It’s been quite a floral extravaganza this spring in the dryland garden sections. Here are the latest of our flowering barrel cactus that have bloomed recently at JLBG. All of our cactus are growing outside without any winter protection in our zone 7b garden. The key for most is simply good soil drainage.
Delosperma cooperi and Delosperma ‘Kelaidis’ have formed a lovely union in our crevice garden, where they grow in pure Permatill gravel. The key to growing ice plants in a hot, humid, rainy climate is excellent drainage.
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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The crevice garden has “woke” for spring, with early flowering plants in full gear. Here’s a shot of one small section, featuring Delospema dyeri and Iberis simplex (taurica). We hope you can visit in person for the second weekend of our spring open house, May 6 – 8, 2022.
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Unless you’re a serious plant nerd, you’ve probably never heard of the plant genus, Urophysa. This small genus of only two species in the clematis family (Ranunculaceae) is only found growing in Karst cliff crevices in a few limited provinces of South Central China. In other words, they are quite rare. Urophysa henryi was originally
Starring in the rock garden in early December is the amazing Allium virgunculae ‘Alba’. This delightful dwarf allium to 8″ tall is similar to the better known and slower offsetting Japanese Allium thunbergii. Allium virgunculae, which typically has lavender flowers, hails from Japan’s far south Kyushu Island.
Try as we might, we have been epic failures trying to grow the showy southwest native Zauschneria (now epilobium) in our garden, due to the combination of high humidity and torrential summer rainfalls. No matter where we tried them in the rock garden, they quickly expired. That was in the years BC…before crevice. Here is
Holy Zauschneria, Batman! Read More »
We admit to a long-standing case of buckwheat envy. Every visit to the worlds great rock gardens, such as the Denver Botanic Garden, leave us lusting to grow the rock garden genus, eriogonum. We’ve killed many members of the genus, since they truly hate our humid and wet summers. Even our crevice garden was no
Long-leaf Buckwheet Read More »
We are fascinated with the wonderful genus zephyranthes (rain lilies). Zephyranthes are unobtrusive, summer-flowering bulbs that can fit in any garden, with a flower color ranging from yellow to white to pink. The great thing about zephyranthes is the lack of large foliage that often accompanies many other spring-flowering bulbs, so site them in the
We’ve tried for years to grow Helianthemum, the European native rock rose, which is highly prized by rock gardeners. Over the last 35 years, we’ve failed miserably…until we built our crevice garden. Here, it is currently, thriving in our soil mix of 50% Permatill (popped slate).
