permatill

Shaggy, but not a dog

The shaggy blazing star, Liatris pilosa has put on quite a show over the last few weeks. Looking quite different in the garden than it did in the wild, this native from Delaware south to Florida enjoys bright sun and well-drained soils. Our plant is growing in one of our Permatill amended rock gardens. Hardiness

Shaggy, but not a dog Read More »

The Tenor of Colchicums

The star of the fall garden this year has been Colchicum tenorii (recently corrected to Colchicum cilicicum), which has been flowering for weeks. Our clump of this Italian native bulb, began as a single bulb in 2000. Once the flowers finish next week, the large, green leaves will emerge and continue to grow through the

The Tenor of Colchicums Read More »

Do you know Polygonella?

We have been playing around with the genus Polygonella since 2000, but have still only grown 3 of the 11 US species so far. We are fascinated why these native, highly drought-tolerant members of the buckwheat (Polygonaceae) family aren’t more widely grown. The common name of jointweed, probably is the biggest factor in their lack

Do you know Polygonella? Read More »

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

Globs of Globularia Read More »

Getting a Handle on Handelia

Here’s another of those plants that virtually no one has either grown or even knows about. Handelia trichophylla is a little-known monotypic member of the aster family (Asteraceae). Not only does it have hairy, silver foliage, which usually spells certain death in our summers, but it hails from the “stans”, which include the low rainfall

Getting a Handle on Handelia Read More »

Carolina Bluebonnets

Looking lovely now at JLBG are two species of Texas blue bonnets; Lupinus subcarnosus (top) and Lupinus texensis ‘Abbott PInk’ (bottom). Both are winter annual species that dot the Texas highways in spring. These are on of a very short list of annuals that we allow in the garden. These have returned for us for

Carolina Bluebonnets Read More »

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

December Daphnes Read More »

Scroll to Top