This week, we’ve been enjoying our first flowering of our South African native, Boophone disticha. This fascinating member of the Amaryllid family, which I was blessed to see in the wild back in 2005, can live to over 100 years of age. In cultivation, they can be flowered from seed in 9-15 years. While most
Perhaps you will read this post and decide you have not learned anything, so forgive me in advance. But some occurrences in the garden are just so charming they require nothing more of us than to just enjoy. This photo of a happy family of five voodoo lily flowers caught my attention. They appear to
Eavesdropping on Amorphophallus Read More »
Below are a few of our favorite ornamental onions for the early spring season…all flowering now. There’s something about alliums in the garden that elicit smiles when they are in flower, compared to tears when we chop up their kin. Most early spring alliums are more bulbous, while many of the later, summer-flowering alliums grow
The earliest of the Jack-in-the-pulpit species have begun to flower, starting with the consistently early Arisaema ringens. All of the arisaema shown below are woodland plants that thrive in rich, but well-drained, average to slightly moist (mesic) soils. Explore our full arisaema collection. Next in line this spring was the alluring Japanese, Arisaema mayebarae. A
For years, the larger narcissus, commonly known as daffodils, have been given precedent in garden catalogs as well as gardens. We find that the smaller narcissus are equally as showy when in flower, and far less obtrusive when they finish flowering. Here are a couple that look great in the garden today. These are from
Narcissus…size shamed Read More »
In full flower in early February is the amazing Crocus tommasinianus, also knows as Tommy’s crocus, and among bulb collectors, simply as Tommy. It was named after the late Austrian botanist, Muzio Giuseppe Spirito de Tommasini (1794-1879). Our clump below is over 30 years old, and is every bit as stunning as it was when
Tommy – a winter rock opera Read More »
How are your gerbil-pollinated plants doing this winter? Ours is doing just fine. The flowers of this hedgehog lily, Massonia depressa, were unfazed by several nights down in the high teens here at Juniper Level Botanic Garden and has survived 5 previous winters as well. It is a bulbous plant native to South Africa where
Narcissus romieuxii ssp. romieuxii (Romieux Hoop Petticoat Daffodil) The low temperature on the morning of January 17, 2024, was 19 degrees. The open flowers of this hoop petticoat daffodil were unfazed as you can see in this photo taken at 10:00 am when the temperature had risen to 23 degrees. The Alpine Garden Society’s website
Cold Blooded and Narcissistic Read More »
Most gardeners are so focused on the flowers of surprise lilies (Lycoris), they forget about the amazing foliage. There are two groups of surprise lilies: those which produce leaves in fall, and those which produce leaves in spring. The fall-leaf species and hybrids have foliage that emerges anywhere between September and November. With the hybrids,
Don’t forget the leaves Read More »
Last week, we were chatting on-line with one of our lycoris experts from China about the different forms of Lycoris aurea, when they mentioned the different foliage types that could be found in each region of China where the plant occurs. I should mention that the yellow-flowering Lycoris aurea has the widest native range of
