One of our favorite fall-flowering trees is the tropical-looking Schefflera delavayi. As a child, I was always enamored with schefflera on our family vacations to Florida, never dreaming it would be possible to grow these “tropicals” in our Raleigh garden. Fast forward 60 years, a number of “hardy” schefflera species in the Arailaceae family have
Delavay’s Schefflera is a now a Heap of Pleureum Read More »
One of the more spectacular genera of fall-flowering plants is the tobacco relative, Brugmansia, in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. The genus, Brugmansia, was named in 1805 to honor Sebald Brugmans (1763–1819), a natural history professor at Leiden University, Netherlands. These fragrant flowers are designed to attract pollinators that include large, nocturnal hawkmoths. Below is our clump of
Brugman’s Angel Trumpets Read More »
The wonderful ginger lily, Hedychium ‘Anne Bishop’ is making a stunning show in the mid-October garden with it’s incredible display of huge heads of fragrant orange flowers. We’ve never been able to track down the origin of this cultivar, or the identity of this particular Anne S. Bishop. Not only does this put on a
Anne Bishop is a Late Bloomer Read More »
(aka: Costus speciosus) Hellenia speciosa ‘Wizard of Oz’ is an amazingly winter hardy form of the typically warm tropical, southeast Asian native crepe ginger. This gem is a 2013 Ozzie Johnson collection from near Yan Ming, Vietnam at 3,900′ elevation. Emerging in mid-June (NC), the thick, fleshy green stalks, quickly rise to 6′ tall. The
Sabal ‘DeFuniak’ is a mystery palm, first spotted years ago, in the town of DeFuniak Springs, Florida, as an oddity and potential hybrid. Palm experts agree that the trunk looks like Sabal bermudana, while the foliage more closely resembles Sabal minor var. louisiana. Our first Sabal ‘DeFuniak’ plants are currently flowering this year at 5
Deciphering Defuniak Read More »
Looking lovely in the garden now is one of the most overlooked of the Southeast US native palms. Sabal etonia may look superficially similar to the better known Sabal minor, but while Sabal minor is typically found in swamps and ditches, Sabal etonia comes from dry sandy scrub habitat in North Central Florida. It is
This year, we introduced an amazing new Chinese collection of the shade-loving Mioga ginger, that we named Zingiber mioga ‘Lushan Gold’, from an Atlanta Botanical Garden expedition. It’s amazing, first, in that it clumps, instead or runs like many forms of the species. We grew quite a few from seed, looking for any that might
Magnificent Mioga Read More »
This October marks our first flowering of Musa aurantiaca, a little-known species from the Arunchal-Pradesch and Assam region of India, into surrounding Myanmar and Tibet. We love that both the flower and developing bananas are both bright red. So far, our plant has sailed through winter temperatures of 11 degree F, with no problems. Thanks
It’s hard to miss the giant Hedychium flavum (no relation to the rapper, Flavor Flav) in the garden this month. I first met this gem of a ginger lily years ago, when I was botanizing in Northern Vietnam, near the town of Sapa, where the arching stems were easy to spot, hanging from the steep
A Flava-rite Flavor Read More »
I just snapped this photo of one of the most fascinating summer-growing aroids in the garden. Englerarum is the Charlie Brown of the hardy elephant ear like aroids. It looks somewhat like an alocasia or colocasia, but after taking a DNA test in 2013, was kicked out of both genera, and left to its own
Unwanted and Un-loved Read More »
