One of our all time favorite ornamental grasses graces us with its stunning display of plumes each year, starting in mid-October. Lindheimer’s Muhly (pronounced mulee) grass hails from central Texas (Edwards Plateau) south to northern Mexico, where it’s found growing on alkaline oak savannahs. Its specific epithet commemorates the Father of Texas Botany, German immigrant, […]
Lindheimer’s Muhly Read More »
Unless you’re from a more tropical climate, you probably aren’t used to growing table ferns (Pteris) outdoors in the garden. About 30 years ago, I began a mission to collect and evaluate winter hardy forms of a number of species in a genus that’s almost exclusively tropical. Below is our patch of Pteris cretica ‘Ping
Table Fern in the Garden Read More »
We were recently admiring the lovely russet fall coloration of a mat of Selaginella uncinata. This lovely woodland groundcover from Central China and south into Vietnam, has a lovely metallic blue hue during the growing season, but we also like this change to the semi-evergreen foliage in fall. This is such a great, well-behaved garden
Falling for Spikemoss Read More »
Flowering in the garden now is the wonderful US native Pachysandra procumbens (Allegheny spurge). Native from Indiana south to the gulf coast, our selection, Pachysandra ‘Angola’ comes from the woods near that well-know Louisiana prison. This stunning evergreen, variegated, slow-spreading, woodland groundcover, is quite different from its better known and much faster spreading Asian cousin,
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If you’ve been following our blog for a while, you’ll remember we wrote about this amazing native shrub/small tree last summer. Well, it’s cyrilla time again in the gardens at JLBG, when every branch of this amazing semi-evergreen erupts with racemes of small white flowers, inviting all insects in the neighborhood to stop by for
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Here is a clump of Calanthe ‘Takane’ in our garden in early April. This amazing and easy-to-grow terrestrial ground orchid forms a dazzling clump with age. This mass started as a single division in a 4″ pot, 17 years ago. Not only do they thrive in the ground, but in Japan, they are prized as
We love the evergreen ruscus in garden, but realize they are a plant that will never be found at most mainstream garden centers. A genus of only 6 currently recognized species, native from Europe into Eurasia, these horticultural oddities are so odd that they once qualified to have their own plant family, Ruscaceae. Now, with
This is the best fruit set we’ve ever seen on the Chinese Disporum longistylum ‘Green Giant’. We love this semi-evergreen Solomon’s Seal, that was collected and introduced years earlier by our friend, plant explorer Dan Hinkley. On the West Coast, this reaches 7′ tall, but here in the hot, humid southeast, we’ve never had ours
Green Giant in fruit Read More »
Bambusa multiplex ‘Alphonse Karr’ is looking so hot this winter with its amazingly striped canes. This clumping bamboo is usually grown as a die-back perennial here in Zone 7b, since it goes to the ground when temperatures drop below 10 degrees F. Because we’ve had three mild winters, we are once again able to enjoy
Cyrtomium macrophyllum is looking particularly fabulous this year. This is a little-grown holly fern with a wide range from India to Southeastern China that can be found at elevations from 2,500-8,000′. The bold textured fronds arch outward to make a 2′ tall x 2′ wide clump that is semi-evergreen in most winters. It seems as
Holy Giant Holly Fern Read More »
