One of our most cherished evergreens in the winter woodland garden is the narrow-leaf form of butchers broom, Ruscus aculeatus ‘Chenault’. Our plant came from the Elizabeth Lawrence Garden, and Elizabeth’s plant originated in France’s Chenault Nursery circa the 1960s. Our 20 year old plants are now 3′ tall x 4′ wide. Although they rarely
Swept Away with Butcher’s Broom Read More »
Most gardeners in mild winter climates are familiar with Liriope (monkey grass), and Ophiopogon (mondo grass), but almost no one is familiar with the third cousin, reineckea (false lilyturf). Like both better known cousins, reineckea is an evergreen groundcover, but unlike the others, here is our clump of Reineckea ‘Little Giant’ in full flower for
Reineckea…the unknown cousin Read More »
One of our favorite fall woodland plants is a member of the Aster family, belonging to the genus farfugium. Farfugiums have long had a bit of an identity crisis, as they were originally named in 1767 by Linnaeus as Tussilago japonicum. In 1768, the same plant was also published as Arnica tussilaginea. Then, in 1784,
Another genus of ferns that we just adore are the bamboo ferns of the genus coniogramme. We’ve grown these amazing gems for two decades, and after all that time are still in love. Although these woodland ferns are deciduous, they are tardily so, so they still look quite fresh into mid-November. Here are a couple
We love plant mysteries, and Sabal ‘Blackburniana’ fits the bill nicely. This pass-along seed strain has been considered by some to be an old hybrid of Sabal minor, while others consider it to be synonymous with Sabal palmetto, yet others consider it to be Sabal domingensis. Whatever it is, our plant is looking quite good
To most folks, especially car collectors and gearheads, Hemi’s refer to hemispherical combustion engines, but to those of us hortheads, Hemi’s refer to a group of gesneriads (African violet relatives) in the genus Hemiboea. We started growing the fall-flowering hemiboeas in the early 1990s, thanks to Atlanta gardeners, Ozzie Johnson and Don Jacobs, both of
A Horticultural Hemi Read More »
Just snapped this photo of Aspidistra minutiflora ‘Leopard’…one of our favorite cast iron plants. Although it isn’t really winter hardy here in Zone 7b, it makes one heck of a tough house plant.
Stachyurus chinensis ‘Golden Joy’ is looking fabulous in our garden. This new gold-leaf sport of Stachyurus ‘Joy Forever’, discovered by plantsman Ron Rabidou, has been a wonderfully bright spot in the woodland garden at JLBG
Looking superb this week is our great native fern, Thelypteris kunthii (southern shield fern) So what is a kunth? In fact, this fern gets its name from German taxonomist, Carl Sigismund Kunth (1788 – 1850). Kunth was one of the first people to categorize North American plants, mostly from the collections of German botanists, Humboldt and
Who put the Kunth in Kunthii? Read More »
One of the Jim Phillips sculptures at JLBG decided they needed something to keep its head warm, so it added this life-like squirrel-skin cap. Nature never ceases to entertain.
