When the new Downtown Cary Park opened in Fall 2023, visiting plant people were shocked at the poor plant choices, many of which simply won’t survive the summer in the Raleigh, NC area. Sadly, this is an all to common occurrence, when landscape architects, instead of knowledgeable horticulturists make the plant selections. In looking through
Smokin’ Hot Grass in NC Read More »
In 2023, we listed a new selection of the North American native buffalo grass, Tridens strictus ‘Buffalo Feathers’. It went over as well as a tax hike, selling a pitiful 42 plants over a two year span. Well, after a winter of snow and ice, the plumes are still upright, and looking great. Credit to
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Posing for a photo this week behind Colocasia ‘Redemption’ is a patch of Sorghastrum nutans ‘Slim Pickens’. This amazing form of the US native Indian Grass, named both for it’s form, and nativity to Pickens County, SC, has surpassed all other clones in the trade, in our trials at JLBG. The blue foliage, narrow form,
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Here’s a shot from the garden this week with a textural triumvirate of three North American natives, Muhlenbergia sericea ‘White Cloud’, Opuntia aciculata, and Juniperus horizontalis ‘Wiltonii’. This drought tolerant combination illustrates what’s possible when you design with plant textures in mind.
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While we don’t use the plastic types, with metal ground stakes, we do have one Pink Flamingo that we allow in our garden. That would be Muhlenbergia ‘Pink Flamingos’, the hybrid of two native grasses, Muhlenbergia sericea and Muhlenbergia lindheimeri. It’s hard to argue with the dazzling effect of the plumes of this Yucca Do
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We trial quite a few sedges in the garden, some of which are a bit aggressive, while others that make fantastic garden specimens. One of our newer favorites is our selection of Carex basiantha ‘Cousin Itt’. This species is native from NC west to Texas, where it grows in average to moist forests, often over
From 2009-2014, we offered, what I think is one of the finest ornamental grasses we’ve ever grown, Sporobolus wrightii. Sadly, sales were miserable. Well, a decade later, we are still just as passionate about this amazing plant, and are trying to figure out how to get folks to try it. Over the years, we’ve tried
A couple of years ago, we installed a new bog garden in front of our nursery office with a rock stepping stone path through the center. Looking for a plant to fill in between the stepping stones without taking over, I thought it would be interesting to try the Southeastern US native Lachnocaulon anceps, a
We’ve long enjoyed the fall-flowering, hybrid muhly grass, Muhlenbergia ‘Pink Flamingos’ in the garden. As an ornamental, it only has one fault, the plumes are so heavy, that they spend most of their life kissing up to the mulch. I was noticing last week that once winter arrived and the plumes lost moisture, they are
Back in June 1998, I was botanizing in Southern Georgia, with Woodlander’s Bob McMartney, when I spied a spectacular patch of ornamental grass, growing alongside the road in remote Warren County. We turned around and dug a small division, before heading on. While I was excited at the prospect of a heat tolerant, blue-foliaged grass
