ground cover for shade

Epimedium wushanense 'Sandy Claws'

A Fluttering of Fairy Wings

We were late wading into the epimedium craze, and without the assistance of epimedium guru, Darrell Probst, still might not have done so. Up until the mid 2000s, we had avoided epimediums, due to both their confusing taxonomy as well as the lack of many showy garden forms. Early introductions such as Epimedium x rubrum,

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Neolepisorus fortunei 'Green Ribbons'

Decorate the Woodland with Green Ribbons

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

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Asarum hypogynum in flower

Is Ginger Cold?

Starting off the new year is our flowering clump of the Taiwanese endemic wild ginger, Asarum hypogynum. The huge, glossy, evergreen patterned foliage is enough reason to grow this gem, but through most of the winter, the incredible floral display silently sits virtually unnoticed by most human visitors. JLBG currently houses one of the largest

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Falling for Spikemoss

We were recently admiring the lovely russet fall coloration of a mat of Selaginella uncinata. This lovely woodland groundcover from Central China and south into Vietnam, has a lovely metallic blue hue during the growing season, but we also like this change to the semi-evergreen foliage in fall. This is such a great, well-behaved garden

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That Won’t Grow Here

We love it when people tell us that certain plants won’t grow in our climate. As gardening contrarians, we thrive on proving gardening experts wrong. Below is a great example–our combination of Globularia repens (Spain, Italy) and Acantholimon halophilum (Central Turkey) thriving in the dryland crevice garden. Both have sailed through out rainy, humid, hot

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Siberian Summer

Looking great in the garden despite our high temperatures is the Siberian native, Microbiota decussata. While the species typically struggles in our climate, the cultivar ‘Prides’ has been outstanding. Microbiota is essentially a groundcover juniper replacement for shade. For us, it matures with a 4′ wide spread, after 10 years. We have found that it

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Good Enough to Eat – Persian Chocolate

The lovely Lysimachia ‘Persian Chocolate’ is looking scrumptious in the garden this week. This amazing 2004 Darrell Probst introduction is 20 years old this year. Here is one of our original patches, still thriving. We have found slightly moist soils and part sun produce the best specimens. It also makes a great hanging basket/container specimen.

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