Happily feeding on our clumps of the native Asclepias perennis this week were Buckeye butterflies (Junonia coenia). The Buckeye butterfly originated in Africa, subsequently diversified in Asia and then spread to North America, where it is now widespread. As our entomologist Bill Reynolds likes to comment, the insects are better botanists than humans. The buckeye butterfly
More than Monarchs Read More »
It’s almost time to say so long to our long-time Plant Records/Taxonomist, Zac Hill, who will be moving to the Charlotte, NC area in early fall, to take over a similar position with the Bartlett Tree Company Arboretum. Bartlett is a private arboretum/research facility that, under the direction of plantsman Adam Black, holds one of
Below is our clump of Yucca ‘Southern Twist’ in the garden this month. This is a plant we discovered in 2011, near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and have also found as far south as the Florida panhandle. The only problem is that this plant doesn’t technically exist, according to the botanical literature. It’s possible that it has
The Mystery Soapwort Read More »
Back in June 1998, I was botanizing in Southern Georgia, with Woodlander’s Bob McMartney, when I spied a spectacular patch of ornamental grass, growing alongside the road in remote Warren County. We turned around and dug a small division, before heading on. While I was excited at the prospect of a heat tolerant, blue-foliaged grass
In 2022, we introduced Ruellia sp. nov. ‘Humility’, a new, still unpublished Southeast US native species, found in 2013, by our taxonomist, Zac Hill, in southern Alabama. Until it’s formally published with an official name, we gave it a cultivar. Not only is it easy to grow, and attractive in flower, but the October foliage
We’ve long been fans of the tropical crepe ginger, Costus speciosus. We’ve trialed it several times, however, with no long term winter hardiness here in Zone 7b…until…a group of friends were botanizing in far Northern Vietnam, near the Chinese border, when plantsman Ozzie Johnson spotted it growing there at 3,900′ elevation. Returning home with a
Costumed in the Garden Read More »
The botanical world has long been a tug of war between the taxonomic world of lumpers and splitters. Lumpers prefer to combine as many plants as they can into a single genus or species, while splitters prefer to categorize in the opposite direction, creating new genera and species when they feel the science dictates. We
Re-arranging Limbs on the Family Tree – When is an Agave not an Agave? Read More »
Flowering in early December, this is our first time to see blooms on a cast iron plant collected for us in 2018, by the late Alan Galloway in northern Vietnam. It didn’t take but a glance to realize that it represents another new, undescribed cast iron plant species. Our taxonomist, Zac Hill, has already been
A Cast of Hundreds Read More »
Looking lovely in the bog garden during August is the native coastal bog asphodel, Tofeldia racemosa (aka: Triantha racemosa). This little-known native of the Southern coastal plain can be found in moist lowlands, often growing with pitcher plants. Tofelida is so unusual that no other plant family would accept it, so it had to create
The racemose Tofeldia/Triantha Read More »
Back in the 1970s, when I was specializing in house plants, one of my favorites was the epiphytic fern genus, Aglamorpha. These staghorn relatives made delightful hanging baskets, despite being far outside the bell curve in regards to recognizability to most gardeners. Over the years, as I migrated more to hardy perennials, I gave up
Morphing Aglamorpha Read More »
