Tag Archives: winter open house

Checking Out

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Imagine what it’s like arriving at work in the early morning hours for a winter open house day to find that straight line winds during the night have destroyed the entire nursery checkout structure. Indeed, that’s what our staff faced on the final weekend of our recently concluded open house.

Not only was our canvas cover ripped to shreds, but most of the support poles were mangled beyond imagination. Electrical wires and Internet cables were twisted into a tangled mass, with some dangling 20′ in the air.

Our Saturday morning debacle saw both the nursery and garden staff jump into action, including some of which were awakened from their weekend slumber to help demolish, quickly rebuild, and then re-wire the entire structure, so that by 10:30am, we were able to resume checkout in something other than our temporary set up.

Thanks to our amazing staff, and thanks to the patience of the record-breaking crowds who visited during the final Saturday and Sunday.

Open house checkout demolished by straight line winds
Open house checkout demolished by straight line winds
Open house checkout demolished by straight line winds
Winter Open House parking on Saturday

Rue the Name Change

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We love the Eastern US native, false rue anemone, flowering now in the woodland garden at JLBG. This is one of the great winter flowering perennials, which we feel should be a part of every shade garden. The plant below has been thriving for decades under a grove of giant black walnut trees. Depending on where within its native range from Minnesota south to Florida, the genetics originated, it starts flowering from late January to early March.

Isopyrum biternatum is the midst of a bitter custody battle with the genus Enemion, but there hasn’t been any new DNA work since the early days of the field, when the sole use of chloroplast DNA gave us a number of incorrect name changes that were later retracted. Until we see some nuclear DNA results, we’re leaving it in the genus isopyrum.

Isopyrum biternatum

Have you caught Galanthophila?

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Galanthophila, an obsession with snowdrops of the genus Galanthus, is spreading almost as fast as COVID did through both Europe and North America. While we love and value galanthus for their flowering in the winter garden, we’ve yet to take the plunge into full-fledged galanthophilia, which results in people sacrificing meals to have the latest new name in snowdrops for their garden. For serious galanthophiles, it’s not unusual to pay from $100 to $10,000 to have the latest, greatest selections. Although there isn’t a cure, the 12-step program seems to be able to help some gardeners keep this addiction in remission.

Here are a couple of specimens that are looking quite nice in the garden this week. Galanthus ‘Viridapice’ has been around since the 1920s, while Galanthus ‘Beth Chatto’ dates from the 1960s. Despite their advanced age, these gems have stood the test of time. All galanthus will go dormant in late spring.

Galanthus nivalis ‘Viridapice’
Galanthus plicatus ‘Beth Chatto’

More Lenten Roses

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Here are some of the latest crop of amazing Helleborus x hybridus to flower in the garden. If you attend our Winter Open Nursery and Garden this week or next, you will see these in person. Plant Delights will also have a pretty incredible crop of these for sale during the open house days. We hope to see you in person!

Distilled Spirits of Winter

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Our plants of the shrubby Distyllum myricoides has been in stunning flower for the last few weeks. This fascinating evergreen shrub, mostly native to China, is in the same family, Hamamelidaceae, as its’ better-known cousins, Hamamelis (witch hazel) and Fothergilla (witch alder).

Due to the breeding efforts of Dr. Michael Dirr, distyllum has actually begun to show up in box stores…something that was unthinkable two decades earlier. We love it for the evergreen foliage, but what really excites us is the amazing winter floral show as you can see below.

Distyllum myricoides

We have a hunch you’ll like Quasimodo the Witch

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Flowering now is one of our favorite native witch hazels, the semi-dwarf, Ozark witch hazel, Hamamelis vernalis ‘Quasimodo’. This amazing gem was discovered and introduced by the late Dutch nurseryman, Pieter Zwijnenburg. I would argue that this is a far more significant introduction than his much better known Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’. Our 8-year-old specimen is now 5′ tall x 5′ wide. Not only does the compact size fit in most gardens, but the density of the deliciously fragrant flowers is unparalleled in the genus.

, Hamamelis vernalis ‘Quasimodo’
A close up view of the winter blooming flowers.
, Hamamelis vernalis ‘Quasimodo’.

More Roses of Lenten

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New colors of Helleborus x hybridus are opening daily, so here are a few shots from the garden today, showing the incredible range of colors that are available. We hope you can join us for our upcoming Winter Open Nursery and Garden and enjoy these in person.

Double your Christmas Fun

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Looking great for the last couple of weeks in the garden are the double forms of the Christmas rose, one of the first hellebores to bloom in the garden. This clump of Helleborus niger ‘Snowbells’ is looking particularly nice. Hardiness zone 3a to 7b.

Helleborus niger ‘Snowbells’

The Roses of Lent

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The earliest of the lenten roses, Helleborus x hybridus, have just opened. Depending on the genetics of each clone, they will continue to open until mid-March. Flowering on each variety continues for many weeks to over a month if the temperatures remain cool. Only a few weeks remain before our Winter Open Nursery and Garden, when you can visit and see these first hand in the garden, and even select your own flowering plants from our on-site nursery, Plant Delights.

Passover Time

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If you’ve visited PDN/JLBG this year, you’ve no doubt noticed the construction of the new Raleigh outer loop, I-540, which required the seizure of nearly an acre of our property. The construction also requires our road to be raised 15′ to clear the new Interstate being built below grade. This will add a whole new level of adventure in the winter when the road is covered in snow or ice. This week, the new Sauls Road overpass will be completed. While there will not be an exit on Sauls Road, there will be one within a mile both east and west of the gardens/nursery. Construction of the new Raleigh southern loop is scheduled to be completed in late 2023.

Sweet as Snow Cream

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Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘Snow Cream’ is a 2000 Juniper Level Botanic Garden/Plant Delights introduction that has proven to be one of our most popular introductions. We made the original selection from a group of seed-grown plants, imported from China by Canada’s Piroche Plants in the late 1990s. We were drawn to this seedling because of the particularly large flowers, and large leaves that reminded us of a plumeria. Let me be clear that all Edgeworthia chrysantha seedlings are nice, but there is certainly a significant difference between flower and leaf sizes of seed-grown plants.

Below are photos from our winter open nursery and garden days this year, where our garden specimens never cease to amaze visitors with both its sweetly scented flowers and amazing floral show. Sadly, no matter how many we propagate, it never seems to be enough to meet the demand. A more open site results in a much better floral show. Hardiness is Zone 7a – 10b.

Aucuba…the overlooked winter shrub

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It was great during our recent winter open house to see so many folks noticing the aucubas in the garden. Of course, they are hard to miss with our collection of over 140 different taxa. There are few evergreen plants better for year-round interest in dry shade than aucuba. Here is one of the most fascinating ones that’s in flower now in early March, Aucuba himalaica var. dolichophylla. This little-known, narrow-leaf species hails from 3,000′ elevation in several southern Chinese provinces. Winter hardiness Zone 7a-9b, and perhaps a bit colder.

Open House Visitors

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We truly love having garden visitors! We recently wrapped up our winter Open Nursery and Garden days, and will open in again in spring in late April/early May. It’s great to see folks get ideas both about plants they would like to try as well as garden design ideas. Because of exceptionally good weather most days this winter, the crowds were record-setting.

Open house is also like a giant horticultural family reunion. It’s actually surprising when folks don’t run into their gardening friends in the garden. We love seeing old friends, while meeting new ones. Below is George McLellan, a long time friend and avid plantsman from Virginia and member of the mid-Atlantic Rhododendron Society. On the left is Barbara Bullock, who recently retired from the US National Arboretum after 29 years of curating the garden’s azalea collection…here for her first visit.

Geroge McLellan (c), and Barbara Bullock (l)

The prize for the traveling the farthest distance this year goes to hosta nurseryman, Marco Fransen of Holland. I had the pleasure of visiting Marco’s nursery several years ago, so it was lovely to have the chance to chat. It was interesting to learn that Marco’s main customer base for new hosta introductions is both Russia and Ukraine. It would be safe to conclude that the current conflict in that region won’t be good for business, but our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone effected.

Marco Fransen

Cracking Crocus

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Spring crocus are popping all through the garden, and it’s a challenge to photograph them all. We just happened to recently catch Crocus isauricus ‘Spring Beauty’ in full flower. Crocus isauricus (formerly Crocus biflorus ssp. isauricus) is an endemic to Southern Turkey in the region along the Mediterranean Sea.

Iris days of Winter

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Here are an assortment of Iris species flowering at JLBG during the last week of February. So many folks only know the bearded iris of later spring, and miss these amazing winter gems. Join us this weekend for our Winter Open Nursery & Garden Days and explore our winter blooming iris.

The first is Iris tuberosa, a winter blooming tuberous iris from Mediterranean Europe. Iris tuberosa is one of the few examples, where a Latinized name change actually results in something that’s easier to pronounce. This gem was formerly known by the tongue twisting name, Hermodactylus tuberosus. Most iris grow from rhizomes, with the tuberous iris being a much smaller and less-known group. We have found these to grow best in part sun. Winter hardiness Zone 7b-10b.

Iris tuberosa

The West-Asian (Caucuses, Iran, Turkey, and Russia) Iris reticulata is also different, in that it grows from a bulb. These are quite easy to grow, and are available commercially in a number of named color forms. Below is Iris reticulata ‘Painted Lady’…looking stunning today. The reticulate (netted) iris grow best in full to part sun. Hardiness is Zone 3-8.

Iris reticulata ‘Painted Lady’

We’ve shown some of the Mediterranean Iris unguicularis recently, but here are a couple more looking particularly nice this week…Iris ‘Front Drive’ (top) and Iris ‘Winter Echos’ below. Hardiness for both is Zone 6b-9b.

Iris unguicularis ‘Front Drive’
Iris unguicularis ‘Winter Echos’

Dainty Dirca

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Few people know the fascinating native shrub, Dirca palustris. It’s little wonder it gets overshadowed by showier members of its family, Thymelaeaceae, which includes the likes of Daphne and Edgeworthia. Our 6′ tall plant is flowering alongside a large edgeworthia, and rarely gets noticed by visitors.

Dirca palustris, the plant, is actually widespread across Eastern North America, with a range from Canada to Florida, where it thrives in slightly moist, acidic soils. It’s often known as leatherwood, due to its thick, but very pliable branches, which have been used by Native Americans for making rope as well as baskets.

There are three other less poorly known dirca species…if that’s possible. We grow the rare Dirca decipiens from Kansas/Arkansas, but have not yet tried D. occidentalis from California, or D. mexicana from Mexico.

The genus takes its name from the Dirce in Greek Mythology, who bit the big one while tied to the horns of a bull….a truly sordid story. The specific epithet “palustris”, lacks the fascinating story of the genus, but only means that the plant naturally lives in very wet sites. Winter hardiness is Zone 3-9.

Cinnamon in the Garden

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Ever since seeing cinnamon trees (Cinnamomum camphora) planted throughout the parking lot at Florida’s Disneyworld in the 1970s, we have been fascinated to see how many species of Cinnamon trees are winter hardy here in Zone 7b. Cinnamomum jensenianum, from Southern/South Central China has been one of the stars in our trials. Here is our 15 year old specimen looking great in mid-winter.

Florida trilliums

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When people think of trilliums, they usually think of the cold north, but states like Florida are also home to four species of trilliums which all thrive throughout the southeastern states. Here are two of the earliest species to flower in our garden.

The first is Trillium maculatum ‘Kanapaha Giant’ from Alachua County. This is consistently the earliest trillium to emerge and flower for us. This is followed close behind by Trillium underwoodii. Both of these are usually in flower by early February.

Trillium maulataum ‘Kanapaha Giant’
Trillium underwoodii ‘Dazzler’

Ice n’ Roses Dilemma

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Below are more of the Ice n’ Roses snow roses flowering now in the gardens at JLBG. These amazing sterile hybrids were created in Germany by the Heuger plant breeding company. They have proven fabulous in our trials, but are still often difficult to find due to the screwy production cycle.

Because these snow roses, as Heuger calls them, are clonal and sterile, they can only be commercially produced by tissue culture, which is all done overseas. The non-rooted microplants are shipped in sterile containers to the US, where they are received at rooting stations (nurseries capable of putting roots on these microplants).

Helleborus x glandorfensis ‘Ice n’ Roses Pink’

There are only three North American rooting stations used by Heuger, one in Canada, and one on each of the US coasts. Once the microplants have roots and have grown large enough, they are purchased by finish growers, who pot and grow them for 2-3 months before they are a saleable size.

For a finish grower or retail nursery to have plants available to sell in late winter or early spring, they would need to receive liners (small plants with roots) from the rooting stations in September/October. The problem is that these rooting stations usually get their unrooted microplants from overseas in fall, when their losses are less and the plants finish faster.

Helleborus x glandorfensis ‘Ice n’ Roses Red’

Consequently, these rooting stations only have plants available for the finish growers from February – April. This means that the finish grower and retailer will only have plants ready to sell at the beginning of summer, which is certainly not ideal unless you live in the northern tier of states or Canada.

The only option a finished grower has is to hold the plants through the summer and fall, to have them available in the late winter flowering season. This drives up the crop cost dramatically, since a nursery has an overhead cost per square foot per month of growing space. Until a change is dictated by the grower throughout the supply chain, it is unlikely that the supply will be able to keep up with the potential demand. Anyone think making plants available is easy?

Helleborus x glandorfensis ‘Ice n’ Roses White’

Rocking and Rolling in the Winter Garden

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If you’ve visited JLBG, you know how much we love working with rocks, so we continue to find new areas to plant more. We’ve recently tackled two long overdue projects near the Mt. Michelle waterfall.

The first was re-working the Mt. Michelle watercourse we know as Mystic Creek (named after one of our late cats). When this was installed in 2003, we used concrete to form the water channel. Well, after 18 years, tree roots had their way with the concrete, which lost both the battle and the war.

After a fair amount of root excavation work, Jeremy and Nick installed a new rubber liner, with rocks along the edge. We’ll probably wait until spring to finish the replanting in order to avoid planting on top of something that was winter dormant. Below is the new rocked watercourse.

Phase 2 of the project was re-working an adjacent bed, where light levels had changed dramatically since it was installed in 1998. Originally a full sun bed, the shrubs on the west side have grown substantially, leaving us with a bed that only gets 3-4 hours of sun on one end, and a full shade area underneath the canopy.

Here, we raised the center of the bed, with more of Jeremy and Nick’s rock work, which was then filled with our on-site created compost. This created a visual barrier to much of the winding path that visitors use to get closer to the small plants, which are now tucked in the crevices.

One the back (west) side, Jeremy and Nick installed another small rock seating area, of which there are never enough.

There are a few more days of rock work to complete Phase 2, then we’ll start on Phase 3, which will rework the west face of Mt. Michelle, with more boulders to create additional planting pockets. We hope you’ll check out the progress at our upcoming winter open house.

Early lenten rose

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Every year, we grow thousands of lenten roses from our own seed collections in the garden. Most, we sell at our Winter Open Nursery and Garden as Helleborus x hybridus ‘Winter Delights’. All of our Winter Delights hellebores are hand selected by color after they flower. Every now and then, an incredibly unique form gets pulled for the gardens and here is one of those from a few years ago. This amazing plant has huge 3.5″ wide flowers, and was already in full flower by January 1. We hope everyone can visit our upcoming Winter Open House and see the amazing hellebore selections in the garden.

Lenten rose Helleborus x hybridus JLBG-133a
Helleborus x hybridus JLBG-133a

Mid-Winter Grotto

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Here’s a mid-winter shot of our front grotto, showing what that section looks like during the most trying time of year. We try to emphasize to those building new gardens to treat gardens just like rooms of your home. Each should have a floor, ceiling, walls, furniture both large and small, and decorations. In the garden, we also try to emphasize year round interest, which in our area includes a good selection of evergreens. Our Winter Open Nursery and Garden Days coming up in a few weeks is a great time to get ideas and inspiration for your own garden. Below is a “before” picture of the same area.

JLBG grotto garden 2022

Below is the same shot when this section was begun in 1988.

JLBG grotto garden 1988

bloomin’ Ice n’ Roses

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The Helleborus x gladorfensis hybrids, known as the “Ice n’ Roses” series have begun with the opening of Helleborus ‘Ice n’ Roses Barolo’. This is the earlies flowering and darkest clone in the series…just a shade darker than H. ‘Ice n’ Roses Red’. These are sterile hybrids derived from crossed of Helleborus niger with Helleborus x hybridus. Winter hardiness is Zone 5a-8b.

Helleborus x glandorfensis ‘Ice n’ Roses Barolo’

Perfume of the Princess

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Quite a few really smart horticulturists told us we didn’t have a chance of succeeding with Daphne ‘Perfume Princess’ in our climate. We’ll, we’re almost 2 years in the ground with this New Zealand hybrid of Daphne bholua x Daphne odora. It’s already full of flowers, where it’s thriving in our crevice garden. In the sense of full disclosure, we’ve never been able to keep the Daphne bholua parent alive. Hardiness is Zone 7b and warmer to at least Zone 8b.

Raining in Winter Open Nursery & Garden

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Day 2 of our Winter Open Nursery & Garden Days…

JLBG Intern Frank Xu in the garden.

Rain or Shine!

Our expert  staff are in the gardens and sales area to answer all your gardening questions.

Be sure to join us today at 10am for our free Gardening Unplugged Garden Chat series where our Grounds and Research supervisor, Jeremy Schmidt, will be discussing Berm Gardening, and at 2pm Amanda Wilkins, JLBG Garden Curator, explores what’s in a plant name and fascinating botanical trivia.

Hellebores blooming in the sales house. The sales houses are dry and bursting with color!

In keeping with the damp, cool, New England-like weather….Cousins Maine Lobster food truck will be here today from 11am-2pm. 

If you need to warm up a bit, you can stroll through the tropical house and dream of the warm spring and summer days ahead and begin designing your next planting project!

Canna ‘Orange Punch’