Just like the Broadway play, we love the plant, Boesenbergia hamiltonii. We acquired this gem from India in 2005 before it actually existed as a species. Back in the day, taxonomists who dealt only with dead, smashed plants, had created a rather large mess assigning the name Boesenbergia longiflora to every reasonably similar-looking ginger from
Hamilton…the flower Read More »
No, we’re not talking about your favorite football or basketball team, but the amazing blue Mediterranean fan palm. Here’s our oldest (16 year) specimen in our alpine rock garden this week. Chamaerops humilis is a Southern Europe native that’s marginally hardy in our region, but the blue form, know as var. cerifera (or var. argentea).
Are you a blue fan? Read More »
Flowering now in the garden is the little-known Hedychium deceptum, which translates to deceived ginger. Discovered in 1922 by UK plantsman HJ Elwes of galanthus fame, it was initially identified as Hedychium greenii, until taxonomists realized that it was not the same as that taxon, so to commerate their confusion/deception, they coined the name Hedychium
Raise your hand if you’ve grown macbridea in the garden. Raise your hand if you’ve even heard of macbridea. This cute North American native (NC, SC, GA) bog mint has really impressed us in the garden. Flowering started in the last few weeks, and shows no sign of abating. We’re always cautious with mint relatives,
Lycoris (surprise or hurricane lillies) season has begun in earnest. We’ve already had 97 diffrerent clones to flower and the season is young. In a typical year, we usually flower between 300 and 400 different selected clones. Here are a few that have looked good so far. The top three are spring-leaf varieties, and as
Surprise…the lycoris have begun Read More »
As a plant breeder, one of the cool things we get to do is observe the diversity that arises from a single cross. In some cases, the diversity shows up in the first generation (F1), while in other cases, the first set of offspring need to have sex with each other for the diversity in
For two decades, we’ve grown the amazing Chinese jack-in-the-pulpit, Arisaema saxatile with its delightful lemon-fragranced flowers. The most frustrating part was its slow offsetting nature, which meant we rarely had any to share. Eighteen months ago, we dug our main clump and moved most of it from a well-shaded site to a location that would
Shaking up Saxatile Read More »
Arundo donax ‘Peppermint Stick’ is looking quite gorgeous in the garden this summer, although you will need a rather large space in which to grow it. I’ve always felt this would be fantastic on large commercial landscape projects. Sadly, we see this pop up on a few poorly-researched lists of invasive plants, which would be
Giant Peppermint Stick Read More »
Our patch of Aloe cooperi has been beautiful in flower this summer, but every time I see it, my mind automatically associates it with rocker, Alice Cooper. I guess he made quite an impression on me as a child. Aloe cooperi is the hardiest of the aloes, first cousin to the better known Aloe vera.
Cooperi…Aloe, not Alice Read More »
Arachnioides standishii is one of our favorite garden ferns. This particular collection comes from Japan’s Mt. Daisen. The common name is Upside down fern since the leaves appear to be attached inverted. Production is always challenging since spore don’t ripen until after Christmas. The foliage remains evergreen until temps drop below 10 degrees F. Hardiness
Upside down Spider Fern Read More »
