(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
Looking great in the garden today is the miniature elephant ear, Colocasia bicolor ‘La La La’. This is our 2005 collection from 2,200′ elevation in Vietnam’s Son La province. This isn’t a fast grower, which is why it’s taken us 20 years to grow a patch this large. Since seemingly every province in the region
You would think with 220 new Aspidistra (cast iron plant) species discovered since 1980 that botanists would have found them all, but that seems to be far from the case. This oddity just flowered in our collection this month, and is obviously yet another new species. This is one of the final collections (2018) made
Cast-ing a Wider Net Read More »
In full flower now, is yet another member of the Chinese gesneriad genus, Hemiboea. Hemiboea cavaleriei is a rarely cultivated species and forms a spreading mass to 30″ tall x 7′ wide in only 2.5 years. For us, flowering started in early October, and will continue until frost. In China and neighboring Vietnam, it grows
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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
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We’ve long been fans of the tropical crepe ginger, Costus speciosus. We’ve trialed it several times, however, with no long term winter hardiness here in Zone 7b…until…a group of friends were botanizing in far Northern Vietnam, near the Chinese border, when plantsman Ozzie Johnson spotted it growing there at 3,900′ elevation. Returning home with a
Costumed in the Garden Read More »
Flowering in early December, this is our first time to see blooms on a cast iron plant collected for us in 2018, by the late Alan Galloway in northern Vietnam. It didn’t take but a glance to realize that it represents another new, undescribed cast iron plant species. Our taxonomist, Zac Hill, has already been
A Cast of Hundreds Read More »
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
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Through the years, we’ve trialed 27 different clones of Amorphophallus krausei in the garden for winter hardiness, but only two have consistently survived. The largest is a 2005 Alan Galloway collection from from Son La, Vietnam. Here it is in the garden this week with the 5′ tall flower spikes. The spikes are followed by
Back in the early 2000s, we grew the spiral ginger, Costus speciosus for many years, before finally loosing it in a very cold winter, but its potential hardiness has always fascinated us. In 2013, Georgia plantsman Ozzie Johnson collected a specimen near the border of North Vietnam and Southern China at 3,900′ elevation. Below is
