One of our favorite native plants for the garden is Sabal minor, yet you rarely see these mentioned in lists of great native plants to use in the garden. I wonder if this is because they don’t have that “weedy, unkempt” look that most folks associate with Southeastern US natives. I’ve talked with many native
Not so minor sabals Read More »
One of the great plants to help the winter garden look less drab are the evergreen Solomon’s seals, of the genus, Disporopsis. This Bill Baker discovery in China, was later determined to be a new species, and in 2015, was named Disporopsis bakerorum, to honor Bill. Our oldest clumps are 20″ tall x 5′ wide.
Bill Baker’s Bakerorum Read More »
Looking good in the garden this month is Aucuba japonica var. borealis ‘Male Man’. The subspecies “borealis” is from a much colder region than typical Aucuba japonica, and consequently will survive much further north, reportedly as far north as Zone 6a. This subspecies grows in the Honshu region of Northern Japan, where they are subjected
Time for the Male Man Read More »
Rohdeas, also known as Japanese sacred lilies, are one of the star perennials of the winter garden, since unlike their cousin, Hosta, they remain evergreen. Below is a small assortment of the 117 named clones we grow. Hardiness is Zone 6a-9b.
Rohdea – Evergreen Hosta Read More »
One of our frustrations in introducing little-known plants is that they often don’t sell well, despite being superb garden plants. One such is Dryopteris stenolepis. Dryopteris stenolepis is a beautifully symmetrical evergreen, 18″ tall x 3′ wide clumping fern that hails from streamside slopes at 2,000′-7,000′ from India and Nepal and into southern China and
Narrow Scale Fern Read More »
Fern spores are notoriously tiny, which is how these plants easily spread worldwide. Some fern species are now circumpolar in their distribution as ferns continue their conquest to colonize the entire world. In our garden, we occasionally find new ferns growing thanks to a stray spore. Most of these, we remove, but occasionally one lands
Ferns on the Move Read More »
I first met Aspidistra bogneri, when I crawled through a dense jungle of limbs in North Vietnam’s Ha Giang Province in 2005. There I was, face to face with a 5′ tall cast iron plant. Until that moment, I didn’t know such a plant even existed. Fast forward, 19 years later, it’s currently flowering in
Casting Around in Bogner’s Shadow 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
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 »
Cryptomeria japonica ‘Elegans Nana’ is a dwarf form of Japanese cedar and is looking quite lovely in the winter garden. Dwarf conifers are a great addition to the garden for winter interest. The evergreen foliage takes on a bronze tint during the winter. It is also adorned with a great crop of decorative male cones,
