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.
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 »
Spring 2021 marked our first flowering of the monotypic (only one member of the genus) helonias. This threatened US native, occurs in scattered locations from NY south to Georgia, but is rarely offered commercially. We had good seed set, and now fingers are crossed for equally good germination. Helonias requires saturated ground, and ours is
Have you met Helonias? Read More »
We just love the East Coast native Chamaelirium luteum…aka: fairy wands. The male forms have the largest, most showy flowers, as seen here at JLBG this week. A lover of average/moist shade, it is long been used medicinally for female reproductive issues.
Fairy Wands Lighting up the Garden Read More »
The native Camassia leichtlinii ‘Sacajawea’ is looking great at JLBG today. This selection of the US West Coast native thrives also here in the hot, humid, southeast US. This selection was named after Sacajawea, the a member of the Lemhi Shoshone tribe, who helped guide explorers Lewis and Clark in the early 1800s. When food
Here are two of our favorite new redbuds growing at JLBG…both from the NC State breeding program of Dr. Dennis Werner. The first is Cercis canadensis ‘Flame Thrower’, which boasts pumpkin colored leaves that emerge gold. The second is Cercis canadensis ‘Golden Falls’, a fabulous pendulous form, whose leaves remain gold all summer.
Flowering this week is the fascinating Asarum speciosum, native to only three counties in central Alabama. In bloom, it resembles a mass of bloodshot eyes peeking out from beneath the skirt of anise-scented foliage.
Here’s looking at you, kid Read More »
Just snapped this photo of the amazing Amsonia ‘Storm Cloud’ in the garden. This was a 2011 discovery in Central Alabama on a botanizing trip with Hans Hansen.
