Arum ‘Chui’, a purported hybrid between Arum italicum (unspotted flowers) and Arum dioscoridis (heavily spotted flowers), is hard to miss as it puts on it’s early spring flowering show. Bothe leaves and inflorescences are heavily spotted on this excellent selection. This gem comes from UK plantsman extraordinaire, John Grimshaw. We’ll probably be chopping into our
Some folks of a certain age, remember Columbo as a 1970s television series starring Peter Falk, but long before that, 1788 in fact, there was an Eastern (Michigan south to South Carolina) native perennial, Frasera caroliniensis, commonly known as American Columbo. This odd deciduous gentian relative is a monocarpic perennial that takes between 5-15 years
Late December marks our first flowering of Iris planifolia. This odd native to Southern Europe and Northern Africa has a similar distribution to the better-known Iris unguicularis, but this Iris belongs to the group, known as Juno or bulbous iris. These deciduous iris are extremely sensitive to summer moisture, which is why this resides in
First Flowers of Flat Iris Read More »
2024 marks a significant change for us at Juniper Level Botanic Garden, with a number of exciting changes on the way, starting January 1. After 5 years of background work, we are pleased to launch our new JLBG Membership program. Anyone joining in 2024, will be forever memorialized as a Founding Member of JLBG, showing
A Time for Change at JLBG Read More »
Our title is obviously borrowed from the 1961 Chubby Checker song, which few people reading this, probably remember. Abutilon ‘Twister’ is looking absolutely elegant now in the fall garden. This amazing flowering maple hybrid from the folks at California’s Monterrey Bay Nursery, has thrived here since 2005, enduring several single digit F. winters. For us,
Let’s Twist Again, Like we did Last Summer Read More »
As a high schooler, and through college, I ran a small backyard greenhouse selling tropical plants from my parents home. One of the groups that I specialized in were bromeliads, so I’ve long had a fascination with group. Later in life, when I switched to outdoor winter hardy plants, I continued to look for hardy
Just beginning to open outside our nursery office is the lovely Magnolia platypetala. Our specimen of this amazing Chinese native is now 24 years old. The fuzzy brown buds, which are beautiful in their own right, open to large, fragrant white flowers. When night temperatures drop below freezing, the petals melt, but are replaced the
We’ve been very pleased with a series of new windmill palm hybrids in the garden as we approach another winter stress test. Trachycarpus x forceps is our assigned name for crosses between Trachycarpus fortunei and Trachycarpus princeps. While most Trachycarpus fortunei is winter hardy here in Zone 7b, the lovely Chinese/Tibetan border endemic, Trachycarpus princeps,
Grasping Wags – a New Reveal Read More »
One of our favorite ferns, known as Cat’s claw fern, is putting on quite a show this fall. Onychium japonicum is a plant I’d never met until a 1996 expedition to Yunnan, China. Although it was a bit depauperate in the wild, the potential I saw, was far exceeded by its garden performance. We now
Putting on a show this week in the garden are the Living Stones. No, not Mick, Keith, and Ronnie, but the horticultural Living Stones, Lithops aucampiae. Our oldest patch starts flowering in early to mid November each year, growing beautifully under an overhanging rock. For all the articles about how difficult they are to grow,
Don’t Miss the Stones latest show Read More »
