Late spring is a great season for clematis at JLBG, but one that’s particularly of interest is the recently named (2006) Clematis carrizoensis, which hails from a very small region of East Texas. It’s not been around long enough to officially be listed as Federally Endangered, but that’s most likely where it’s headed. This new
Clematis Time – Engendered or Endangered Read More »
I’ve been fascinated with cigar flowers since I was in my teens, only to find out years later that some were actually winter hardy here is Zone 7b. In flower now is one of my favorites, Cuphea cyanea ‘Ashevilla’. This gem looks so dainty, that it’s hard to imagine it making it through a winter,
A Celebration of Cigars Read More »
Looking lovely in the dryland garden now is the amazingly vigorous Agastache ‘Queen Nectarine’. This amazing giant measures 3.5′ tall x 3.5′ wide, and is adorned at any given time, May through October, with hundreds of flowers, perfectly designed for hummingbirds. Many of the non purple-flowered agastaches struggle in our hot, humid, rainy summers, but
The purple-leaf eldeberry, Sambucus ‘Chocolate Marzipan’ is looking quite stunning in the garden. This is the first purple-foliage selection to thrive in our hot, humid climate. Envious of the English garden magazine photos, we have searched for over three decades to find one that would perform for us–Eureka!
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Four years ago, we embarked on an experiment to see how well Fuchsia ‘Sanihanf’ would grow in an unprotected hanging basket, left outdoors to the elements all year. The parent species, Fuchsia magellanica is fine in the ground to Zone 6, but has no tolerance of our summer heat. Fuchsia ‘Sanihanf’ was developed from Fuchsia
The Little Fuchsia that could Read More »
Clematis ‘Sapphire Indigo’ is looking quite stunning in the garden. This fascinating clematis isn’t a vine or a clump. It could be best referred to as a short sprawler. We’ve used it throughout the gardens as a groundcover filler between both shrubs and other perennials. It doesn’t actually spread, because in the winter, it dies
In the crinum lily world, a yellow flower is considered the holy grail by plant breeders, since it only naturally exists in the Australian crinum species, Crinum luteolum. Two other species which occasionally show a yellow blush in the flower are Crinum bulbispermum and Crinum jagus. Crinum luteolum is completely ungrowable in the Southeast US.
Great new plants for the garden do sometimes just happen. They can occur as a spontaneous sport from an existing planting, as a seed selection that has much better garden traits, but many of our most useful and ecologically important plants in the garden have their start in exploration. I was thinking about this today
Riverbank Sundrop; The Journey Begins Read More »
You go straight through to the round of botanical superstars if you recognize this little-known southeast native (SC to Florida), Piriqueta caroliniana. This Patrick McMillan collection from coastal SC has thrived all summer in our full sun rock garden, flowering constantly, with new flowers opening every other day. This oddity is a member of the
One of the stars of our late summer/early fall garden has been our selection of Chrysopsis mariana ‘Little Miss Sunshine’. We made this roadside collection of this East Coast native in 2020 in neighboring Orange County, NC, unsure of what we had collected, but loving the purple stems of this clone. This planting in our
Little Miss Sunshine Read More »
