually happens around age 15. English ivy, Hedera helix makes a similar, but larger shrub, that flowers in July. The clump below is our selection
A Hedera the Class – A Pollinator Magnet Read More »
In 2012, plantsman Hans Hansen and I were botanizing in the Balkans, when we drove up on a patch of flowering Aconitum superbum in a field at 4,200′ elevation, near the town of Kupres, Bosnia. Hans collected seed, since monkshoods fare far better in Michigan than they do in the heat and humidity of Raleigh,
I first ran into the sticky blazing star, Liatris resinosa, a few years ago when botanizing in the eastern part of NC. Since that time, it has thrived in our garden, where we grow it in a bog with pitcher plants as well as in an alpine berm. Our plants have just topped 3′ in
Sticky Blazing Star Read More »
