Even unclothed, Styrax japonica ‘Fragrant Fountain’ still provides great winter interest with it’s weeping branches, like a fountain frozen in time. This gem from Oregon nurseryman, Crispin Silva, is slow growing and should mature around 8′ tall x 8′ wide. Our garden specimen has been in the ground since 2008. Zone 5a-8b.
It’s been almost five years, since I extolled the virtues of the amazing Juniperus chinensis ‘Kaizuka’. If you’re a card carrying member of the plant-butchering, meatballs-r-us crowd, this is not your plant. Sadly, because this introduction from Japan’s Yokohama Nursery, prior to 1920 is so widely used in industrial plantings, many keen plantspeople also dismiss
Join the No-meatballs Club Read More »
No, we’re not going to discuss the sad state of UNC football, as enough people have jumped on that lame horse. Instead, we’re going to talk about an ornamental grass that we adore. A couple of years ago, we posted a summer blog about this amazing southeast US native grass, Andropogon glaucopsis. Our SC seed
Our 25 year old Magnolia platypetala has been spectacular over the last few weeks, until our recent lows in the teens. Not to worry, as the unopened flower buds should be fine. The fuzzy brown buds, which are beautiful in their own right, open to large, fragrant white flowers. Taxonomically, it’s often listed as a
Anyone who has visited JLBG knows that we are passionate about the genus Aucuba, which is one of the finest woody evergreens for shade. The forms, sizes, and leaf patterns are incredibly diverse. Here are a couple of our brightest spotted clones, Aucuba japonica ‘Lemon Flare’ and ‘Merced’. If you live in Zone 7, and
Our specimen of the North American native, Yucca rostrata ‘Sapphire Skies’ is looking quite lovely in the January garden. This is one of the tallest of the hardy blue-foliage soapworts, thriving well into Zone 6, and south through Zone 9. This clump is sixteen years old this year, so it’s officially entering adulthood, when growth
The Rising Sapphire Skies Read More »
I was just admiring one of our clumps of the amazing Yucca linearifolia in the garden…truly one of the stars of the genus. This North American native, named as recently as 1995, can be found naturally around the Nuevo Leon region in Northern Mexico. The plant below is now 18 years old and 5′ tall.
We’ve long enjoyed the fall-flowering, hybrid muhly grass, Muhlenbergia ‘Pink Flamingos’ in the garden. As an ornamental, it only has one fault, the plumes are so heavy, that they spend most of their life kissing up to the mulch. I was noticing last week that once winter arrived and the plumes lost moisture, they are
