The shaggy blazing star, Liatris pilosa has put on quite a show over the last few weeks. Looking quite different in the garden than it did in the wild, this native from Delaware south to Florida enjoys bright sun and well-drained soils. Our plant is growing in one of our Permatill amended rock gardens. Hardiness
Shaggy, but not a dog Read More »
The star of the fall garden this year has been Colchicum tenorii (recently corrected to Colchicum cilicicum), which has been flowering for weeks. Our clump of this Italian native bulb, began as a single bulb in 2000. Once the flowers finish next week, the large, green leaves will emerge and continue to grow through the
The Tenor of Colchicums Read More »
Introducers of new century plant selections are challenged with coming up with appropriate cultivar names, often have a propensity to use wordplay, referring to the agaves spiny teeth. Two favorites, we photographed this week are below, Agave titanota ‘Snaggletooth’ (top), and Agave titanota ‘Sabertooth Tiger’ (bottom). Both are mutations of the same original plant, the
Century Plants – it’s all about the teeth Read More »
In full flower now at JLBG is the longspike tridens, aka: Tridens stricta ‘Buffalo Feathers’. Athough native from NC west to Texas, the genetics of our clump hails from a Wade Roitsch (Yucca Do) collection in Lee County, Texas, and is superior ornamentally in both form and longevity. We have found this little-known ornamental grass
Why not try Tridens? Read More »
We have been admiring the amazing Nerine angustifolias in our dryland parking lot berms over the last few weeks, and they are almost at peak bloom. These South African (Mpumalanga province) amaryllids are distant allies to the Southeast Asian genus Lycoris, although they keep their foliage, unlike lycoris. Typically nerines don’t offer much winter hardiness
The Charming Nerines Read More »
Flowering this month in our parking lot dryland garden is the true Eragrostis elliottii. Back in 1999, we introduced a plant under that name, which had been identified as that species by a Florida taxonomist. Well, it turned out to be the South African Eragrostis chloromelas that’s now being sold nationwide as Eragrostis ‘Wind Dancer’.
Elliot’s Eragrostis Read More »
Our oldest, 21 year-old Cycas taitungensis finally decided to flower this year, but it waited until three months after all the other cycads had finished coning. Plants in the genus Cycas are dioecious, with male and female cones on separate plants. Our specimen turned out to be a female, and by the time we finally
Here’s a new banana to add to the list of hardy species, Musa haekkinenii. This very new, compact-growing, species was first published in 2013, and named after Finnish Musa expert, Markku Häkkinen. Genetically, it’s a relative of Musa coccinea & Musa exotica, that hails from Phú Thọ Province of Northern Vietnam, where it was discovered
Hankerin’ for Hakkinen’s Banana Read More »
Below is our SC collection of Andropogon glaucopsis, looking outstanding in the garden this week. This native gem can be found growing in swamps, scattered from SC through much of the gulf coast. We’re testing its adaptability to non-bog settings, and so far, it’s doing amazingly well. For years, this was considered a subspecies of
You bet your a…, it’s a great grass. Read More »
Looking lovely in the early fall garden are the xAmarcrinum. These are man-made hybrids between Crinum lilies and the South African Amaryllis belladonna. Despite the later not growing well here, the hybrids are quite amazing with their sweetly-fragranced flowers. All xAmarcrinum are somewhat similar in growth, with greatly reduced foliage from most crinum parents. The
