Looking lovely in the garden this week, is the popular Asian garden fern, Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’. This Casa Flora introduction is slightly shorter than the typical species, with new fronds that are more colorful. We remove the old fronds of autumn fern, in very early spring, so they won’t visually interfere with the amazing new
One of the most amazing native plants we’ve ever had the pleasure of introducing is Aaron Floden’s Triosteum aurantiacum ‘Barry Purple’. Horse gentian is a little-known North American native which hails from mesic woodland from Canada south to Georgia. This deciduous 3′ tall x 3′ wide clumping perennial usually has green foliage, but this exceptional
Spice up your Horse Fruit Gentian Read More »
I continue to rave over the new hybrid ajuga groundcovers from Michigan plant breeder, Chris Hansen, who is oddly, no relation to Michigan plant breeder, Hans Hansen. Below are a few that are looking fabulous this week in the garden. Ajuga ‘Parrot Paradise’ in the garden this week. Below is the superb Ajuga ‘Cordial Canary’.
Getting Grounded with Avian Ajugas Read More »
Most of the elephant ears we now grow in the garden are the clumping forms, since the fast runners simply outgrow their space too quickly, on the way to their goal of world domination. One running cultivar we can’t part with is Colocasia esculenta ‘Lemonade’. While it does spread, it doesn’t do so anything like
Drinking in the Lemonade Read More »
We love our collection of camellias, but are aware that most people think of them primarily for their flowers. We think the foliage is almost as amazing, when the plants are well grown. There are quite a few with variegated foliage, which give added value to the garden when the plants aren’t in flower. One
For small gardens, we’ve long advocated a design philosophy of planting in drifts of one. Here’s a great portrait from the spring garden that demonstrated our philosophy, by combining Asarum nobilissimum, Impatiens omeiana, Trillium flexipes, Woodsia obtusa, and Aucuba japonica ‘Limbata’ in a way that uses textures, colors, and forms to make a pleasing vignette.
As we prepare for the upcoming NFL season, we thought we’d offer a horticultural football analogy with this native plant combination of two evergreens, Heuchera ‘Grande Amethyst’ and Juniperus horizontalis ‘Copper Harbor’. Here, in this Minnesota Vikings color theme, the coral bell (heuchera) is the quarterback, carrying the color, and first drawing your eye. The
Vikings Quarterback-Receiver Combo Read More »
Early April is peak time at JLBG for Ajuga flowering, commonly known as bugleweed. We think these amazing new cultivars are a great solution to reducing the need for mulch in sun to part sun landscaped areas. Some of the new colored leaf cultivars are even more spectacular when in flower…below are a few.
Trumpeting Bugleweed Read More »
Flowering this week are an array of winter flowering trout lilies of the genus Erythronium, a plant I’ve admired since being a young child, and seeing it grow naturally near our Raleigh, NC home. Erythronium is a genus of only 33 species, spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere. While many of the cold climate species won’t
Fishing for Trout Lilies Read More »
I have long been enamored with golden foliage plants, especially pines of the genus, Pinus. We’ve trialed quite a few of species with gold selections, but the only one that has survived in our hot, humid summers is the Japanese Red Pine, Pinus densiflorus ‘Ogon-aka-matsu’, which is commonly sold as ‘Aurea’. Our garden specimen is
