Norfolk Island Pines (Araucaria heterophylla) are popular house plants, but we always longed for being able to grow araucarias outdoors in central NC. Since this native of the region around Australia/New Zealand has poor winter hardiness, our obsession focused in on the more winter hardy, South American species, in particular, Araucaria araucana, known as Monkey
The Monkey’s Puzzle Read More »
2024 marks a significant change for us at Juniper Level Botanic Garden, with a number of exciting changes on the way, starting January 1. After 5 years of background work, we are pleased to launch our new JLBG Membership program. Anyone joining in 2024, will be forever memorialized as a Founding Member of JLBG, showing
A Time for Change at JLBG Read More »
We make crosses on our flowering agaves during the early summer, then in some cases, must wait until fall to see if we were successful. If we don’t get pods formed within a few weeks, we know that the particular cross was a failure, but in some cases, the cross forms pods, but there is
To Breed or Not to Breed Read More »
We’ve been very pleased with a series of new windmill palm hybrids in the garden as we approach another winter stress test. Trachycarpus x forceps is our assigned name for crosses between Trachycarpus fortunei and Trachycarpus princeps. While most Trachycarpus fortunei is winter hardy here in Zone 7b, the lovely Chinese/Tibetan border endemic, Trachycarpus princeps,
Grasping Wags – a New Reveal Read More »
I remember looking in astonishment at the first published photos of the newly described North American (Northern Mexico) native century plant, Agave albopilosa, with disbelief. Could this really be real, and if so, how did it escape being discovered and published until 2007. It turned out not to be an April Fools photoshop joke, but
Cotton-tipped Century Plant Read More »
Agaves are an amazing architectural addition to the garden with their form and radial symmetry. We just captured this image of one of our Agave x loferox hybrids, that we named ‘Magical Moments’. The result turned out very artsy.
Magical Moment Century Plant Read More »
The first photo below is our hybrid century plant, Agave x ocareginae ‘Oh Victory’, from a cross we made in 2014, between Agave ocahui and Agave victoriae-reginae. The plants went in the ground in 2017. Of the eleven seedlings we selected and planted in the ground, only five have survived. Below you can see both
Stirring the Gene Pot Read More »
Below are three of our final selections of Agave x ovox, which we made out of several hundred seedlings. These are each sister seedlings from our cross of Agave ovatifolia x Agave pseudoferox ‘Bellville’ It’s always interesting to see how many different ways the genes sort out. These are from our 2018 cross, and only
Three Toothy Sisters Read More »
I recently had the opportunity to visit the grape breeding trial garden of grape savant, Jeff Bloodworth of Orange County, NC. I didn’t realize it until my visit that Jeff, now 73, and I were in the Horticulture Department at NC State together from the mid to late 1970s. While I was starting on my
Looking and smelling wonderful in the garden this week is our 2022 introduction, Hosta ‘Summer Snowstorm’. We love late-flowering hostas with large fragrant flowers, and this one doesn’t disappoint, with foliage that still looks great in late summer.
Another Summer Snowstorm Read More »
