Here are a couple more cactus hybrids flowering in the gardens of JLBG, both created by our volunteer cactus/succulent curator, Vince Schneider. The first is a Trichocereus cross, the parents of which were created by a former volunteer, Mike Papay. Vince crossed two of Mike’s selections to come up with the gem. My camera had
A Rainbow of crazy cactus colors Read More »
To identify plants that are new to us, we start with the time-tested step of determining how close plants look to relatives we already know. This comes first, before we dive into floral dissection, etc. In most cases, we can get pretty close to a correct id, since we’ve grown and seen such a large
Obscure and Ambiguous Read More »
Most people are in too much of a hurry when they visit gardens and subsequently miss so many of the tiny gems in the garden. Here our clump of the South African native Ledebouria inquinata that was in full flower in the crevice garden during our recent spring open house. I wonder how many people
Here are more delospermas (ice plants) looking great at JLBG this week. The first two are the most moisture tolerant, Delosperma cooperi (purple), and Delosperma ‘Kelaidis’ (peach). At the bottom is Delosperma sutherlandii, which is a species that we’ve never been able to keep alive in our wet summers prior to building the crevice garden.
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).
Allium ‘Ostara’ is a new bulbous ornamental onion from a cross of the lovely, but difficult to grow (in the southeast US) Allium karataviense and Allium atropurpureum. We’re growing this in our crevice garden, which is working well…so far. We’re hoping the genes from Allium atropurpureum will make this more growable.
Looking truly superb this spring is the South African ice plant, Delosperma dyeri in the crevice garden. We can’t grow this in typical soil due to our high rainfall, but in our crevice garden where gravel is the main planting media, it performs like a champ.
While daphnes have a reputation for being tough to grow, many are actually quite easy if given proper siting. My life with daphnes changed significantly after my 2010 botanical expedition to Crete. I was shocked to find daphnes growing in full baking sun in bone dry regions among large rocks. Before then, I had obviously
Rock Garden Daphnes Read More »
There are several tiny rock garden-sized phlox, bred in the EU, and sold by specialist nurseries as forms of the Western US native, Phlox douglasii. The only problem is that Phlox douglasii isn’t really growable much outside climates similar to its native haunts. Phlox expert Charles Oliver determined these are actually hybrids between Phlox douglasii
A bleeding Ox….really? Read More »
Unless you’ve been hiding under a piece of concrete, you’ve no doubt heard of our crevice garden experiment, constructed with recycled concrete and plants planted in chipped slate (Permatill). It’s been just over three years since we started the project and just over a year since its completion. In all, the crevice garden spans 300′
