Think of it as an agave in drag. Sedum ‘Pride and Joy’ makes a unique combination in the early fall garden by adorning the base of this manly Agave ovatifolia.
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Tag Archives: dryland gardens
Foliage Mimic
Here’s our clump of Chrysopsis gossypina in the garden this week, looking shockingly like a South African Helichrysum petiolare (straw flower). This little-known Southeast US native (Virginia to Mississippi) is usually found on dry, sandy soils. So far, our plants of the short-lived cottony golden aster are thriving in our well-drained agave/cactus berms. The yellow daisy flowers should be appearing soon.
When is a Mimosa not a Mimosa?
What would you say if I told you that virtually everything you know as a mimosa, isn’t? In fact, the commonly known mimosa is actually an albizzia. Albizzia julibrissin, native from Japan through to the Transcaucuses, was brought to the US back in the 1700s as an ornamental. Back in the day, it was actually thought to belong to the genus Mimosa, but this error was corrected by 1806, but as you can see, old names die hard. Although beautiful, albizzia is a prolific seeder, so is rarely planted any longer.
Interestingly, virtually no one grows any of the 25 North American native species of true Mimosa. Below is our plant of Patrick’s collection of the Southwest US native, Mimosa dysocarpa in flower now. This 3-6′ tall, highly thorny shrub, grows natively from 3,500′ – 6,500′ in the dry deserts of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. So far, it seems to be liking its new home in NC. It’s a particularly good food for bees, butterflies/moths, and birds, while the fruit is adored by quails.
Klein’s Cylinder Pencil Cactus
I can’t remember when I first met Cylindropuntia kleiniae, but it was somewhere back in my early years, during a family cross country drive, designed to expose us kids to the entirety of the US. I fell in love with cactus, despite being repeatedly stabbed as I tried to rescue a pad to take home.
Since that time, I’ve encountered this native of Texas, New Mexico, and into Mexico more times than I care to remember. This hardy pencil cactus is the Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree of cacti…kinda homely, but loveable in a motherly sort of way. In the garden, it forms an open 6′ specimen.
Globs of Globularia
Globularia is a genus of small, rock garden-sized plants in the Plantaginaceae family, with a native distribution centered around Mediterranean Europe. I admired these during our 2012 Balkan expedition, but it wasn’t until we constructed our crevice garden empire, that we really began to have much success with the dryland plants in our wet, humid summer climate.
We’ve now tried 15 of the 22 known globularia species, and have only lost two of those outright. While globularias are usually grown for their puffy blue, ball-shaped flowers in spring, we love species like Globularia repens for its habit as a slow-growing, dense groundcover. The key to our success is a soil mix of 50% Permatill, which is a lava-like popped slate. Hardiness Zone 4b-8a.
Clematis Time – Engendered or Endangered
Late spring is a great season for clematis at JLBG, but one that’s particularly of interest is the recently named (2006) Clematis carrizoensis, which hails from a very small region of East Texas. It’s not been around long enough to officially be listed as Federally Endangered, but that’s most likely where it’s headed. This new species is part of what’s know as the Clematis viorna complex. In the garden, it’s a short vine, but we chose to let it have its way with a century plant, which provides a lovely structure for the months of flowering.
Steroidal Heliotrope
Here’s a trial plant growing in the garden that exceeded our expectations by miles. Heliotropium ‘Augusta Lavender’ is a Brent Barnes hybrid that has to be seen to be believed. Promoted as an annual, this 1 year old clump sailed through our 11F winter with no issues. A little bird tells me that this will be included in the upcoming Plant Delights catalog.
Rockin’, Rollin, and Plantin’
For those who regularly attend our Open Nursery and Garden days, you have no doubt watched the evolution of our new dryland rock garden by our welcome tent. I thought it would be fun to look back at its short evolution. Below is Jeremy’s bed outline from late January 2021, when this new bed was only a vision in our heads.
In late January 2021, Jeremy broke ground by digging down until we reached undisturbed subsoil, which was then loosened.
The next step was to add our planting mix, which consists of 25% native soil, 25% compost, and 50% Permatill (a popped slate gravel). The planting media was thoroughly mixed with the subsoil, which ensures continuous drainage by not layering different soil types. The final height of our bed was 5.5′, with the knowledge that we would loose about 6″ in final height to settling. Planting began in early March 2021.
Below is the same area taken this week–27 months after construction. The bed is 35′ long with an average width of 15′, which would give us 525 square feet of bed space–if the bed was flat. With our finished height of 5′, we actually have close to 800 square feet of planting space–50% more surface area, all because we raised the bed height.
Because these are dryland plants, this section of the garden is un-irrigated, except during extended periods of severe drought and above normal heat. We hope this “peaks” your interest in both the science and art of rock gardening. If so, the North American Rock Garden Society (NARGS.org) is an amazing group of like-minded folks with an incredible seed list of treasures for this type of garden.
Barbara’s Buttons
Looking lovely this spring has been our patch of Marshall’s Barbara’s Buttons, Marshallia caespitosa. This cute perennial hails from prairies from Missouri south to Texas and will be available this fall. Hardiness is Zone 5a-8b.
Damascus Blues
The foliage of Asphodeline damascena is looking absolutely wonderful…like a blue beetle’s wig from the 1960s. This little-known member of the Asphodel family hails from the dry deserts of Turkey and Syria/Lebanon. Other current members of the family include the genus Aloe, Haworthia, Hemerocallis, and Kniphofia. The short spikes of white flowers will appear soon, but we’d be happy if this never flowered.
Hacking Characias
If you’ve driven through the any of the Mediterranean countries in spring, you are undoubtedly familiar with the common Mediterranean spurge, Euphorbia characias (ker-ack-iss). For years, I admired this in virtually every English garden book, but always failed in my attempts to keep it alive in our garden.
Years later, it finally hit me what I was doing wrong. Euphorbia characias is a short-lived perennial – think 3-4 years max. I was purchasing clonal selections and expecting them to last, while not providing an environment where they would be prone to reseeding, which ensures that you actually keep the plant around. Despite needing to reseed to survive, it’s not a plant that’s prone to getting out of hand.
Euphorbia characias like dry, well-drained soils, especially those that are gravelly. We have also discovered that rich, amended beds also allow for reseeding as long as aren’t heavily irrigated. Now, we allow the seed heads to remain until the seed have dropped, at which time they are cut back to the blue foliage. We have found that leaving the seed heads on the plant too long actually shortens the plants already short lifespan.
Not only is Euphorbia characias an incredible ornamental, but it also has the longest duration of use in Western medicine. Recent research has found the plant to have a wide array of medicinal compounds. These compounds have activity as antioxidants, as pesticides (both anti-viral and anti-microbial), as wound healers, to treat hypoglycemia, as an anti-aging agent (preventing free radical chain reactions), and as a disease (HIV) enzyme inhibitor. I’d say, that’s a pretty impressive resume. Hardiness is Zone 7a-10b.
Funky Toes – No Sign of Defeet
Agave x protamericana ‘Funky Toes’ is looking fabulous in the garden today, having sailed through our cold winter in tip top shape. This unique form of the well-known North American native agave is an introduction of the former Yucca Do Nursery, from one of their collections in Northern Mexico.
In 2018, we found a streaked leaf on a potted offset. By using a technique called crown cutting, we were able to isolate the bud from the streaked leaf into a yellow center, which we named Agave ‘Funky Monkey’…photo below. Hopefully in the next few years, we’ll have enough of this new introduction to share.
Anchors Away
I’m going to go out and a limb and guess that few people grow Colletia paradoxa…commonly known as anchor plant. Colletia was named to honor French botanist Philibert Collet (1643-1718). I’m not quite sure what we find so fascinating about this botanical oddity, but something causes us to be drawn to a plant with large spines, no leaves and a terrible form. Perhaps it’s the lightly fragrant winter flowers that are just beginning.
Colletia paradoxa hails from scrubby dry hillsides in Southern Brazil and Uruguary, which have yielded so many amazing, well-performing plants for our Zone 7b climate. Bright sun and a baking dry site are the keys to success. Instead of producing leaves, Colletia is clothed with triangular cladodes, similar to plants in the genus Ruscus. Colletia is not related to Ruscus, however, but instead is a member of the buckthorn family, Rhamnaceae. Because colletia is native to nutritionally poor soils, it evolved to fix nitrogen, which is more common in the legume family.
December Daphnes
I’ve posted about daphnes a couple of times this year, but can’t help post again now that we’re in December and still have two daphnes in full flower, despite two nights at 25 degrees F.
The top is Daphne collina from Southern Italy, and the bottom is Daphne x napolitana ‘Bramdream’…a hybrid of Daphne collina x Daphne cneorum var. pygmaea. These are growing in our dry crevice garden in a soil mix of 50% Permatill gravel. It seems obvious that the Daphne collina is the source of the continuous bloom. Winter hardiness is Zone 6a-8b (top), and Zone 5-8b (bottom).
The Future is Now!
Season’s Greetings from all of us at Plant Delights and Juniper Level Botanic Garden. With the National Day of Giving on November 29, we thought we’d wade into the fray and make our case for a donation to our future operational endowment for JLBG.
As you are probably aware, we are in the process of transitioning to our next phase of existence. Age and health issues catch up to all of us, and while our health is still fine today, we needed to put a plan in place to ensure the future of the gardens at JLBG.
Several years ago, we (Anita and I) gifted the entire property, which includes both Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden to NC State University for safe keeping, to which they have gladly agreed. The only thing remaining is to fund the yearly operational expenses of the gardens, since the University has no funds to do so. The University has established an operational endowment, for which we are currently raising funds.
To maintain the garden at its current level of operation will require a $17 million dollar endowment. To date, we have raised $600,000. As you see, we have a long way to go, and with us continuing to age, the urgency to fill the endowment increases every day. We hope you’ll be willing to contribute to our year end appeal if you think the gardens are worth preserving. Please also help us to share the word with your gardening friends…especially those who have won the lottery and need a good tax deduction.
If you haven’t visited JLBG in a while, we have included some 2022 garden shots.
Here is the link to find out more about the endowment, our future plans, and to make a year end donation. If you’d like to chat with us further with questions or thoughts, please email us at info@jlbg.org.
-tony and anita
Cow Tongue Takes a Lickin’
The gigantic, winter hardy, North American native, cow tongue cactus, Opuntia lindheimeri ‘Linguiformis’ is looking wonderful in the fall garden. We planted our original plant back in 2000, but when reworking a bed, needed to move it about 4 years ago. We took a couple of pad cuttings which languished, laying bare root on a bench for nearly 2 years. Despite this abuse, this is the result two years after those cuttings finally went in the ground. We find this to be the largest of the Zone 7 winter hardy prickly pear cactus, maturing around 7′ tall x 12′ wide. Winter hardiness is at least Zone 7b-10b, and perhaps colder.
Agave ‘Prince of Whales’
Our 2016 century plant hybrid is looking quite lovely in the garden this month. This plant, which we named Agave x victorifolia ‘Prince of Whales’, is a hybrid of the Whale’s tongue century plant, Agave ovatifolia (male parent), and the Queen Victoria century plant, Agave victoriae-reginae (female parent).
Since both parents are non-offsetting, this means that the offspring will grow to maturity, flower, then die. Consequently, in order to be able to propagate and share, we will have to drill out the central core of the plant to trick in to offset. While this ruins the appearance of the original, it’s the only way for this to ever be shared and preserved. This plant has been in the ground since 2018, so we expect to have another eight years (guessing) prior to flowering. Consequently, so we’ll probably gamble on waiting a few more years before performing surgery. Winter hardiness is Zone 7b-10b.
Below is a photo of both parents.
Glorious Gloriosa
Our 2008 introduction of a selection of our native Yucca x gloriosa ‘Lone Star’ has been absolutely splendid in the garden as the fall season begins. Yucca x gloriosa is a natural hybrid of Yucca aloifolia and Yucca filamentosa. We absolutely love that these flower spikes appear at a time when most other plants are past their seasonal prime. Winter hardiness is Zone 7a-9b.
Cat Whiskers Cactus
Our planting of Glandulicactus wrightii is looking quite lovely as we head into fall. Sadly, few folks take time to closely examine the fascinating and intricate arrangements of cactus spines. Glandulicactus wrightii, which is native to Texas and adjacent Mexico has amazingly long, hooked spines that resemble cat whiskers. Long term winter hardiness is hopeful here in Zone 7b, since the seed from which this was grown came from a population at 5,000′ elevation on the New Mexico/Texas border.
A Sage Old Texan
Blooming recently at JLBG is Patrick’s compact, silver-leaf collection of Leucophyllum frutescens from Uvalde, Texas. Leucophyllum frutescens is an evergreen, dryland shrub to 5′ tall, which bursts into an amazing show of flowers after summer rains. We’ve long-loved leucophyllums, but had failed in several attempts to grow them…0 for 7 prior to this attempt with his collection. Our plants have been in the ground for just over a year, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed for long-term success. They key to success is very good drainage in both summer and winter.
Thyme Flies, Thymophylla Flowers
We are in love with the long-flowering Thymnophylla pentachaeta var. pentachaeta ‘Laredo Gold’, which graces us with masses of gold flowers from spring through fall, in our sunny, dry rock garden. This Patrick McMillan collection comes from a population in Texas. Not only is this short-lived, southwestern US native reseeding perennial great in flower, but the native Navajo Indians also used it as a drug for people who want to dream of being chased by deer….we are not making this up!
Baccharis-foliaged Beardtongue
We are enjoying the rare Penstemon baccharifolius this summer in our high/dry crevice garden. This species is native to limestone ledges up to 6,500′ elevation from the Edwards plateau in Texas south into Northern Mexico. This species hates our summer rains, and we had given up on growing this until we built our alkaline crevice garden a few years ago. Now it thrives, growing in 3′ deep Permatill gravel.
Juniper-like False Cypress
We’ve long collected conifers of the genus Chamaecyparis (false cypress). We grow all six recognized species, but the one which is best represented in horticulture is Chamaecyparis obtusa (hinoki cypress). Selections from this species range from giant 100′ specimens to tiny dwarfs.
Our favorite has to be the the dwarf Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Juniperoides’…the juniper-like hinoki cypress. Introduced from the UK around 1920, this century old selection has yet to be surpassed. Below is our 23 year-old specimen this spring, which thrives in our un-irrigated rock garden, planted among agaves, having achieved the massive stature of 2.5’ tall. This is certainly not where we usually recommend planting hinoki cypress, since many cultivars don’t thrive in western sun, especially without any sign of irrigation. This plant, however, continues to amaze us without any browning typically seen with chamaecyparis grown in the combination of sun and bone dry soil.
Stay Kiss
We’ve grown quite a few stachys (pronounced stay-kiss) through the years, but have been most impressed this spring with our newest acquisition, Stachys cretica. This fascinating dryland perennial has a wide natural range from France to Iran, where it thrives in rocky, dry, Mediterranean-like conditions. Our plants are seed-grown from Greek Plantsman, Eleftherios Dariotis, who will be speaking at our upcoming Southeastern Plant Symposium.
Stachys is one of the largest genera of plants in the sage (Lamiaceae) family, with estimates ranging from 300 to over 400 species. Stachys species are spread worldwide, being found from Europe though Asia, Africa, and into North America.
Shockingly, Stachys cretica seems virtually unknown to most gardeners, despite it puttig on a killer floral show in an unirrigated bed, and being foraged in our garden, by a huge number of bumblebees.
Habitat Creation
In case you missed this section of the garden during spring open house, this is where we created a small vignette that comprises both bog and desert conditions in the same space. The low central area was created for pitcher plants and other bog lovers, while the higher areas to each side, are home to dryland loving plants like agaves and bearded iris. We hope to show how dramatically diverse habits can be created in a very small space. The wet space is created by installing a seep, which is nothing more than a continually dripping water line.
Ocoee Leatherflower
Clematis vinacea is a recently described species of non-vining clematis, published in 2013 by plantsman Aaron Floden. In the wild, it grows in a small region on the border of Eastern Tennessee/Northern Georgia. Closely allied to Clematis viorna/Clematis crispa, Clematis vinacea is a compact, non-climbing species. For us, it makes a sprawling mound to 18″ tall x 4′ wide that flowers from May through summer. In habitat, Clematis vinacea prefers a dry, alkaline site, but it has shown good adaptability to slightly acidic soils in our trials.
Stock Split
Not only did we have 100% survival on our living stones (Lithops aucampiae ssp. koelemanii) in the garden, despite low temperatures of 15-16 degrees F, but they are now in the process of splitting, which is sort of like giving live birth. Splitting happens after flowering, and followed by a subsequent dormancy. The plant divides and the new plants absorb the of the old foliage…sort of like The Blob movie. We were fortunate to catch the process visually for the first time this week.
Oh, Daphne
My visit to Crete in 2010 was eye-opening when I observed that most native daphnes of the region grew in full sun among rock, in the driest conditions imaginable. That prompted us to re-try many of the daphnes that we’d killed years earlier…obviously, with too much kindness. Now, all of our daphnes are planted in baking sun in our crevice garden, or similar rock garden conditions. Here are a few photos at JLBG from early April.
The first is the Mediterranean native, Daphne collina, which most authorities now subsume under Daphne sericea. All daphne pictured below should be hardy from Zone 6a – 8b.
Daphne ‘Rosy Wave’ is a Daphne collina hybrid with Daphne burkwoodii
Daphne x napolitana ‘Bramdream’ is a hybrid of Daphne collina and Daphne cneorum.
Red Kidney Vetch
Flowering now in the rock garden is the European native, Anthyllis coccinea…aka: red kidney vetch. This small rock garden legume (Fabaceae) is still in its first full year in the ground, having been planted last June…so far, so good.
Pussy Toes, all alone
Antennaria solitaria, the solitary pussytoes is looking great in the garden this week. This amazing native groundcover hails from Ohio south to Alabama, where it can be found in open shade or part sun, but always in dry soils. Despite being native in acidic soils, our plants below are thriving in our alkaline crevice garden.
Palm-leaf Oxalis
One of our winter garden favorites is looking so good right now, that we had to share. Oxalis palmifrons is an amazing, but slow-growing rock garden gem, that hails from the South African karoo. We offered this through Plant Delights almost a decade ago, and it will be some time before we have enough to offer again.
Arisarum in hiding
We were delighted to find a flower on our Arisarum simorrhinum in early February, tucked in a the base of a dwarf Chamaecyparis (false cypress). This little-grown Mediterranean native, dryland aroid is first cousin to the better known mouse plant, Arisarum proboscideum. This baby has been in the ground for 20 years, so slow is the operative word.
A Concrete Idea
Unless you’ve been hiding under a piece of concrete, you’ve no doubt heard of our crevice garden experiment, constructed with recycled concrete and plants planted in chipped slate (Permatill). It’s been just over three years since we started the project and just over a year since its completion. In all, the crevice garden spans 300′ linear feet and is built with 200 tons of recycled concrete. The garden has allowed us to grow a range of dryland (6-12″ of rain annually) plants that would otherwise be ungrowable in our climate which averages 45″ of rain annually.
One of many plants we’d killed several times ptc (prior to crevice) are the arilbred iris, known to iris folks as ab’s. These amazing hybrids are crosses between the dazzling middleastern desert species and bearded hybrids. Being ready to try again post crevice (pc), we sent in our order to a California iris breeder, who promptly emailed to tell us that he would not sell them to us because they were ungrowable here. It took some persuading before they agreed to send our order, but on arrival, they became some of the first plants to find a home in the new crevices. Although we’ve added more ab’s each year, the original plantings will be three years old in August. Here are a few flowers from this week.
Iris ‘Aztec Prince’ 
Iris ‘Bold Awakening’ 
Iris ‘Confederate’ 
Iris ‘Glow of Love’ 
Iris ‘Peresh’ 
Iris ‘Refiner’s Fire’ 
Iris ‘Sand Dancer’ 
Iris ‘Sharman’s Magic’ 
Iris ‘Shimmy Shake’ 
Iris ‘Signal Butte’ 
Iris ‘Tresco’s Eclipse’
Iris are just a few of the gems that can be found in our “cracks”, continuing below with dianthus. As we continually take note of our trial successes, more and more of those gems will find their way into our catalog and on-line offerings…as long as we can produce it in a container. Please let us know if any of these strikes your fancy.
Dianthus ‘Appleblossom’ 
Dianthus arenarius 
Dianthus ‘Inshirach Dazzler’ 
Dianthus ‘Razzlepop’ 
Dianthus subacaulis 
Dianthus ‘Vivid Bright Lights’ 
Dianthus ‘White Crown’
If that’s not enough, here are some more shinning stars currently in bloom.
Allium trifoliatum ‘Cameleon’ 
Arenaria grandiflora 
Corydalis flexuosa ‘Porcelain Blue’ 
Crambe maritima 
Delosperma ‘Mountain Dew’ 
Delphinium tricorne 
Globularia meridionalis 
Homothophylla pyrenaica 
Hymenoxys scaposa ‘Travis’ 
Manfreda undulata ‘Crested Surf’ 
Penstemon heterophyllus 
Penstemon triflorus 
Puya dyckoides 
Scorzonera cretica 
Taraxacum pseudoarurem
If any of this seems interesting, you probably should be a member of the North American Rock Garden Society…a group of similarly afflicted individuals. If you are specifically addicted to cracks, check out the nearly 2000 strong, really sick folks on Modern Crevice Gardens on Facebook