One of the little-grown, but fabulous native milkweed species is Asclepias perennis. In the wild, this amazing plant is found from Indiana south into Texas, where it grows in seasonal flood plains, swamps, ditches, and otherwise wet areas. In the garden, however, we have found it very happy in average to moist garden soils, as
White Swamp Milkweed Read More »
Just finishing up its flowering show in the garden is the baptisia cousin, Pediomelum piedmontanum ‘Columbia’, commonly known as Dixie breadroot. Commonly, probably isn’t exactly the right word, since this southeast native is anything but common. In fact, it’s only known from three counties, one in Georgia, and two in South Carollina, hence a G1
Looking absolutely elegant in a crevice garden seep is the native Carex echinata. Although star sedge is quite common from Maine to Minnesota, it’s quite rare in NC. This is seed grown from a population in the mountainous Alleghany County, NC, although it’s thriving in our coastal plain garden. In the wild, this clump former
A Star Sedge is Born Read More »
Several years ago, I fell in love with a new holly on a visit to Garden Treasures Nursery, and two years later, our specimen has lived up to my high expectations. Ilex vomitoria ‘Panhandle Gold’ is a selection of our native (Virginia to Texas) yaupon holly, discovered by Florida nurseryman, John Davy. We don’t know
Holy Golden Moment Read More »
As we prepare for the upcoming NFL season, we thought we’d offer a horticultural football analogy with this native plant combination of two evergreens, Heuchera ‘Grande Amethyst’ and Juniperus horizontalis ‘Copper Harbor’. Here, in this Minnesota Vikings color theme, the coral bell (heuchera) is the quarterback, carrying the color, and first drawing your eye. The
Vikings Quarterback-Receiver Combo Read More »
Looking great in the crevice garden this month is our specimen of the Arizona native Dudleya saxosa ssp. collomiae. Through the years, we tried this succulent in several of our rock gardens with no success, until we planted one under a rock overhang, where it has thrived since 2018. As we suspected, winter hardiness wasn’t
Dudleya Done Right Read More »
Putting on its version of a flowering show now, is our native rattlesnake fern, Botrypus virginianus. This widespread fern is native to all continental states except New Mexico. Not to be confined to a single country, it’s also native throughout South American, Central Europe, and throughout Asia. The rattlesnake fern has has dimorphic fronds, where
Rattlesnake Ferns in flower Read More »
Looking absolutely fab in the garden now is the native dogwood selection, Cornus florida ’85 Carat’. You’ve probably never heard of this, because it hasn’t yet been commercially introduced. We acquired this in 2006, from former PDNer Jon Roethling (now Director of Reynolda Gardens), who discovered it on an Interstate 85 off ramp in Gaston
What’s Up Doc? 85 Carats, that’s what Read More »
Below are a few of the amazing baptisias flowering at JLBG that we snapped new photos of, over the last few weeks. It’s truly hard to imagine the vast garden improvements that have occured, since we and a couple of other breeders (Jim Ault and Hans Hansen) began working with the genus in the late
Three years ago, we wrote about our success growing the Western US (North Dakota to Southern California) desert native, Stanleya pinnata, Desert Prince’s Plume. In the years since, we planted more, with our recent attempts being in the crevice garden, where, as you can see below, they have thrived. The key for success is superb
Lord Stanley’s Cup Runneth Over Read More »
