woodland gardens

Here’s an odd one from the garden…the unique Solomon’s seal, Polygonatum ‘Koryu’.  Each leaf is adorned with a central raised dragon ridge, giving the leaf an interesting multi-colored appearance.  Like most of the Solomon’s seals, this one is very easy to grow in moist to dry woodland soils, although very deep shade slows down the […]

Here’s a photo of our Rohdea chinensis var. chinensis from Taiwan, flowering in the garden today.  The flowers open greenish white and quickly change to this lovely soft orange.  The unique floral fragrance is sort of fruit/alcoholic…hardy to really describe.  The evergreen rohdeas prefer light woodland shade and average to moist soils.

I just snapped this photo of one of my all-time spring garden favorites…the hardy orchid, Calanthe sieboldii.  These easy-to-grow woodland orchids prefer average to slightly moist soil.  We’re just a the tip of peak orchid season in the woodland gardens here at Juniper Level.

It’s always exciting when you find a variegated plant in the wild, so here is one of our discoveries…a variegated sport on Cynoglossum virginicum…our native woodland Hound’s tonuge.

Another great spring perennial is this variegated form of the native woodland Jacob’s Ladder, Polemonium ‘Touch of Class’.  Average to moist woodland soils are perfect for this easy-to-grow shade perennial.

As an experiment, we planted some of the native, woodland-growing Cardamine douglassii ‘Southern Lady’ in full sun last year to see if it would survive.  We figured since it goes summer dormant, it should work fine.  Well, here is a photo from the gardens yesterday…a smashing success.  It is interesting and unexpected that it started

While cutting back winter damaged cast iron plants in the garden, we discovered a nice seed crop on Aspidistra elatior ‘Asahi’.  We expect the white leaf pattern to come true from seed, but we’ll see.  Have you ever sown seed from your aspidistra?

Here is the wonderful woodland wild ginger, Asarum forbesii ‘Mercury’ in full flower here at Juniper Level Botanic Garden.  We’ve grown this since the early 1990’s and this is the first year we’ve had enough to divide and share.

Although it’s three weeks later than normal, one of our favorite winter-flowering native perennials is at peak now…Cardamine douglasii ‘Southern Lady’.  Enjoy it now since it goes dormant by mid-spring…great in the light shade garden with hellebores!  http://www.plantdelights.com/Cardamine-for-sale/buy-Toothwort/Woodland-Garden/