A Splash of Flash
Looking quite lovely in the garden, now is Camellia japonica ‘Nuccio’s Bella Rossa Crinkled’. This stunning camellia is slow growing, has golden edged foliage, and large, fully double, rose-red flowers.
Natural Hummingbird Feeders
Long ago, we gave up our red plastic hummingbird feeders for a more natural way to attract hummers to the garden, and one of the best is the Southwest US native Anisacanthus wrightii. Starting for us in August, it continues to be a blaze of glory through September. Texas firecracker prefers full sun and dry
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Aesculating the Buckeye Battle
Flowering this week in the garden are two stunning buckeyes, Aesculus pavia ‘Splendens’ (native from Ohio through Texas) on the right, and its offspring, Aesculus x carnea on the left. Aesculus x carnea is a cross of Aesculus pavia and the European Aesculus hippocastanum. It’s hard to imagine two more showy trees for the spring
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Akebono…no relation to Sonny
In flower now, is our specimen of Distylium racemosum ‘Akebono’. While Distylium is quite popular now, compared to decades earlier, many of the specialty variegated cultivars are still little known. The word Akebono is Japanese for the color of the sky at dawn. It is commonly used in Japan to name plants with a bright
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Big Momma
Putting on quite a show this month is the North American native, Malvaviscus drummondii ‘Big Momma’. This supersize form has been flowering all summer, but continues unabated as we move into fall. In the wild, malvaviscus grows in dry shade, but we have found that slightly moist sun produces a much more showy plant. This
Red Banana
This October marks our first flowering of Musa aurantiaca, a little-known species from the Arunchal-Pradesch and Assam region of India, into surrounding Myanmar and Tibet. We love that both the flower and developing bananas are both bright red. So far, our plant has sailed through winter temperatures of 11 degree F, with no problems. Thanks
Hill Country Red Perfection
“You should have seen my garden last week” or some variation on this theme is a common refrain when visiting a garden. I felt much this way recently when I led a tour of Juniper Level Botanic Garden. I just could not find a knock-your-socks off clump of Rhodophiala bifida. So here is a glorious
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A Summer of Surprises
The procession of Lycoris (Surprise lilies) continues as we pass mid-August. Here are some recent images. So far, this year, we have flowered over 300 different taxa. Below is Lycoris aurea, which has the widest natural range of any lycoris, from India to Africa, south to Indonesia. Winter hardiness of this fall-leaf species is dependent
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Glorious Gloriosa Lily
The gloriosa lily was named, Gloriosa superba. It is a scientific name that should scare no one. The generic name, Gloriosa, means “glorious’. As if this wasn’t praise enough, this species of Gloriosa was given the species name Gloriosa superba, the superb and glorious lily. Clearly someone was dazzled by this flower. I know I
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Brazilian Bellflower
We love the south Brazilian native, Abutilion megapotamicum, which as you can see, is looking absolutely fabulous in the garden. This amazing plant makes a towering stack of thin branches, each laden with hundreds of bright red calyces above the yellow bell-shaped flowers. This abutilon dies back to the ground when our winter temperatures drop
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