Looking lovely in the garden now is the woodland perennial, Actaea pachypoda, commonly known as doll’s eyes. Most of the commercial material available in the trade comes from much colder climates, and will not survive our summers. It has a huge native range from Canada south to Louisiana, so it’s surprising that introductions of heat
Hey Doll, love those Eyes Read More »
One of the joys of trialing so many plants are the unexpected successes. One of those successes, flowering now is the Jack-in-the-pulpit, Arisaema prazeri ‘Chiang Mai’ (praise yer eye). This Northern Thailand collection from the late Alan Galloway has absolutely no business thriving here in the ground, yet here it is in flower in mid-June,
There’s a word for people who try the same thing over and over again, but our insanity kept us trying every new cultivar of the heat-intolerant Japanese hakone grass in the hopes we’d find one that would thrive. The gardening gods answered when Hakonechloa macra ‘Sunflare’ first arrived here in 2017. This clumping woodland grass
We’re so busy photo-documenting our trillium collection from late winter through early spring, that we often don’t take time to share any images from our collection. As we file this years images, here are a few samples. Our staff, as well as outside collaborating researchers spend significant time studying these in both the wild and
The word “primrose” is from the medieval Latin prima rosa, literally the “first rose”. Perhaps it was a time when “rose” was used in a more general way. We all know that a primrose is not a rose not even by any other name, but we certainly think of it as an early spring flower.
The first rose from Japan Read More »
Getting ready to open in late January at JLBG is the very rare, silver-foliaged form of the Southeast US native toadshade, Trillium underwoodii. This species is known for its highly mottled foliage, but if you look long enough, you’ll eventually find one of these odd silver-foliage variants within each species. Trillium underwoodii ‘Black Silver’ is
Black Silver Toadshade Read More »
The latest new group of lenten roses are the Helleborus x lemperii hybrids. These are crosses, long thought to be impossible, between Helleborus niger and Helleborus x hybridus. The first variety, H. ‘Walberton’s Rosemary’ was introduced in 2012 as Helleborus x lemonnierae, but the name was too confusing with the cultivar, Helleborus ‘Madame Lemonnier’, so
It looks like we might get viable seed this year on our farfugiums in the garden. Most years, the winter temperatures drop too cold for the late fall flowering seed to develop to maturity. Since Farfugium japonicum isn’t problematic even if we were to get some viable seed to drop, we like to leave seed
Standing out in the garden this month is Aucuba ‘Petite Jade’, a lovely selection of the Asian native evergreen shrub, Aucuba japonica. This release comes from the U.S. National Arboretum, from cuttings originally collected in 1984 at South Korea’s Chollipo Arboretum. This selection is not only slow-growing and dense, but has excellent resistance to foliar
Looking lovely in the mid-January winter garden is the fern, Neolepisorus fortunei ‘Green Ribbons’. This fascinating evergreen fern looks nothing like what most gardeners are familiar with, when they think ferns. Neolepisorus is one of several genera of ferns, known as ribbon ferns. These ferns grow epiphytically (on trees) and lithophytically (on rocks), mostly in
Decorate the Woodland with Green Ribbons Read More »
