One of the great un-clipped shrubs in the long history of shrubs in America is the amazing Dodd and Dodd Nursery introduction of Ilex vomitoria ‘Oscar’. Looking great in our garden this week, our plant of Oscar holly has never been clipped, sheared, or otherwise maimed in its ten-year history with us. Wouldn’t it be
The NC native Polygala aurea is putting on quite a show in the bog garden here at JLBG. There are few plants, native or otherwise, with such brilliantly screaming orange flowers. Perhaps we need to see if we can propagate this since we never see it offered for sale.
Flowering now at JLBG is one of our cute Southeastern natives known as Bog Buttons (Lachnocaulon anceps). The entire family, Eriocaulaceae, has a similar stature with small grass-like foliage, topped by these long antennae-looking structures. In the wild, these can be found in low, often flooded ditches, but they are easily grown in constructed bog
Flowering at JLBG this month is one of our favorite small trees, Cyrilla racemiflora…aka: swamp titi. Cyrilla racemiflora was a favorite tree of the late J.C. Raulston, who was constantly extolling its virtues to anyone who would listen. Swamp titi has a native range from coastal Delaware south and west to East Texas. The flowers,
One of our treasured finds from a recent botanizing trip in East Texas with plantsmen Adam Black and Wade Roitsch (Yucca Do), was a gold-foliaged Vaccinium arboreum (farkleberry). The parent plant was 30-40′ tall, but there were plenty of root suckers from a recent road grading. This could turn out to be a wonderfully exciting
Echinacea ‘Big Kahuna’ has turned into a wonderful beast in the garden. Here is our clump of this super vigorous selection this week as it enters its third year in the gardens at JLBG with no sign of slowing down. The fragrance is also amazing, as are the number of bees it attracts.
I grew up as a child spending most of my time botanizing the woods from a ridiculously early age. One of the native plants I’ve known since my earliest adventures is Asarum arifolium, which was the most common wild ginger in our region. Over the last 60 years, I’ve undoubtedly seen tens of thousands of
My ginger…your foliage is…wrong Read More »
In 2009, we first planted the Tom Ranney (NC State) introduction of Hydrangea ‘Spirit’..his creation of a pink-flowered selection of the usually white-flowered NC native Hydrangea arborescens. Here it is today, twelve years later and still looking superb in the gardens at JLBG. Over $1 million dollars from the sale of this plant has been
Keeping up the Spirit Read More »
We saw this amazingly colored buckeye (Aesculus pavia) on a recent visit to the NC Arboretum in Asheville. I’ve seen countless individuals of this species, both in the wild and in gardens and have never seen a color like this. We have encouraged them to get this grafted and introduced.
We’ve got some really superb unyaaw’s blooming now. Actually, if you’re not of the Cajun persuasion, they’re onions…of the genus Allium. The North American native Allium canadense is quite showy in the late spring/early summer garden. The first is a superbly dense flowering selection, Allium ‘White Flag’, made by the late bulb guru, Thad Howard.
Uun-yaaw noun (Cajun) Read More »
