This is a very good year for the annual winter fruit show on Rohdea japonica (sacred lily). The attractive berries remain until early March, when they begin to drop. Although seed from these cultivars do not come true, you’ll always end up with an interesting variety of offspring.
Here’s a new photo of Agave parryi ssp. huachucensis ‘Excelsior’ from our garden this week. We typically don’t have many variegated century plants that will survive our winters, but this is one of the exceptions. This superb clone was first introduced in 1967 from a small California nursery by the same name. Protection from excess
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We have been fascinated with hardy cyclamen since the 1960s, but in recent years have spent a bit of time isolating some of the best silver-leaf variants that showed up in our seed pots and getting these established in the garden. These silver leaf oddities can be found in the wild, although they are fairly
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We are always interested in checking out the offspring, when plants in the garden have unexpected romantic rendezvous with their distant cousins…often when we least expect it. We have found arums tend to be quite promiscuous in the garden. While most offspring go to the great compost pile in the sky, a few are worthy
Last week, we were repotting our container agaves prior to winter, when we ran up on this unusual sight. Let me begin by explaining that there are three groups of agaves, based on how they propagate: solitary agaves, rhizomatous agaves, and offsetting agaves. While it’s not unusual for a rhizomatous agave to produce an underground
As fall temperatures drop, it’s not unusual to find our native bees asleep in some of the most interesting places. We caught this carpenter bee fast asleep on the job this week, clinging tightly to the spines of an Agave parryi.
Looking good in the garden now is Begonia taiwaniana ‘Alishan Angel’, which is our 2008 collection from 6,500′ elevation in Taiwan’s Yushan Province. This specimen has now been in the ground since 2010, and is thriving in a fairly dry woodland location. We introduced this selection in 2020 and will be offering it again in
Ajuga ‘Parrot Paradise’ is one of many new next generation colorful ajuga groundcovers that have hit the market in the last few years. These have been amazing in our trials, as you can see from the October photo below. Best of all, we haven’t seen any seedlings, which have been a problem with several of
In our hot, humid climate, we really struggle with keeping most cultivars of Caryopteris x clandonensis alive for very long. A lovely exception in our trials has been Caryopteris ‘Gold Crest’, a recent introduction from the plant breeders at Ball Hort. Here is our three year old clump in the garden this week. The foliage
With the trend for green mulch (i.e. groundcovers), we continue to trial a number of new introductions that fit the bill. One of the top performers continues to be Sedum ellacombeanum ‘Cutting Edge’ PP 28,926. This 2016 Brent Horvath introduction has thrived in both sun and light shade, making a perfect ground-hugging mat. Despite being
