Last week, we were thrilled to welcome the staff of SC’s Woodlanders Nursery to visit JLBG. We have been huge fans of this small nursery, based in Aiken SC, since its inception in the late 1970s. Woodlanders was founded by architects, Robert and Julia Macintosh (deceased), who settled in Aiken, SC in the 1970s, after
Woodlanders – Reloaded Read More »
Most of the 1,500 plants we’ve introduced in the last 40 years remain in the gardens here at JLBG, but a few special ones we’ve lost due either to neglect, or not siting them in the proper location. Prior to building our crevice garden, we sadly lost several plants that we now know would probably
Been There, Killed That…Would like it Back Read More »
It’s always exciting for us when we finally are able to build up enough stock of a new agave we’ve selected, so we can finally publicly share. Since some agaves never offset naturally, they must first spend years confined to our 50 Shades of Gray torture bench, where we perform unthinkable deeds to force them
New Releases from The Tortured Agave Department Read More »
In 2007, we released an amazing silver blue, winter hardy form of Agave x protamericana, named A. ‘Silver Surfer’. Unfortunately, the tissue culture lab that was producing it for us closed, and supplies over the last decade have been virtually non-existent. We’ve reverted by to our old, less efficient method of using offsets, which are
Silver Surfer Returns Read More »
Looking great throughout our rock garden sections is the elegant, evergreen desert fern, Cheilanthes eckloniana ‘Naude’s Neck’. Cheilanthes eckloniana is named after the 1800s Danish plant collector Christian Ecklon. We first met this gem on our 2005 expedition to South Africa. This is our 2013 Plant Delights/JLBG introduction, spore grown from plants along the road
African Desert Fern Read More »
We’re enjoying the mid-summer show of grass-leaf Barbara’s buttons, Marshallia graminifolia ‘Georgetown’. We grew this from a Patrick McMillan/Zac Hill seed collection near Georgetown, SC. Marshallia graminifolia is a coastal plain endemic, found from NC to Georgia, where it forms a short basal rosette of narrow, linear foliage, that’s topped with 20″ tall flowers stalks,
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
I was shocked and saddened to learn of the recent passing of my college classmate, Kim Hawks, 72. Kim and I shared a lot in common, starting with attending the same high school, horticulture classmates at NC State, both of us would start mail order nurseries, travel together in China for a month, and both
One of the truly fabulous Southeast natives, that is completely unknown to gardeners, is the amazing Trautvetteria nervata. The genus, Trautvetteria, a member of the Ranunculus family, is already poorly known. Even the comprehensive Kew Gardens database makes a mess of the species list. Trautvetteria nervata, a coastal plain denizen of only a few counties
Trautvetteria – Queen of the Swamp Read More »
Looking great as it emerges from dormancy is Asparagus cochinchinensis ‘Graham’s Cracker’, our incredible 2015 introduction, that came from NC gardener Graham Ray, who originally purchased this dwarf seedling from Plant Delights. Asparagus ‘Graham’s Cracker’ makes a very tight, upright, 18″ tall x 18″ wide clump, great for a textural contrast in the garden. For
