If you’re a nursery, and you’d like to offer ferns, the plants at your disposal are somewhat limited. A large majority of ferns sold in America are still sadly dug from the wild. When you see a catalog listing primarily these ferns together…usually an very inexpensive prices, you can be pretty much assured they were
Mama…where do fern babies come from? Read More »
We love all of our trout lilies, but Erythronium ‘Goldstrike’ is hard to beat. This is our named selection of Erythronium americanum ssp. harperi. Occurring from Tennessee south of Mississippi, this amazing form graces low woodlands in very early spring. This collection was made by our Plant records/taxonomist, Zac Hill in Alabama. Hardiness is Zone
Catching Trout Lilies Read More »
Flowering at JLBG since early March is the little-known Jack-in-the-pulpit, Arisaema ilanense. This collection hails from Ilan (Yilan), in northeastern Taiwan, and for us is the very first arisaema to flower each winter, even when temperatures are still quite cold. The mature size is only 4-6″ in height, so this is one for a very
Meet Jack from Ilan Read More »
Carex conica ‘Hime’ has been in horticultural commerce for many decades, and remains a superb woodland garden sedge. The evergreen species Carex conica is native throughout Japan, where it occurs in woodland conditions. This variegated selection that goes by an array of names such as ‘Snowline’ and ‘Marginata’, but Carex conica ‘Hime’, which translates to
Japanese Princess Sedge Read More »
We’ve made a regular habit of killing fritillarias (the bulb…not the fried food) in the garden, especially those ungrowable brightly-colored species like Fritillaria imperialis that tantalizingly appear each fall in the major bulb catalogs. Although it lacks the bling of it’s showier cousins, the species that is reliable for us in the garden is Fritillaria
Fritters in the Garden Read More »
One of the fun reasons to grow plants from seed is that each seedling is different…unless you’re growing highly bred annuals. Most non-hybrid seedlings will be under the bell curve, meaning they all look and behave relatively similar. As plant collectors, we get excited when one appears that falls outside the bell curve. An example
Ginger drama in the Garden Read More »
It was great during our recent winter open house to see so many folks noticing the aucubas in the garden. Of course, they are hard to miss with our collection of over 140 different taxa. There are few evergreen plants better for year-round interest in dry shade than aucuba. Here is one of the most
Aucuba…the overlooked winter shrub Read More »
Trillium cuneatum ‘Oconee Gold’ is a rare gold-flowered selection of the typically purple-flowered southeastern toadshade. We found our original plant of this in Oconee County, SC, and have propagated them from seed since that time. If we keep the yellow-flowered plants isolated from purple-flowering clones, we have more than 50% that reproduce with yellow flowers.
A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned our landscaping project on the north side of Mt. Michelle to create more intricate planting pockets, while raising the planting heights significantly via the use of rock assisted berms. Phase 2 of the project was to create a cut through on northwest side through a previously inaccessible bed.
Flowering now in the woodland garden is this rad little windflower, Anemone raddeana. This Asian native (China, Japan, Korea, and Russia) is a plant you’ll almost never see for sale. First, it flowers in the middle of winter when few people are thinking about gardening. Secondly, it’s ridiculously small, producing only a single white flower
