I’ve been enchanted with the New Zealand native fern, Paesia scaberula, since obtaining my first specimen from Washington fern guru, Judith Jones in 2011. We didn’t expect any plant from the cool summer climate of New Zealand to have a chance of surviving here, but after fourteen years, it actually thrives. We almost failed on
It’s hard to pass our picture perfect clump of Agave nickelsiae without stopping to take a photo. Agave nickelsiae, formerly known as Agave ferdinandi-regis, is a North American native century plant, found in dry, rocky hills in Mexican state of Coahuila. It was named to honor 19th century plant collector, Anna Nickels of Texas, who
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In 2024, I happened to check out one of the plant auction sites, and was shocked to see a listing for an edged form of Agave utahensis ssp. utahensis var. nevadensis. I had only seen one listed twice before, and each time, the price for a tiny, unrooted division topped $10,000 USD. Both times, the
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One of our more interesting new century plants is Agave ovatifolia ‘Glowing Angel’. This exceptional plant originated here, as a sport from Agave ‘Awakening Angel’, but without the blue edge. In winter, the foliage turns blue, but in early spring, the plant glows, with the intensity of the color radiating out from the center, which
In flower in mid-July is the rare, woodland crinum lily, Crinum moorei ‘Moore Stripes’. This is the only striped leaf crinum lily that we’ve found to be stable. Our only regret is that it doesn’t offset faster.
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Looking great in the garden today is the miniature elephant ear, Colocasia bicolor ‘La La La’. This is our 2005 collection from 2,200′ elevation in Vietnam’s Son La province. This isn’t a fast grower, which is why it’s taken us 20 years to grow a patch this large. Since seemingly every province in the region
We’ve written many times about the huge number of plants we’ve killed, but we find that’s the best way to learn. Often, we have a good idea if a particular plant will be successful, and sometimes, it’s just a random attempt. Such was the case, when we planted a cultivar of Rocky Mountain subalpine fir,
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Looking particularly phallic in the garden is our twelve year old specimen of Carpinus betulus ‘Columnaris Nana’ This slow growing, dwarf selection of European hornbeam eventually matures with great age at 22′ tall, so our 6′ tall plant still has a ways to go. We really like these as a garden feature where a non-pruned
Looking great in the garden now is our specimen of Turkish Fir, Abies bornmuelleriana. Our 27 year old specimen was planted as a young seedling, and has shown none of the root disease problems associated with our similar looking native, Abies fraseri. This is despite it being planted where the roof gutters dump water. The
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Is anyone other than us growing, the Japanese woodland perennial, Ainsliaea cordifolia? This odd member of the aster family has strikingly patterned foliage, but for us, has been painfully slow to grow. The plant below is all we have after 18 years of cultivation of a plant we purchased originally from Barry Yinger’s Asiatica Nursery.
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