Four new Mangave selections passed the final cut for inclusion in the 2026 Plant Delights catalog, that will launch in a few weeks. To understand how difficult it is to pass our tests for inclusion, we currently have 660 different mangave selections on trial, each vying for a few coveted catalog spots. For the next
Recently, Garden Curator, Doug Ruhren, was moving one of our new Amorphophallus konjac selections from our field trials into the garden. When dug, this form, with solid black stems, had a tuber that was nearly the size of a basketball. The old growth has died back, and it will remain dormant until next June. Below
Basketball Jones…On the Move Read More »
Although the title sounds like it, we’re not promoting a new Woody Allen flick. It seems that despite having 27 agaves in the garden flower this spring and summer, three more have taken leave of their proverbial senses, and started sending up flower spikes that won’t open until fall, including the top Agave x amourifolia
The Smell of Love and Death is in the Fall Air Read More »
Here’s our latest bit of mangave related plant breeding craziness. In 2015, we (Zac Hill) used pollen from a Jon Lindstrom xPolifreda hybrid (Manfreda maculosa x Polianthes geminiflora) to pollinate a flowering Agave victoriae-reginae. To our surprise, we got a single viable seed, creating a tri-generic x Hansara (name unpublished), that we named H. ‘Queen
Recreating Frankenstein? Read More »
We wanted to publicly recognize our friend, plant breeder, Hans Hansen of Walters Gardens, who was just granted his 516th plant patent. Of those incredible numbers, 18 patents came when he worked for Shady Oaks Nursery, and 498 were granted since he moved to Walters Gardens in 2009. To give you some perspective, only six
We’re just wrappping up the midseason of the Lycoris (Surprise Lily) flowering season, that runs from August 11-August 25. This typically wraps up the last of the spring-foliage species and hybrids, and takes us through the middle part of the fall-leaved species and hybrids. Lycoris aurea is one of the most tender of the Lycoris
Midsummer Surprises Read More »
2025 sets a record as we welcomed 22 different century plants into flower. We’ve set up our ladders for the pollination ritual, where we hike to the top with pollen we forcefully extracted from potential suitors and do our best to impregnate the moms. Then, we wait and hope for viable seed. This is Agave
The End of the Century is Approaching Read More »
Below are a few of the amazing baptisias flowering at JLBG that we snapped new photos of, over the last few weeks. It’s truly hard to imagine the vast garden improvements that have occured, since we and a couple of other breeders (Jim Ault and Hans Hansen) began working with the genus in the late
As much as we wish we could grow the purple leaf Norway maples, they simply will not survive our hot, humid summers. We were cautiously optimistic when we heard that the breeders at J. Frank Schmit, had created a more heat tolerant version, Acer ‘Crimson Sunset’ (aka: JFS-KW202), by crossing the purple Norway maple, Acer
I always find it amusing when I encounter gardeners with a staunch opposition to hybrids and cultivars in their garden, despite them being unable to look in the mirror and realize that they are both a hybrid and a cultivar. The first photo below is our wild collected lungwort from Croatia, Pulmonaria officinalis. The second
I Hate Hybrids – Lungwort time Read More »
