We are always interested in checking out the offspring, when plants in the garden have unexpected romantic rendezvous with their distant cousins…often when we least expect it. We have found arums tend to be quite promiscuous in the garden. While most offspring go to the great compost pile in the sky, a few are worthy
Flowering today at JLBG is one of the tiniest of the geophyte aroids, Ambrosina bassii. This tiny gem, which matures at a whopping 1-2″ in height, is native to the Mediterranean region from Southern Italy to Northern Africa, where it grows on woodland slopes over alkaline rocks. There is only a single species in this
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Looking lovely in the garden today is the fall-flowering geophyte, Sternbergia sicula. This Mediterranean native is found in the wild growing on alkaline hilly sites. Some taxonomists list it as a subspecies of the more common Sternbergia lutea, but it seems consistently smaller. At JLBG, our plant thrives in the crevice garden. Hardiness is Zone
Just finished flowering in our crevice garden is the amazing member of the Amaryllis family, Acis ionicum. This little-known Albanian snowbell hails from small areas of Coastal Albania and Western Greece, as well as a few of the adjacent islands. The flowers of this species are quite huge, compared to the better known A. autumnalis.
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There is a “growing” trend toward using groundcovers to reduce the need for bark mulch in gardens. As with any trend, there is a time and place where it is appropriate, and other times when it is not. One plant that we absolutely love for that purpose is the evergreen Carex flacca ‘Mini’. This blue-foliaged
We love “vulgar” plants, which are good for providing unexpected shrieks from garden visitors. One of our favorite plants for evoking such moments is the European native, Dracunculus vulgaris. For those who took Latin in school, you’ll know that the English translation of the Latin name is Vulgar Dragon’s Butt. This fascinating spring ephemeral is
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We’ve grown quite a few stachys (pronounced stay-kiss) through the years, but have been most impressed this spring with our newest acquisition, Stachys cretica. This fascinating dryland perennial has a wide natural range from France to Iran, where it thrives in rocky, dry, Mediterranean-like conditions. Our plants are seed-grown from Greek Plantsman, Eleftherios Dariotis, who
The Greek bellflower, Campanula formanekiana has been superb in the crevice garden this spring. This amazing monocarpic (dies after flowering) species take three years to flower, and when it does, it puts on one heck of show. It’s namesake was Czech botanist, Eduard Formanek (1845-1900). We’re hoping for a good seed set. Hardiness is Zone
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Here are a few buttery-colored plants flowering today in garden, starting with Arum creticum ‘Golden Torch’. This started as a small field division of a particularly large flowered selection from our 2010 expedition to Crete. Paeonia mlokosewitschii is known for being un-pronouncable, so most folks refer to it as Molly the Witch peony. This is
My visit to Crete in 2010 was eye-opening when I observed that most native daphnes of the region grew in full sun among rock, in the driest conditions imaginable. That prompted us to re-try many of the daphnes that we’d killed years earlier…obviously, with too much kindness. Now, all of our daphnes are planted in
