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,
We are just wrapping up the early spring lily season in the garden, and here are few we captured images of this year. Lilium formosanum var. pricei ‘Hehuan’ is a dwarf form of the Taiwan lily, from our 2008 expedition, collected at 9,300′. It blooms two months before the much taller, lowland form Lilium formosanum
When I first read the 2010 paper describing the discovery of an orange-flowered Musella (dwarf yellow banana), I was hopelessly hooked, and my heart filled with lust. Hanging out at 4,000′ elevation in China’s Sichuan province was a previously undiscovered population of only 130 orange-flowered plants, compared the more typical yellow. When you have grown
If Live Gives you Bananas, Make ’em Orange Read More »
Looking lovely this week in the garden is the rock jack-in-the-pulpit, Arisaema saxatile. This splendid, mid-season jack hails from rocky pine forests in Sichuan and Yunnan, China, at elevations between 5,000′ and 10,000′. The Latin epithet “saxatile” translates to “grows among the rocks”. Despite it’s natural habitat in dense shade, we have found it performs
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
Late winter is peak season for our large collection of wild gingers, of the genus, Asarum. Below are a few from this week. The Chinese Asarum forbesii is typically deciduous, although we have a couple of clones, which retain a good percentage of their foliage, which we remove this time of year, for better flower
Wild Ginger Flowers – Part I Read More »
One of our prized confers in the garden is the little-known, Nothotsuga longibracteata. Originally thought to be a hemlock, this Chinese native hails from several of the southern provinces, where they grow on acidic soils at elevations between 1,000′ and 7,000′. Sadly, they are now endangered due to excessive logging. In the wild, they eventually
Long-bracted False Hemlock Read More »
It’s been almost five years, since I extolled the virtues of the amazing Juniperus chinensis ‘Kaizuka’. If you’re a card carrying member of the plant-butchering, meatballs-r-us crowd, this is not your plant. Sadly, because this introduction from Japan’s Yokohama Nursery, prior to 1920 is so widely used in industrial plantings, many keen plantspeople also dismiss
Join the No-meatballs Club Read More »
Two favorites in the Ranunculus family are flowering now in January. The first is the familiar Helleborus niger. Below is our clump of Helleborus niger ‘Sunny Border’ in early January. This Christmas rose prefers a more open shade to even a few hours of morning sun, and very well drained soil that never stays wet.
One of the amazing broad leaf evergreen shrubs we wrote about three years ago is the Chinese Euonymus myrianthus. We were excited then, and are even more so now. Our specimen has reached 8′ tall, on the way to 12′-15′. The glossy dark green leaves look great all year. We’re still waiting for our plant
Many-Flowered Euonymus Read More »
