The foliage of Amorphophallus konjac ‘Gordon’s Gold’ is truly superb in the gardens, looking like a forest of small golden palm trees. This is a great discovery from California plantsman, Dave Gordon. This year, one of our plants had a leaf chimera mutation so that half of the leaf mutated to green, while the other
We’re trialing quite a few of the new colored-foliage, non-invasive ajugas, and are quite excited so far. Here is one of several that we really like, Ajuga ‘Parrot Paradise’ in the garden. These ajugas open up a wealth of color combination possibilities for garden designers. Hopefully, you’ll see this gracing a Plant Delights catalog in
We are in love with the winter hardy princess lilies, and have been for quite a while. They have been in peak bloom for several weeks now, with no sign of slowing down. Here’s our oldest clump of Alstroemeria ‘Princess Fabiana’ this week. Shockingly, these have also been winter hardy for years in Western Michigan
Always wanted to fall for a princess Read More »
I grew up as a child spending most of my time botanizing the woods from a ridiculously early age. One of the native plants I’ve known since my earliest adventures is Asarum arifolium, which was the most common wild ginger in our region. Over the last 60 years, I’ve undoubtedly seen tens of thousands of
My ginger…your foliage is…wrong Read More »
We find aucubas an invaluable evergreen shrub for dry shade, and one of our favorites is looking rather nice this week. Aucuba japonica ‘Ogon-no-tsuki’ is also one of the slowest growers due to the large amount of gold in the leaf center. It is our hope to perhaps finally have enough to share in the
It’s hard to imagine a more spotted hardy plant than Arum x diotalicum ‘Chui’. Shared with us by UK plantsman John Grimshaw, this hybrid of Arum italicum and Arum dioscoridis shares the best traits of both species…the leaf markings of Arum italicum and the floral (spathe) staining of Arum dioscoridis. We hope to have enough
Chui hits the spot(s) Read More »
Most folks in the Southeast US consider sweetgums to be a less than desirable tree, while gardeners in most foreign countries consider Liquidambar styraciflua to be a garden gem. Over the years, we have collected cuttings of quite a few gold sports from roadside botanizing expeditions, but none have proved to have good enough garden
The Japanese Arisaema sikokianum (Jack-in-the-pulpit) posing with Hosta ‘Kabitan in this glamour shot.
Jack of all trades Read More »
One of the broadleaf evergreen trees that always elicits oohs and aaahs is Castanopsis cuspidata ‘Angyo Yellow’ and the cream centered counterpart ‘Nakafu’. These yellow-variegated Japanese selections of the the Japanese chinquapin is as rare as the proverbial hens teeth. Our 14 year old specimen pictured here in the winter garden is starting to make
Broadleaf Evergreen Royalty Read More »
Variegated plants have part of the normal green portion of the plant leaf being replaced by white, cream, yellow, or occasionally other colors. How cool is that! As a design element, variegated plants are often used as the center of attention or as a focal point in the landscape to lighten up a normally dark
Make Your Shade Garden Cool! Read More »
