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Contents |
PDN Newsletter Archives 2008January 2008Dear PDN'ers:There's no need to get up from the couch or turn off the bowl game ... it's just your friends at Plant Delights wishing you a Happy Holiday season! We hope you're all having a Merry Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate at this wonderful time of year. All of us at PDN would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for a wonderful 2007 ... the best year in the history of our business. I know the year has been tough on everyone who gardens and runs a gardening business in a less than ideal climate, and we cannot thank you enough for your continued support and patronage. As the year comes to a close, the weather patterns have finally shifted as we sent that pesky high pressure system on vacation allowing gulf moisture to finally move in to the parched southern states. Let's hope that the reservoirs will be full or at least well on their way to being replenished by spring. If you are considering digging a well or adding a new one, I'd like to share a fascinating experience from 2002, when one of several wells that we use to irrigate the nursery and gardens collapsed. As you can imagine, losing a main well creates a critical situation for a nursery. Most of our wells had originally been located by 'water witching', which had been a hit or miss proposition, and at $10/foot for drilling, I was looking for something more reliable. The year earlier, I had met a hydrologist from Georgia named Dan Harman, who was in the business of locating well sites using scientific techniques developed in the oil and gas industry. In spring 2002, we hired Dan to help us find new well sites on our property with adequate water supplies. I can't say enough good things about Dan's work in not only locating a new well, but in showing us a small band where we could re-tap into the vein that fed our former well. I wish you could have seen the look on the face of the well drillers when we told them how much water they would find and at what depth before they began drilling. One of the few constraints that Dan mentioned is that good water doesn't exist on all properties ... especially the small ones and if it isn't there, he can't find it. I don't get any kickbacks from Dan and haven't spoken with him in 5 years, but his website is www.groundwaternrock.com, his services might be helpful to gardeners in the dry southeast. Weatherwise, we've already had a couple of cold spells for December with a low of 17.6 degrees F. Most things still look fine, but a few test plants have already headed for the big compost pile in the sky. At least the consistent early cold means plants are well on their way to getting their winter chill requirement met and those that enjoy the cold such as Isopyron biternatum and Helleborus niger are already in flower. The 2008 Plant Delights catalogs went 'postal' on Friday Dec. 28, so if your mail delivery person isn't a gardener, your catalog should start arriving within a few days. Please remember that there are over 1,000 additional plants on line at our updated website. These are plants that won't sell in large enough volume to be economical to include in the print catalog, or in some cases are new plants that we only have in very small numbers. If you happen to find some plants that you can't live without, our ordering system allows for orders to be processed on a first-ordered, first-paid, first-reserved basis. When you order your plants, they are reserved for you, even if you don't want your order shipped for several months. Once your order is confirmed, the only way that you will not get what was confirmed is if the plants that we have reserved for you die or decline to the point that they do not meet our quality standards. We take a semi-annual inventory (June and October) to assure that our inventory numbers remain accurate and up-to-date. We're very excited about our 2008 offerings, but then, the plants wouldn't be included in the catalog if we weren't excited about them. One of the plants that we haven't included in the print or on-line catalog are our Plant Delights hybrid hellebores. For the last decade, we have been purchasing special forms of Helleborus x hybrids from some of the world's top breeders. We subsequently planted the best forms with similar characteristics and colors together in the garden and saved the seed. This has resulted in a high percentage of similar and improved plants to the parents that are simply stunning. This will be the first year that we will have good numbers of flowering size plants to release. By our best count, we could have as many as 5,000 flowering plants (both 1 and 2 quart size) from our own seedlings to offer this spring. The first chance to get these will be at our Winter Open House on Friday/Saturday Feb. 22,23 and Feb. 29, March 1. While we have a huge selection of special hellebores in the catalog and on the website, these are not included. If we have any of our own hybrids left after our winter open house, we'll add them to the website at that time. Click here to find out more about attending the winter open house. I'm just back from a visit to Yucca Do Nursery in Texas, which along with the adjacent Peckerwood Garden was one of the inspirations for our foray into Agaves and other woody lilies. I first visited Peckerwood Garden back in the early 1990's and have enjoyed watching as the gardens matured into the magnificent site that it is today. If you'd like to visit or help with its preservation for future generations, click on the link above to find out more. Yucca Do Nursery was formerly a part of Peckerwood Garden that split off many years ago and established itself on the property adjoining Peckerwood. The nursery is preparing to move to a new location nearer to Austin, Texas and has put the 20 acres beside Peckerwood up for sale. Not only are the nursery buildings architecturally fascinating, but the garden specimens are simply incredible. If you'd like the opportunity to purchase this amazing property, either for yourself, or to donate it to Peckerwood, send an email to info@yuccado.com. We'd like to mention a few staff changes at PDN for the upcoming season. Many of you have interacted with Julie Picolla as our Administrative Assistant for Horticulture, but Julie has left that position to take over as our Stocking Coordinator. Changing places with Julie is Melanie Blandford, our former Stocking Coordinator, who will assume Julie's duties. Melanie just joined us this summer from Pennsylvania's Scott Arboretum. Todd Rounsaville, also from the Scott Arboretum, who has coordinated our trial and field production since last spring has moved into our position of Plant Records Coordinator. To fill that void, we'd like to welcome Frank Mandarino, a recent NCSU Botany graduate who will take Todd's former position. We are truly lucky to have such a great and knowledgeable staff. If you live near Plant Delights, we often are looking for housing (short and long-term) for interns or new employees moving into the area. If you have any interest in this type of arrangement, please drop a note to our Business Manager, Heather Brameyer at heather@plantdelights.com. Some folks swap room and board for house and garden help, while others may choose to negotiate a financial rent. The folks that have participated in this program have found it quite rewarding, with some arrangements becoming quite long-term. We look forward to hearing from you if this is of interest and will add your name to the file when the need arises. We'd like to congratulate our 2007 winner of the Top 25 Contest, Jacob Toth of Brandon Manitoba Canada. Brandon led with a score of 1,704 points, which was over 400 points ahead of our second place finisher. Brandon will receive a $250 Plant Delights Nursery gift certificate for his good work in predicting our Top 25 best sellers for 2007. If you would like to participate for 2008, just click this link to enter. As always, we thank you for your continued support and patronage. Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. February 8, 2008Dear PDN'ers:Greetings from Plant Delights and we hope you're having a good winter season wherever you garden. Here in Raleigh, we've had several nights in the mid-teens, with a low at the nursery of 14.7 degrees F, which equates to a consistent cold (until last week), with fairly mild minimum temperatures. We have actually had good rains since fall and the winter garden looks great. Helleborus niger has been superb this year, especially our long-lived clumps of the heat-tolerant H. niger var. macranthus. If you like hellebores for color in the winter garden, don't miss our Winter Open House on Friday/Saturday Feb. 22, 23 and Feb. 29, March 1. We should have over 1000 double hellebores in full flower for sale ... a site you're not likely to find anywhere else. To find out more about attending the winter open house, follow the link www.plantdelights.com/About/visiting.html Many folks still ask us about the name Juniper Level Botanic Gardens, and as we have mentioned in the past, we are adjacent to the Juniper Level Baptist Church. You can read more about the church and the history of the area at www.juniperlevelmbc.org. I don't think we appreciate the array of cool plants that strut their stuff in the late winter months. One of my favorite bulbs is Nothoscordum sellowianum. This amazing rock garden bulb has already begun to flower with small yellow ground-hugging flowers that will continue for the next few months. The yellow flowers contrast nicely with the blue-lavender flowers of the winter-blooming Iris unguicularis that is also in full flower now. You don't normally think of trilliums as winter plants, but that's only because few gardeners are familiar with the southern US species. Both Trillium underwoodii and T. maculatum are in full leaf and in bud now, surviving temperature drops into the mid-teens with no problem. They are closely followed by Trillium foetidissimum which has just popped through the ground. These winter trilliums have developed a survival mechanism similar to rhododendrons, whose leaves become flaccid and curled on cold mornings, only to recover as the day warms. If you grow these species, the pile of limp foliage on a cold morning would cause you to give up on the plant, only to find it looking fine again by late afternoon. There's plenty more cool winter interest plants that you'll see when you visit the winter open house. Now that we're in February, let me remind you our shipping season begins in a few more weeks... for those of you in the southern zones. Also remember the deadline of February 15 is drawing near to enter our 2008 Pick the Top 25 Sellers Contest. Okay, it's not the Powerball Lottery, but you've got nothing to lose and the chance to win a $250 PDN gift certificate. For rules and an entry blank, visit our website at www.plantdelights.com/New/contest.html. There's lot of news from the gardening community this month, so I'll start with the bad news first. Our condolences go out to woody plant guru Mike Dirr and his wife Bonnie, whose 31-year old daughter Suzy passed away on January 24, after a lifetime bout with Cystic Fibrosis, including two lung transplants. You can read the heartwarming story of Suzy's battle at www.uga.edu/gm/604/FeatDirr.html Condolences also go to Horticulture Magazine Science editor Roger Swain, whose wife Elisabeth passed away on February 7, after a battle with liver cancer. I had the pleasure of dining at Roger and Elisabeth's home several years ago... both were very sweet people and it is a memory I will always treasure. Our thoughts are with both the Dirr and Swain family during this difficult time. Plantsman and designer Doug Ruhren has departed North Carolina to take over as head horticulturist for the American Camellia Society at the 150 acre Massee Lane Garden in Fort Valley, Georgia. For those who have never met Doug, he first put his stamp on the Watkins Rose Garden, then Montrose Gardens, followed by the JC Raulston Arboretum, and most recently the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden. We hate to lose Doug from our state, but look forward to watching him transform the Massee Lane Gardens. In Charlotte, NC The Wing Haven Foundation has agree to purchase and preserve the Elizabeth Lawrence garden (NC's most famous garden writer), located just near Winghaven from its current owner Lindie Wilson. The next step is to set up a $50,000 stewardship fund with the Garden Conservancy to insure the 'perpetual monitoring of the property.' You can find out more about how to help preserve the garden by visiting the Lawrence Garden website at www.elizabethlawrence.org/friends.html Other cool events around the country include The Lone Star Regional Native Plant Conference, held May 28-31 in Texas. This conference which is held every other year features an incredible array of native plant speakers and habitat tours. To find out more, go to http://pnpc.sfasu.edu. Back in the Raleigh area, City leaders have made an unfortunate and less than intelligent decision to ban hand watering of plants due to the current water shortage. Below, is a letter I have sent to both the Raleigh City Council and the local media outlets. Please feel free to share this with any interested party and if you live in the effected area, you may want to contact the City Council and express your displeasure with their recent actions.
Open Letter to the City of RaleighI continue to await an article that correctly shows who is responsible for the current water shortage, but alas, no luck. Let's look at the facts. Raleigh was 7.24" (17%) below normal for its annual rainfall in 2007. In 2006, Raleigh was 10.64" (25%) above normal in rainfall. For a two-year period, that put us well above average. Is this the first time we've had well below normal annual rainfall? Of course not. 2005, was nearly as dry as we ended that year 5.5" below normal. What did city officials do after that dry year? They continued to encourage growth, sell more water, and did nothing to increase future water supply. If you look at area lake levels, you will notice Gaston Lake and Kerr Lake are full. Jordan Lake is only down 8", while Falls Lake is 8.4' below normal and Lake Michie is 7.3' below normal. Why are the differences so dramatic... poor planning! Being a Raleigh native, I remember in 1981 when Falls and Jordan Lakes were completed and City officials assured us Raleigh and surrounding towns would never again face a water shortage or water restrictions. Fast forward 27+ years and residents are now being blamed for the current water shortage, and are being asked to change their lifestyle because City leaders didn't properly do their job. Raleigh officials have oversold their supply of water while encouraging growth beyond their ability to supply water. Planning based on average rainfall forgets to take into account that averages are just that... averages of two extremes... below normal years and above normal years. Imagine a business the size of Raleigh or Durham making such an egregious error in planning. Such a lack of foresight and poor management would most certainly result in immediate dismissal of officers and board members, as it should. As always, we thank you for your continued support and patronage. Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. March 2008Spring is well on its way here at Plant Delights as many of the spring ephemerals are in full flower. We're hoping some of the early plants will slow down a bit to avoid a devastating April freeze like we endured in 2007. All in all, it's been a good winter, although we could have done without the early March freeze (24 degrees F) that took out the flowers on the early magnolias, including M. denudata, M. 'Galaxy', and Michellia maudiae.
We've completed another great winter open house, but still have some superb
selected flowering hellebores we're adding to the web. These are available
in limited quantities, so don't delay. We also added a total of 56 new or
returning plants you may wish to peruse.
The first waves of epimediums are just opening including E. stellatum, E.
acuminatum, E. epsteinii, E. sempervirens, E. davidii, E. franchetii, and
the early flowering E. grandiflorum 'Yubae'. The rest of the species and
hybrids will be following over the next month. Every year we become more
enamored with this fun group of fairy wings, but beware, epimedium collecting
is addictive. We've also been raising quite a few of our own seedlings and
have some really special plants that we've been watching for several years.
We should be making some final selections this year and look forward to
getting them propagated for sale.
Another of our favorite early spring woodland plants is Sanguinaria
canadensis (bloodroot). This delightful native wildflower (named for the
red sap that emerges from the crushed roots) is one of the first rites of
spring and a sign that spring is finally here. The single flowered forms
open first, followed several weeks later by the splendid double flowered
Sanguinaria canadensis 'Multiplex'. If you grow sanguinaria, be sure to
divide your clumps every 3-4 years. If not, sanguinaria suffers from a
strange malady that causes the entire clump to dry rot if not divided.
Several of the early flowering iris are also gracing the garden now including
the winter growing Iris unguicularis and the early spring-flowering Iris
japonica 'Eco Easter'. This has been a superb year for Iris unguicularis,
which has been flowering on and off for several months. Iris 'Eco Easter'
is a superb form of Iris japonica and is one of the only forms of this
species to flower in our climate, which is typically too cold for the
developing flower buds. This is a widely spreading species, so be sure to
allow enough room for it to spread.
Also in flower now is the wonderful Cyclamen coum with its pink flowers
held just above the silver and green patterned leaves. Accompanying the
cyclamen are the perennial primulas including a number of Primula vulgaris
cultivars. We are very thrilled to have discovered quite a few primulas
which survive as perennials in our hot, humid, anti-primula climate.
The Boraginaceae family provides several great early spring bloomers
including pulmonarias (lungwort) and Trachystemon orientalis. Most of
our pulmonarias have just begun to flower, most opening blue and changing
to pink. Two of our top performers are Pulmonaria 'Trevi Fountain' and
P. 'Samourai'. The closely related trachystemon forms a large basal
rosette of large fuzzy dark green leaves that emerge just as the 8" tall
flower spikes of small blue dodecatheon-like flowers fade. Trachystemon
is an incredibly tough woodland groundcover that is amazingly drought tolerant.
Last month, I mentioned the yellow-flowering Nothoscordum sellowianum as
one of my favorite winter flowering bulbous plants, and while it is still
in full flower, it has now been joined by another favorite, Fritillaria
thunbergii. I got my first start of this unusual summer dormant gem from
plantsman John Elsley and planted it into our woodland, where it has
thrived for us for more than a decade. The narrow leaves with hooked ends
adorn the upright stalks that are now topped with bizarre flowers that seem
oblivious to subfreezing temperatures.
A few other plants that dare to flower at the end of the winter season
include Euphorbias with E. characias in their parentage. This includes
not only the species itself, but the wonderful hybrid E. 'Nothowlee'.
Although it's not usually thought of for winter flowers, rosemary is
simply stunning in the winter garden. We have a giant clump of Rosmarinus
'Arp', growing just outside our front door so we not only enjoy the dark
blue winter flowers but also the evergreen foliage that makes a wonderful
addition to Michelle's rosemary chicken.
We've finally had enough rain that all of the local reservoirs are full or nearly so ... including the poorly managed Falls Lake Reservoir (now 2.7' below full) that feeds Raleigh and surrounding cities. City leaders have such a lack of respect for the Green Industry that they banned all hose watering, while allowing car washes to remain in operation as long as they use no more than 55 gallons per car, or no more than 3 gallons per minute for self-serve washes. It's pretty clear by their logic, clean cars are far more important than live plants. For those who have visited Plant Delights, there is a good chance you have dined at the nearby landmark, Stephenson's Nursery and Barbeque. It is with sadness that I report the death of its founder, Paul Stephenson, 79, of nearby McGee's Crossroads. Mr. Paul, as he was known, played semi-pro baseball before starting the Barbeque in 1958, followed by the nursery in 1979. The nursery and barbeque will continue operating under the direction of Paul's children.
I mentioned in an earlier E-newsletter that the Pike Nursery chain,
based in Atlanta had declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but was to continue
in operation. The latest in the unfortunate saga is that the assets of
Pike have now been auctioned off.
We're glad to report a segment shot last summer on our gardens here at
Juniper Level, will air on Martha Stewart's television show on Wednesday
March 19. I'll also be on the show live the same day. If you're really
bored that day, you can find out the time and channel in your area by
going to Martha's website, look for the local channel schedule and enter
your zip code.
If you've submitted your ballot for our Top 25 contest, click here for the current standings. For us, the shock is the huge interest in agaves, with 6 of our top 11 best sellers belonging to that genus. The 2nd most popular genus in the Top 25 is colocasia with 3 entries. Don't get discouraged if your selections don't appear on the list yet, as it changes dramatically as the season progresses. As always, we thank you for your continued support and patronage. Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. April 2008April brings the start of my two favorite seasons... baseball and gardening. With both, there is the fading of bad memories from the preceding season and a childish optimism about the upcoming year. All in all, we had a relatively mild winter with no snow and a low temperature of 14.7 degrees F. This spring has been relatively cool, which has kept plant emergence far behind 2007, and has allowed us to better weather the late spring frosts which are inevitable every year.For the first time since last spring, all of the public reservoirs around Raleigh are finally full and watering restrictions have been relaxed. Gardeners not only here, but in other areas hit with the drought in 2007 can finally begin replanting plants lost last year. Some parts of the country have had too much water, but I guess we will never be able to spread the water around more evenly. We made an interesting, but disappointing discovery this winter when we found Agave parryi 'Cream Spike' isn't nearly as hardy as we had thought and hoped. Although we originally received our plants as A. parryi, we now believe them to actually be a less-hardy species, A. applanata. Whatever they are, they make great container plants, but are no good as a garden specimen in cold climates, since ours were killed at 15 degrees F. We listed it as hardy to Zone 7b, so if you purchased one thinking it was going to be hardy in Zone 7b, please contact us for a refund or credit. We are very sorry for the error. There's so much blooming in the garden now, it's hard to know where to start. One of the overlooked woodland plants I wouldn't garden without are Solomon's seals. Solomon's seals include the genera Disporum, Disporopsis, Polygonatum, Smilacina, and Uvularia. Some polygonatums can reach 6'+ tall, while most disporopsis and disporums range from 6" to 18" tall. While none of these members of the lily family have overly flashy flowers, they have a wonderful presence in the woodland garden... especially now. Solomon's seals grow from thick underground rhizomes, which serve as a storage structures allowing them to withstand drought conditions such as we experienced last summer. All of the Solomon's seal genera, except for disporopsis, can be found native in both the US and Asia. As was the case with many other woodland genera (asarum and arisaema), the US only kept a small fraction of the species, while most took the trip to Asia. We're glad to help reunite these long-separated siblings. On a side note, one of our wonderful customers shared a variegated Uvulaia perfoliata with us a few years ago, and we forgot who you are, so if you are the one, thanks, and please let us hear from you. Another favorite group for spring is phlox. Most of these are US natives that have either been selected or hybridized for great garden potential. The phlox season begins with Phlox subulata, P. nivalis, and P. bifida for sunny sites and P. stolonifera and P. divaricata for shadier sites, all groundcover phlox for us are still in full bloom. The upright phlox such as P. maculata doesn't start for another month, with the exception of the wonderful P. maculata hybrid, P. 'Minnie Pearl', whose first flowers are starting to open now. This amazing find from Mississippi is drawing rave reviews from gardeners and nurserymen around the world. Two other little-known native phlox are the tight-clumping P. latifolia, which opens in the next few weeks and the wide-spreading P. pilosa that opens around the same time. These small growers are happy in either full to part sun. As a rule, phlox are very drought tolerant, while able to withstand moist years as well. We hope you will explore this amazing genus of plants. Visitors often ask if we have a problem with deer and the answer is no. The answer is no because we use Benner Deer Fence. We also planted a holly hedge around the perimeter when we first purchased the property, but in the areas that weren't hedged, a row of the 7.5' tall black plastic netting did just the trick. There are plenty of deer tracks on one side of the fence, but not the other. We use metal stakes, driven in the ground every 8' to support the netting which is attached by tie wire. Current prices are between $1.40 and $1.60 per linear foot. You can find out more at the Benner's Gardens website. I hate to pass along more sad news, but the co-founder of Goodness Grows Nursery in Georgia Marc Richardson, passed away on February 3, 2008 at age 52 of lung cancer. Mark is survived by his partner of 31 years, Rick Berry, who will continue to run the nursery operations. Goodness Grows, a retail/wholesale perennial grower just outside Athens, is best known for its introduction, Veronica 'Goodness Grows'. In good news, best retirement wishes go out to Margaret Roach, who is retiring from Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, where she has worked for 15 years. For much of her time there she was Editor of Martha Stewart Living magazine and later was Editorial Director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO). Margaret is looking forward to spending more time in her wonderful garden, writing her new gardening blog, and working on a series of other projects. Like Freddy Krueger, House and Garden has been killed once again. The magazine, which started in 1901, closed from 1993-1996, before re-opening, has once again gone to the recycle bin in the sky. Most gardening magazine editors tell me this is a tough time to make money in the magazine publishing business. In another move that shocked long-time subscribers and staff, Horticulture magazine is moving their operations from Boston, where it has been since its inception in 1904, to Kansas City, the home of its owner since 2002, F&W publications. As of this writing, it is uncertain if any staff members other than editor Meghan Lynch will remain with the publication. If you haven't seen the May 2008 issue, Dr. Bobby Ward wrote a nice piece about our berm gardening here at PDN. With all the magazines going out of business, it's quite unusual to find a new magazine hitting the newsstands, but such is the case with the Charleston, SC based, Garden and Gun magazine. I admit the name sounds a bit strange and conjures up images of articles about plants to draw deer into your garden, but instead Garden and Gun is a southern upscale version of Town and Country magazine. Their stable of authors includes well-known southern favorites such as Pat Conroy (The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides, My Losing Season), Daniel Wallace (Big Fish), and Winston Groom (Forrest Gump). If you're looking for a good literary gardening publication, check it out and you'll see an upcoming feature on Plant Delights. Perhaps we'll hang a few back issues from our deer fence to really antagonize the critters. In March, we were fortunate to have Swedish plantsman Peter Korn speak to our local chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society. Everyone in attendance was blown away by Peter's amazing garden. I didn't have any plans to visit Sweden until I saw Peter's talk, now Sweden has moved up quite high on my travel plans. You can see more at Peter's website I just got notice for the upcoming Conifer Symposium to be held in Watkinsville, Georgia from May 22-25, 2008. The CANR Conifer Conference features tours of Conifer Gardens and 13 well-known speakers including Carol Reese, Rita Randolph, Don Howse, David Creech, Richard Bitner, and many more. If you like conifers, this should be one heck of a symposium. While you have your calender in hand, the Garden Conservancy Open Days once again includes the Raleigh area. The tour features six private gardens to visit on Saturday, September 20 (9 am to 5 pm) and Sunday, September 21 (12 pm to 5 pm). A portion of the proceeds from the weekend will benefit the JC Raulston Arboretum. Discount tickets may be purchased in advance or entrance to the gardens can be 'pay as you go' with a fee of just $5.00 per garden, collected at each garden entrance. Call 1-888-842-2442 or visit www.opendaysprogram.org for more information. For local ticket information, please contact Autumn Keck at the JC Raulston Arboretum at autumn_keck@ncsu.edu or (919) 513-3826. Your $5 admission fee per garden supports the expansion of the Open Days Program around the country and helps build awareness of the Garden Conservancy's work of preserving exceptional American gardens such as Montrose in Hillsborough, the Elizabeth Lawrence garden in Charlotte, North Carolina and Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, California. I was recently at the US National Arboretum in Washington DC to speak for the Lahr Native Plant Symposium, which was the first time in over a year I've been able to visit. From my first visit in the mid-1970's, the US National Arboretum has been one of my very favorite botanical gardens. From the world class herb garden to the bonsai pavilions, from the Gotelli conifer collection to the native plant collections, the Arboretum is an amazing place. I'll have to admit my favorite has always been the Asian Valley and the later addition, China Valley, which despite dozens of visits still yields surprising treasures around each corner. There was always so much to see, I could never finish by the time the gates closed at 5 pm, so in the summer months, I would spend hours after the gates closed dodging security personnel as I continued exploring every nook and cranny of the gardens. The Arboretum was probably the first public garden to feature the 'New American Garden' landscape trend that swept the nation back in the early 1980's, and their legendary woody plant breeding work includes industry stalwarts such as the disease resistant, cold hardy Lagerostroemia fauriei crape myrtle hybrids. The 446-acre site on the west side of Washington DC makes it a true jewel in the Nation's crown. Because the Arboretum is housed under the US Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service, its budget is subject to both political whims and departmental trends. Other area gardens are under different parent institutions and often not subject to the same fate. For example, the US Botanic Garden comes under the auspices of the Architect of the Capitol and many of the gardens in downtown DC fall under the Smithsonian Institution. This year's proposed budget takes funding for the US National Arboretum from $5 million to $2 million. You can imagine the devastating effect on the Arboretum, if it can even remain open. While I'm a big advocate of fiscal responsibility on the part of our Federal lawmakers, not funding the US National Arboretum simply doesn't make sense. Not only does the Arboretum represent our Nation's gardening efforts to visitors from around the world, but it does the same to residents of our country, who support it with their tax dollars. The Arboretum needs those of you who care about its success to write letters of support to your congresspersons to try and restore their funding. You can also find a list of key lawmakers involved in budget processes at the Friends of the National Arboretum website Thanks for taking time to engage our political leaders about this important issue. We hope you will be able to visit us for our Spring Open House, May 2-4 and 9-11 (8 am -5 pm Friday, Saturday, and 1-5 pm on Sunday). I'm afraid many folks may need to replace plants that didn't survive our stressful 2007 summer and of course, if you're looking for a worthy recipient of your economic stimulus check from Uncle Sam, we're here for you. Since we're all thinking and hearing about recycling these days, Plant Delights is glad to help you clean up by recycling any pots that come from here, so if you are heading this way, throw those old pots in the car and we'll take them off your hands. Please, do not bring odd-sized pots from other vendors since these will not fit our production standards. Our Spring Open House will also be your last chance to say goodbye to departing Garden Curator Adrienne Roethling, who will be leaving us after 8+ years in that position. Adrienne has been an important part of our operation as she oversaw the development and growth of the garden during this time. Adrienne and her husband Jon are moving to Kernersville, NC where she will assume a similar position at the developing Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden. Taking over for Adrienne is Todd Wiegardt, who has served as Adrienne's assistant for the last year. I hope you will take time to thank her for her contributions and to welcome Todd. It's been a good spring for the growth of most nursery plants, and to that end, we have more new and returning items we have just added to the website. Remember some are only available in limited quantities, so if you see something that strikes your fancy, don't hesitate too long. You can find the new items listed here. If you've submitted your ballot for our Top 25 contest, visit our best sellers's list for the current standings. There was some minor shuffling in the top 25 with the big mover for the month being Agave ovatifolia which leapt up to 14. May is when we begin to see more dramatic shifts in peoples' ordering habits. Don't get discouraged if your selections don't appear on the list yet, as it changes dramatically as the season progresses. As always, we thank you for your continued support and patronage. Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. May 31, 2008Dear PDN'ers:Greetings from Plant Delights, we hope your spring has been as beautiful as ours ... realizing, of course, that some of you in the colder climates are just starting the spring season. We have had wonderful rains and no temperatures in the 90's yet ... unlike the folks in Phoenix who have already seen 109 degrees F ... geez. It's been a short week because of the Memorial Day holiday, but despite overdoing it in the garden last weekend, I'm ready to start again. It's only Friday, but I can already feel a weekend of binge planting coming on ... how about you? New crops and sold out items are continually becoming ready. For the latest additions just added to the website, click here. Remember some are only available in limited quantities, so if you see something that strikes your fancy, don't hesitate too long. Many gardeners are still dealing with the drought of last summer and hostas are some of the plants most affected. We've had many folks asking why their hostas are so much smaller than in previous years, and the answer is probably drought. While hostas are very tolerant of short-term droughts, long-term droughts are another matter. As the hosta clumps age, the center of the clump begins to die out. This, combined with the umbrella-shape of many hostas, causes them to naturally shed water. The only remaining living parts are new buds which break on the outer edges of the clump. These newly formed plants become naturally smaller and smaller. When water is scarce, this problem is further exacerbated. The solution is to dig up hostas that have gone backward and choose 3-5 healthy divisions. Bareroot these removing dead root pieces, and replant them into a new hole. The unviable parts of the original clump can be discarded. It is always helpful to add more compost when replanting the new divisions and if possible, find a spot that holds more moisture. We have hostas thriving in a bog with pitcher plants, so anything short of growing them as an aquatic in the winter is fine.
At our Spring Open House, visitors were dazzled by our 2-year old clumps of
Paeonia 'Bartzella', which were in full-flower with 11 huge bright yellow
flowers. If you haven't tried this yet, put one on your wish list. There are
a couple of nurseries selling smaller tissue-cultured plants, which are
probably many years from flowering, but these are an option if you can't
afford our huge flowering-sized plants. P. 'Bartzella' is but one of a
series of intersectional peonies (herbaceous peonies crossed with tree
peonies). Keep watching as more and more of these gems become available.
Another of the plant groups we have really enjoyed are the hardy orchids.
If you're just getting started, bletillas are a great place to begin.
Although they prefer moist to boggy soils, they are thoroughly drought
tolerant. If you feel comfortable with bletillas, the next genera to try
is calanthe. These early spring-blooming orchids are quite easy to grow and
very tolerant of low-light situations. Once you master calanthes,
cypripediums are next on the list. Cypripediums or lady slippers are easy
when grown in the right situation: moist, well-drained soils and cool
climates. When we started trialing these, everyone told us they would not
tolerate our hot humid summers. After several years of trialing them, we
have had very good success.
The summer-flowering salvias are just starting to strut their stuff. These include the wonderful but underappreciated US native Salvia farinacea, which flowers non-stop from now until fall and is obscenely drought tolerant. Another favorite of mine is Salvia gregii from Texas and across the border in Mexico. Last year, we introduced the Stampede series, but as we mentioned in the catalog, the breeder was unwilling to share the parentage so we could adequately predict hardiness. Salvia gregii has a huge range and an accompanying difference in winter hardiness. This unwillingness to share plant background information is unfortunately common with annual breeders, who really don't give a damn if a plant is winter hardy or not. From further south in Argentina, the blue-flowering Salvia guaranitica makes a stunning sage with flowers that start now in NC and continue through fall. Salvia guaranitica produces swollen water storage organs on their roots which aid in survival during dry periods. Keep in mind that most cultivars of Salvia guaranitica develop into a large spreading clump when grown in anything resembling ideal conditions. Of the hybrid salvias, my favorite for this time of year is Salvia 'Silke's Dream'. This robust grower (S. darcyi x microphylla) makes a 5' wide x 2' tall clump, topped from now until fall with spikes of peachy-red. We also offer a similar cross called S. 'Scarlet Spires', which strangely failed to overwinter when planted side by side with S. 'Silke's Dream'. The two should have identical in hardiness, so I'm not sure what is amiss, but we'd love to hear your results.
In the aroid world, many of the amorphophallus flowers are still popping through the ground. Amorphophallus dunnii, when planted in mass is simply superb in flower and without the odor usually associated with the genus. Flowering now is the macabre Amorphophallus henryi with its shiny purple flower and over-endowed spadix. We are well past the early arisaema season, but the later species are in full glory. This includes A. fargesii with its cobra-like flower heads and huge tropical-looking foliage; the small A. saxatile with the lemon-scented white flowers; the mid-season forms of Arisaema consanguineum with their elegant long drip-tip foliage; A. tortuosum with its flower perched atop 4' tall cobra-skin stalks; and the elegant Arisaema candidissimum in both pink and white-flowered forms.
There is one arisaema relative that boasts continuous flowering and it is the genus pinellia. While we love all of the pinellias, they do spread from seed, and some, such as P. ternata, spread obscenely fast by bulbils which form on the stem. The plant we can unquestionably recommend for any garden is the hybrid, Pinellia 'Polly Spout', discovered by plantsman Dick Weaver. This sterile hybrid starts flowering in May and continues non-stop through September. This is a delightful and easy-to-grow plant that should become a mainstay in all woodland gardens. Another plant great for woodland gardens are the woodland Martagon lilies. These lilies are hybrids using one or more of five woodland species including L. martagon (Europe) , L. hansonii (Asia), L. tsingtauense (Asia), L. medeoloides (Asia), and L. distichum (Asia). The results are early-emerging whorled-leaf lilies that flower now (NC) with pendent flowers whose range includes white, yellow, pink, orange, and red. Martagon lilies are never going to be widely available or as cheap as Asiatic lilies, due to their much slower rate of growth and propagation. From scales or tissue culture, it takes us 4-5 years to produce a flowering-sized plant. When we started experimenting with Martagon lilies, most folks told us they would not survive due to our summers, but thankfully, we never shared this information with our lilies. We are very pleased to be able to add more and more of these special lilies to our offerings. One final plant before I end that I think deserves much more recognition than it gets is Pennisetum orientale 'Karley Rose'. I like the species itself, but this selection from our friends at Sunny Border Nursery in Connecticut is simply superb every single year. P. 'Karley Rose' makes a nice tidy clump and has never offered us a single seedling in the garden. The elegant purple-tinted plumes begin to arise now and can be enjoyed through most of the summer. If I were to design a grass, I would be hard-pressed to improve on this plant. We're sold out now, but hope to have another crop ready soon. Our biggest snafu of the year is with Colocasia gigantea 'Thailand Giant'. Since these grow so fast in containers, we schedule staggered late winter shipments from the tissue culture lab that produces these for us. This winter, the colocasia crashed (died) in the lab and had to be restarted. Unfortunately, we didn't find out until it was too late to do anything but wait, which took longer than expected. Production is back on track and we should have plants ready to ship within the next 4 weeks. We will ship all backorders for this plant, unless we hear differently. We take full responsibility for the screw-up and cannot apologize enough. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding. People news in the gardening world is headlined by the move of Bill Cullina from the New England Wildflower Society to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Bill has written a number of truly fabulous and informational gardening books and has become one of the stars on the horticultural lecture circuit. If you are a fan or would like to be, you can find out more at http://williamcullina.com Also in plant-people news, we regretfully report the May 14 passing of Geoffrey Charlesworth at age 87. Geoffrey was preceeded in death by his partner of nearly 60 years, Norman Singer. Geoffrey arrived in the US from England where he had a career teaching math at Hofstra University. In 1968, Norman and Geoffrey purchased a 5-acre property in Sandisfield, Massachusetts, which would become home to their amazing garden. I was fortunate to visit them in 1999 and was thrilled to find what I feel was one of the finest private garden/plant collections in the country. Geoffrey also wrote two highly renown gardening books, The Opinionated Gardener in 1987 (rated by Horticulture Magazine in 2004 as #3 on its top 100 gardening books) and A Gardener Obsessed in 1994. The latter referred to Geoffrey's obsession of sowing at least 1,000 new rare plants every year from seed. A celebration of his life will be planned within a few months. Donations in Geoffrey's memory may be made to the Berkshire Botanical Garden, PO Box 826, Stockbridge, MA 01262 (details provided by Pamela Johnson). We also regretfully report that Dr. Dave Beattie, Professor of Ornamental Horticulture at Penn State University, has passed away after an extended illness. Beattie was widely known for his extensive work with the genus astilbe. In addition to his teaching and writing, Dave was very active in the Perennial Plant Association and in 2000 he founded the Penn State Center for Green Roof Research. http://www.greenroofs.org/boston/index.php?page=beattiewin We reported earlier about the passing of Mike and Bonnie Dirr's daughter Susy, and at this time, the Dirrs are in the process of relocating back to Athens, GA. Mike and Bonnie are advertising Suzy's Chapel Hill, NC home for sale, so if you are looking for a home in that area, let me know and I'll forward your note. The home is a cottage style with 1700 square feet including three bedrooms, two full baths, a 2-car garage, a 200-square foot screened and winterized porch, and according to Mike, "a half-acre lot with the best garden in Governor's Village." I'll bet with Mike as the landscaper, it's pretty cool. This spring has been busy on many fronts, as we were fortunate to have been able to purchase a 3.6 acre tract adjoining the nursery from the family of our late neighbor, Eddie Souto. Eddie was a wonderful man who immigrated as a child from Portugal and went on to become a successful local businessman. Eddie, 57, passed away last October after a 10-year battle with cancer. He is survived by his sons David, of Raleigh, and Todd, of Illinois. Part of the land will be used for field production and research on non-economic crops while the rest will be made into The Eddie Souto Memorial Garden, which will be open to the public even when the gardens around the house are closed. In the news since we last talked, I completely forgot to mention World Naked Gardening Day, which we all missed on May 3. I'm sure you'll all want to bookmark the page so you can celebrate next year. I wonder if you are allowed to wear chaps if you garden with agaves and cactus? http://www.wngd.org Several years ago, we mentioned the artistic work of Clark Sorensen, but he has expanded his line and is certainly worth a second mention. If you've got a male gardener in your household who is hard to buy for, there is nothing quite like Clark's art. Check it out at http://www.clarkmade.com Have you had trouble with voles, moles, or other subterranean varmits? If so, and you don't like to use chemicals, then we've got the solution for you. Yes, it's the Rodenator to the rescue! http://www.rodenator.com If you enjoyed the movies Caddyshack or The Terminator, then you've got to watch the testosterone-filled video on the website. http://www.rodenator.com/videos.htm Warning: This should not be viewed by squeamish children or members of PETA ... enjoy!
As always, we thank you for your continued support and patronage. Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. July 9, 2008Dear PDN'ers:We hope everyone is having a great summer and preparing for your visit to PDN for our Summer Open House, July 11-13 and 18-20. The gardens look fabulous and I'm sure you're likely to see a few things that will strike your fancy. It got a little warm after our last email with four straight days in the 100's ... a record for June in our part of NC. Those in the Pacific Northwest are enduring the opposite problems ... daytime highs in some regions hadn't risen out of the 50's by the end of June. At that rate, their tomatoes won't ripen until 2010. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who live along the Mississippi River and watched their homes and livelihoods swept away or buried under the swollen waters. We've had a good year from a rainfall perspective and are actually finally running slightly ahead of normal for the year ... a far cry from 2007. I wish we could share more rain with our friends in Atlanta, whose main supply, Lake Lanier, is still 15' below normal. I spoke with folks from the Georgia Green Industry last week who told me that 20% of the nurseries in Georgia went out of business in 2007, and they anticipate some larger nurseries may bite the dust this year ... a sad fate for a once vibrant industry. In other items of interest, if you didn't see it this spring, we wrote an article in the News and Observer newspaper about the senseless annual butchering of trees, especially crape myrtles. If you missed the article when it ran, you can now find it on our website at:
In other cool stuff ... if you live in or near the Triangle region of NC, check out Larry Hatch's Google Map of Great Trees of the Triangle, which locates significant specimens of cool trees. This would be a great project for neighborhoods around the country. Click here to check it out. If you haven't checked out our shipping cam in a while, we have upgraded our camera to give you a much better view of your plants being shipped. We hope you will take a peek as time permits. Most of our shipping and packing takes place Monday-Thursday, 8am-4:30pm EST and in summer, mostly Monday and Tuesday. Many of you have heard of our collaboration with elephant ear breeder, Dr. John Cho of Hawaii, to bring new unique elephant ears to gardeners around the world. John's real job is working as a plant pathologist for the University of Hawaii and developing disease resistant varieties for commercial taro production. I thought I'd share a note from John about a recent non-gardening project. Letter from Dr. Cho: In sad news, we regret to report children's book illustrator Tasha Tudor of Vermont passed away at the spry age of 92. Fans of the book, The Secret Garden are familiar with her work, which graced nearly 100 books including non-garden favorites like Little Women and The Night Before Christmas. You can leave messages for the family at www.tashatudorandfamily.com. If you have an interest in ferns, you most likely encountered the dynamic Richmond, VA fern guru, Nancy Swell. I'm saddened to report we lost Nancy last week after a long illness. If you'd like to send your condolences or have questions, you can contact Gina McMillan at (804) 245-0518 for more info. On a happier note, we'd like to wish a Happy 100th Birthday to the delightful Ruth Bancroft. If you don't know Ruth, her garden was the first in the country selected for preservation by the Garden Conservancy. I've had the pleasure of several visits to Ruth's Walnut Creek, California garden and Ruth has generously shared many plants that now grow here at PDN. There will be a big bash/symposium on July 18 and 19 to celebrate. To find out more, go to www.ruthbancroftgarden.org/. I hope you will all have the opportunity to visit the garden and meet this special lady. For those who are worried about having enough water for your garden, you may want to consider growing more geophytes. Geophyte is a fancy word for herbaceous plants with underground storage organisms which include bulbs, tubers, tuberous roots, rhizomes, and corms. Plants developed these underground storage organs to assist in surviving adverse conditions such as extended droughts. Last month I wrote about the wonderful spring-flowering martagon lilies, but now I'd like to focus on more of the wonderful species lilies that pick summer to flower. If you've purchased dried up, virused bulbs often shipped in from overseas, you'll have a surprise when you purchase one of our vigorous specimens, many of which are seed-grown. In addition to their beauty, another of the great characteristics of lilies is they are very drought tolerant. Consistently, one of our top sellers is Lilium formosanum. This native to Taiwan not only flowers the first year from seed, but reaches an amazing height of 7' tall when grown in full sun and decent soil. It's one of the latest flowering of the lily species, starting for us around August 1. Lilium rosthornii, a close relative of the Chinese L. henryi, is another favorite. These lilies will be opening any day now and have large clusters of orange flowers on arching stems. You shouldn't have to stake a Lilium rosthornii if it is grown in full sun, but it will arch, so plant accordingly. Lilium brownii 'Sichuan Splendor' is another superb species that will be opening shortly. The sturdy upright stems are topped in early summer with huge clusters of white flowers with a dusty purple back. Another recent Chinese species to be re-collected is Lilium sargentiae. This 5' tall specimen is topped right now with large white trumpets. While this species does produce a few axillary bulbils to aid in reproduction, its numbers are tiny compared with the vigorous bulbil-producing species like Lilium lancifolium. While I've started with the Asian species, let's not forget some of our great natives, starting with Lilium michiganense. This 6' tall lily spreads by horizontally-growing rhizomes, and is topped now with pendent orange flowers. This species prefers a moist, rich soil to perform its best. Another native lily with the same preference is the new species, Lilium pyrophilum, which was discovered growing with pitcher plants in NC. Although it adapts well to drier soils, this lily is stunning when well-grown and it bursts into flower with large clusters of bright orange in July. Another bulbous star of the summer garden is the summer-flowering hymenocallis. Hymenocallis are members of the amaryllis family numbering around 50 species which occur from North American south through Mexico and into South America. A few of the species flower in early spring but most are summer flowering and in bloom now. Most hymenocallis prefer moist soils and are right at home in a bog. That being said, they are amazingly tolerant of dry soils, although flowers will not be as prolific. All hymenocallis have similar white flowers with long white tepals at the base of a white cup (corona), held in multi-flowering umbels at the end of tall stalks. We are pleased to offer 7 different hymenocallis with many more in the pipeline. One of the smallest of the summer-flowering species is the NC native Hymenocallis pumila, which is found in scattered ditches along the coastal plain. In the ground, it makes a nice sized patch of 8" tall rosettes that spread by underground rhizomes. H. maximiliani is a Mexican species and has been tremendously vigorous and floriferous in our trials. The narrow, dark green glossy leaves are topped with a cloud of 30" tall flowers for much of the summer ... a clump is simply amazing. Hymenocallis 'Tropical Giant' is the largest of the hymenocallis we currently offer. Most folks consider this to be a selection of H. caribaea, but that species is completely confused in the trade with the tropical H. littoralis. Compared to H. maximiliani, the leaves are much wider and lighter green. The flowers, which are also in full bloom now, are much larger in all parts than H. maximiliani, but like the aforementioned, have a long flowering period in summer. Crinums are another member of the Amaryllid family that are superb at withstanding drought. Many of the species hail from the deserts of Africa, where they form huge underground bulbs able to withstand months and even years with little moisture. A mature crinum bulb can easily exceed the size of a large softball. Some crinum species such as C. bulbispermum start flowering in May, but July is without question one of the peak flowering months. You'll find some crinum bulbs offset quickly, while others grow solitary for years ... hence the variability in price. We have been successful with multiplying some in tissue culture, which allows for a much lower price than would be otherwise possible. We have also had very good success with others by slicing the basal plate ... basically cutting the bulb into four pieces. We hope you will enjoy our extraordinarily large offering of these amazing bulbs. Many of you have been kind enough to purchase our nursery-propagated trillium, which also have an underground storage organ ... in this case, a rhizome. If you've never tried growing trilliums from seed, you can't imagine what is involved. First, the trillium flowers need to be hand pollinated to get maximum seed set. Sure, you'll get a few if you don't, but recent research shows 40% more seed will be produced if you hand pollinate. Then you wait until they are almost ripe before they are gathered. I say almost ripe, because ripe trillium seed are covered with a sweet substance, known as an eliasome. Eliasome makes the seeds attractive to pollinators, which in turn help with distribution. In doing so, the eliasome create headaches for nursery folks trying to gather and plant the seeds as ants usually commandeer the seed capsules a day before you are ready to harvest them. When we were planting the seed this week, PDN Research Horticulturist Jeremy noticed insects were stealing the seed in the rows as fast as we could plant them. According to Jeremy, 1 large ant or 1 wasp could handle a seed each, while it required 5 smaller ants to work together to haul a single seed. I should mention trillium seed are about the size of an okra seed. These eliasomes have been called Ant Nip by Alabama trillium guru Harold Holmes, but we think it's more like Insect Crack. If you've got some extra ripe trillium seed nearby, spread them on the ground, grab your camera, and get ready for some great photos. Did I mention ... from seed, it takes 4-5 years to produce a flowering-size plant? As always, we thank you for your continued support and patronage. Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. August 5, 2008Dear PDN'ers:Greetings from PDN, we hope all is well in your neck of the woods. In the spirit of the late George Carlin ... why is it that woods have a neck instead of say, an arm or a foot? Inquiring gardeners want to know. The fall 2008 Plant Delights catalog went in the mail Monday and should be arriving at your homes in short order. We hope you'll find some treasures you just can't live without. If you can't wait, the new catalog is already on line at www.plantdelights.com. Weather permitting, we're ready to start shipping from the fall catalog as soon as you're ready to receive your plants. We finally have our stock back up of Colocasia 'Thailand Giant' after our debacle that I described earlier. Again, thanks so much for your patience as we work to resolve our screw-up. Another small error in our last e-newsletter, I wrote about Hymenocallis pumila and meant H. pygmaea ... sorry. We mentioned several months ago an upcoming article about PDN in Garden & Gun magazine. Well, the article showed up in the June 2008 issue, and if you haven't got your subscription yet, you can now find it on-line at gardenandgun.com/stories/features/the_plant_hunter-113. In the world of writing, Dr. Mike Dirr mentioned the other day he has completed (except for final proofing), an update to his 1998 Manual of Woody Landscape Plants. For those who want to have the latest version of Mike's plant bible, we'll pass along printing details as we get them. One of our first classes to fill each year is our Propagation Class, and while the initial class has come and gone, we are holding a second section on Saturday August 16, from 10am - 4pm. This section will be taught by Amber Harmon, who is in charge of the propagation here at PDN. There are still a few places available, so please call if you'd like to join us. Headlining the fall events in the Triangle region of NC is the 'Surround Yourself with Shady Characters' Symposium, sponsored by the JC Raulston Arboretum. The list of internationally recognized speakers is truly superb, so this is not a symposium to be missed. For symposium attendees, PDN will serve bagels and coffee on Friday, September 26 from 9-10am, and the gardens and nursery will be open from 8am-4pm for viewing and shopping. You can click here to find out more from the JCRA website. In other important upcoming events, we hope you will participate in the Garden Conservancy's Open Days, benefitting the JC Raulston Arboretum. The dates are Saturday, September 20 from 9-5 and Sunday, September 21, from 12-5. Since that is a Plant Delights Nursery Fall Open House weekend as well, we hope you'll spend the entire day visiting some of the great gardens of the region. The cost to visit is $5 per garden, which obviously is not applicable here at PDN, but we will gladly accept the same fee and send the donation along to the Garden Conservancy. You can read more about the area gardens which are participating at www.opendaysprogram.org. In sad news, we regretfully report the passing of world-renowned plant explorer Peter Wharton, at age 57. Peter was the curator of the Asian Garden at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada. I'm sure many of you have met Peter or have seen his handiwork at the magnificent UBC gardens. When Peter, who was scheduled to be in China this fall, went to the doctor a few months ago for a melanoma, the cancer had already spread to the rest of his body so much so, that there was no viable treatment. Peter is survived by his wife and three children. UBC has established the Peter Wharton Memorial Fund to endow a lecture series in his memory at the garden. For information on making a donation, contact maryn.ellis@ubc.ca. The UBC Botanical Garden is planning a celebration of Peter's life on Saturday, September 6 from 2-5pm in the gardens. They have asked those who plan on attending to RSVP botg@interchange.ubc.ca.
There is so much going on with the plants out in the garden, it's hard to
know where to start. This has been an amazing few weeks of lycoris, as the
stalks of colorful flowers emerge from nowhere. Lycoris is a group of Asian
bulbs, whose foliage disappears in late spring, making the summer-borne flowers
live up to their common name of surprise lily or hurricane lily. Lycoris grow
equally as well in light open shade as in full sun. While they are obscenely
drought-tolerant, flowering is sacrificed if they are dry for too long in
the early summer. Many customers tell us they have much better luck with our
container-grown plants than with often poorly stored dried bulbs. We already
carry a nice selection of lycoris, but more are in the pipeline thanks to
the magic of tissue culture. When we get plantlets back from the lab, we
must then line them out in the field for at least one additional year to
get them to flowering size.
Another summer flowering geophyte we don't hear much about these days is
the hardy cyclamen. While most catalogs tend to over-hype the flowering
abilities of most plants, we find the opposite true for Cyclamen hederifolium.
For us, they start flowering in mid-July and continue into the fall. It
seems to us this is dependent on occasional summer rain showers, but we
have seen consistent flowers each year for the last decade or so. Cyclamen
purpurascens is another species in flower now, which makes a nice compliment
to C. hederifolium.
Another geophyte that doesn't get nearly enough attention is the hardy
non-weedy oxalis. In the summer months, oxalis are the Timex® of the garden
... they 'take a lickin' and keep on tickin... There are so many great
garden specimens, but without a doubt the Oxalis regnellii types are the
best in our climate. Not only is the foliage colorful on cultivars such
as 'Jade' or 'Triangularis', but they are also in full flower during the
summer months. We have found them to fare best in part sun to light shade
conditions and have grown them in both dry sandy soils and rich boggy soils.
August is also a peak month for crocosmia in NC. I love crocosmia, but we've
been frustrated for years at how good they looked the first year and how
bad they looked every subsequent year. The problem is that many commonly
grown cultivars, such as the beautiful C. 'Lucifer' simply crowd themselves
out. If C. 'Lucifer' isn't divided every year, it's worthless. You'll quickly
find giving away crocosmia corms is harder than finding someone to take
your extra garden squash. Over the years, we have found several that don't
choke themselves out as fast, including three wonderful specimens from
England's David Tristam and a few other stalwarts such as C. 'Star of the East'
and C. 'Jenny Bloom'.
I hope many of you have experimented with our ever increasing selections
of hardy sinningias, which are simply superb for summer flowering. These
drought-tolerant plants are great when grown in reasonably well-drained
sites that get from 2-6 hours of full sun daily. I first knew sinningias
from the house plant gloxinias purchased as a gift, only to watch them
fade away in a horticulture hospice ward a few months later. Never in my
wildest dreams did I imagine these could be grown as winter hardy (Zone 7)
perennials.
If large bold tropical-looking plants are your thing, I hope you are growing
Cestrum 'Orange Peel'. This amazing Argentine native has been flowering
non-stop since early spring and now tops 8' tall. Of a similar stature is
the amazing Aralia cordata. This 8' tall herbaceous aralia makes a monstrous
clump, topped in August with large arching sprays of white flowers. This is
simply a glorious and easy to grow plant that should be in all gardens large
enough to hold it. Last, but not least, are the lobelias which seem to come
and go in popularity. Part of the problem with growing lobelias is that
gardeners like to mulch them along with the rest of their plants.
Unfortunately, lobelias don't take kindly to mulch, as their rosettes should
remain exposed at all times. In the wild, most lobelias grow in moist soils,
with some actually growing in standing or running water. While the above is
true for hybrids of L. cardinalis, L. 'Candy Corn' requires very dry soils
and doesn't even form a winter rosette. If you treat your lobelias well,
you'll have stunning plants in August ... just waiting for the hummingbird assault.
I'll stop here, so you can get out into your own gardens, since I'm sure you're not reading this at work. We wish you a great remainder of the summer gardening season and hope to see you at our Fall Open House and the JCRA symposium. As always, we thank you for your continued support and patronage. Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. September 2008Greetings from soggy NC, where we have had over 13" of rain during the last couple of weeks and are badly in need of a drying out period ... sort of like our friends in much of the Gulf Coast region. Overall, it's been a great summer here weather-wise, as we cooled off nicely after the first week of August. After last year's record dry summer, 2008 has been a welcome change.I'm sure we're all far too familiar with the effects felt by the economic downturn, and our industry is no exception. While the nursery industry typically does well even in an economic downturn, the combination of tumbling stock prices, high fuel prices, and an overextended housing mortgage market has played havoc with virtually everyone involved in this industry. We' re all fastened in tight, hoping we can last until the tumultuous ride ends and then hope we still have a seat left. We sincerely thank all of you that have placed an order in 2008. If you haven't visited your favorite garden center or nursery in a while, we sure hope you will do so as your finances allow .... hey really need you now. Speaking of visiting, we hope to see many of you at our fall open house, which runs from September 12-14 and 19-21 ... from 8am-5pm on Friday and Saturday and 1pm-5pm on Sunday. We were disappointed more folks didn't show up in summer, but we assume you were all waiting for the weather to cool, which it has done nicely. In nursery news, another giant bit the dust last week, when Hines Nurseries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Hines has asked the bankruptcy court to seek a bidder for all Hines's assets which will allow it to continue to operate as a nursery for now. If you haven't heard of Hines Nurseries, they were the largest nursery in the US only a few years ago. Hines has undergone a series of transformations since the 1970's, from being owned by Weyerhaeuser, to being employee owned, to being publicly owned, to being venture capitol-owned. Over the last couple of decades, Hines grew at a rapid pace by gobbling up other large growers throughout the US. This rapid growth strategy, the decision to put most of their eggs in the price-sensitive, pay-by-scan mass-market basket, and the tragic decision to become a public company via stock offerings, kept Hines teetering on the brink of disaster for the last several years. Despite recently selling off many of their most valuable nursery properties across the country, a couple of years of bad weather and the economic slowdown proved to be the tipping point in driving Hines and their 500 million dollar debt into Chapter 11. This sad chapter is another reminder that in our industry, big isn't always better. I hope all of the unsecured creditors including Conard-Pyle Nursery, Syngenta Seeds, and Ball Horticultural Company are able to survive this huge financial blow. Far too often the domino effect on creditors is as bad as it is for the company which files Chapter 11. Those of us in the plant industry were also surprised recently to learn Branch-Smith Publishing Company of Texas, which publishes several of the top green industry magazines including Nursery Management & Production, Greenhouse Management & Production, Garden Center Magazine, and Garden Center Products & Supplies ... has sold it's publications to GIE Media Inc. It remains unclear if the new owners have plans for these wonderful publications. Last month, I'm sure everyone heard about the family attacked in China during the Olympics. The victim, Todd Bachman, was the CEO of Bachman's Nursery in Minnesota, which is widely considered one of the top garden centers in America. Todd is survived by his wife Barbara, who was also attacked, but survived. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Bachman family as they continue to deal with this tragedy. You can read more about the Bachman family at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/08/09/olympics_stabbing/ Only a couple of weeks remain before the JC Raulston Arboretum's, 'Surround Yourself with Shady Characters' symposium. The list of internationally-recognized speakers is truly superb, so this is not a symposium to be missed. For symposium attendees, PDN will serve bagels and coffee on Friday, September 26 from 9-10am, and the gardens and nursery will be open from 8am-4pm for viewing and shopping. You can find out more from the JCRA website at: http://www.ncsu.edu/jcraulstonarboretum/calendar/2008/events/09-september/symposium/symposium.html In other important upcoming events, we hope you will participate in the Garden Conservancy's Open Days, benefitting the JC Raulston Arboretum. The dates are Saturday, September 20 from 9am-5pm and Sunday, September 21, from 12pm-5pm. Since that is a Plant Delights Nursery Fall Open House weekend as well, we hope you'll spend the entire day visiting some of the great gardens of the region. The cost to visit is $5 per garden, which obviously is not applicable here at PDN, but we will gladly accept the same fee and send the donation along to the Garden Conservancy. You can read more about the area gardens which are participating at http://www.opendaysprogram.org I'm just back from a three week botanizing trip to Taiwan. If you'd like to read more about what we saw and vicariously travel along, my daily expedition notes with photos is being loaded on the website, so give us a few more days and you'll find it at http://www.plantdelights.com/Tony/about_exploration.html I am privileged to have been invited to speak at the inaugural meeting of the Southeast Horticultural Society, to be held on November 13, in Atlanta, GA. The Southeast Horticultural Society will be the southeastern equivalent of the large horticultural societies of the northeast. I hope to see you at the meeting and wish this new group the best of luck in getting off the ground.
Last month I mentioned the wonderful lycoris season we were having, thanks
to adequate summer moisture. Despite being gone for three weeks, the
lycoris parade still continues. The September-flowering clones of
Lycoris radiata are just finishing, as are the wonderful L. aurea and
L. caldwellii. Even within a species such as the common Lycoris radiata,
there is a huge variation. We have clones of L. radiata that flower every
year in June, other clones in August, and the most common clone flowers in
September. As I botanize around the southeast US, it's not uncommon to
stumble on clumps of the Chinese native lycoris, usually near community
dump sites, where they were discarded, but stubbornly refuse to die.
I really hope everyone, including those brown-thumb gardeners will give lycoris
a try. Keep in mind when dividing your clumps that replanting promptly is
key to keeping consistent flowering. Years ago, I dug thousands from
our first Raleigh garden and moved them to the NC State Fairgrounds where I
was employed. Because I allowed them to dry in boxes before planting, it
took 14 years until they all burst into flower.
As the nights begin to cool, many plants have a fall resurgence of
flowering. One group that particularly benefits from September weather is
Salvia gregii, which come in a range of colors from white to yellow, to red,
to purple. These woody semi-shrub like salvias prefer good drainage, a
pH above 6.0, plenty of sun and air circulation. There are other great
fall-flowering salvias including one of my favorites, Salvia madrensis.
Typical S. madrensis has huge winged stems to 7' tall, which are topped with
terminal spikes of light yellow flowers in October. Our selection,
S. 'Red Neck Girl', has dark red-purple stems and flowers that usually start
at least two weeks earlier. Salvia puberula is another fall-bloomer with
fuzzy pink flowers that resemble the Energizer Bunny®, while the
related S. darcyi, S. 'Silke.s Dream., and S. 'Scarlet Spires' are all
just starting to flower with 4' tall spikes of peachy-red.
For the woodland garden, the shade-loving Salvia koyamae and S. nipponica
are also in full flower.
September is also the month many of the lesser grown gesneriads (African
violet relatives) spring to life. While many of the hardy sinningias have
been flowering for months, this is the time Gloxinia 'Evita' erupts into
flower and steals star status from everyone else in the garden.
Additionally, the hardy achimenes are in full bloom now. Another group
that just explodes in the fall are the abutilons. The dangling bells of
these hibiscus relatives come in a range of colors from pinks to oranges.
We have selected our offerings from our extensive winter hardiness trials.
If you need something larger, don't forget the cestrums, which have been
in flower since late spring and still haven't slowed down.
I hope many of you are enjoying your Aloysia virgata you purchased this
spring. This die back perennial in Zone 7 is a plant I simply will not
be without in my garden. It starts to flower in August and reaches a
fever pitch in September with hundreds of spikes of white flowers on
8-10' tall branches ... did I mention they smell like vanilla extract?
I'm writing this with my chair parked underneath our delicious specimen.
I love fragrant flowers and this is a great time of year for fragrance in
the garden. Whether it is one of the many fragrant hedychiums or the
nocturnally-fragrant brugmansias, the evening garden is a sheer delight.
Again, we thank you for your continued support and hope to see you soon! As always, we thank you for your continued support and patronage. Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. October 2008Greetings from PDN and we hope all is well in your garden. It's been a challenging time since we last wrote, from Hurricane Ike to the stock market dropping like a hot potato. Our thoughts go out to the people and gardens affected by Hurricane Ike. At the Stephen F. Austin Mast Arboretum in Nacogdoches, TX, the Pineywoods section of the garden no longer has many pines or woods of any kind. The photos I've seen show the Arboretum stunningly devastated. Likewise, Mercer Arboretum & Botanic Gardens in Houston suffered severe damage from both wind and flooding. Moody Gardens on Galveston Island also suffered heavy damage, but has reopened. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who were adversely affected by the storm.Outside of Hurricane Ike, this has been about as good of a late summer and fall as it gets. The temperature in most of the Southeast has been far below normal and we have had good rains leaving us 7.5" above normal for our yearly rainfall. There are still some very dry parts of the country including areas around western NC, eastern TN, upstate SC, and south to Atlanta. We've just finished our fall inventory as we crunch numbers and figure out which new and returning plants have earned the right to grace the pages of our 2009 catalog. While we're pretty good at predicting sales numbers, we occasionally overpropagate or the catalog photo just wasn't as good as we had hoped, so this is your chance to benefit from our errors as we clear out our overstocked plants with a 20% off sale. You can find the list of items which are on sale on our Sale Page. The sale is only valid on orders placed between now and November 2 for delivery by November 15. Enjoy. We'd like to congratulate Raleigh Landscape Architect and PDN customer, Rodney Swink for being awarded the American Society of Landscape Architects LaGasse Medal for his leadership in management and conservancy of natural resources and public lands. Rodney is the Director of the NC Department of Commerce's Office of Urban Development ... congratulations! In other news from the gardening world, Dr. H. Marc Cathey passed away on October 8 following a long struggle with Parkinson's disease at age 79. Marc served two terms as president of the American Horticultural Society from 1974 to 1978 and again from 1993-1997. Marc began his studies at NC State University, with a BS in 1950, and later finished his Ph.D at Cornell. In 1956, he began his career at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, MD. After some pioneer work with day length and its use in forcing horticultural crops, he was promoted to Director of the US National Arboretum in 1981 where he remained until he retired from government service. During his career, Marc was the ultimate showman when it came to horticultural promotion. From the New American Garden concept to the Capitol Columns, to the 1990 USDA Hardiness Zone Map, Marc was unquestionably a marketing genius. With his flamboyant personality, Las Vegas style, and oversized ego, you either loved or hated Marc, but without question he tirelessly promoted gardening until the end. If I see you at the bar one night, we'll share more Marc stories. If you live in the Research Triangle region of NC, and have an area you'd like to clear of unwanted vegetation, there is help available in the form of the goat patrol. Having used goats here at PDN when we first purchased the property, I can attest both to their effectiveness and their entertainment value. Anyway, if you'd like something with a little more personality than a weedtrimmer, go for it. Last month I mentioned our Taiwan expedition log was coming, but it took a bit longer than expected to get the 400 images posted. It's up now at http://www.plantdelights.com/Tony/taiwan.php. Visitors to our garden in October are constantly amazed at the fall show of color ... other than garden mums. As gardeners, we miss such an opportunity when we don't take advantage of the great plants that enjoy strutting their stuff this time of year.
This has been an especially great year for dahlias. Typically, dahlias
flower in spring and slow down during the heat of summer. Since dahlias
prefer cool nights, we get our best flowering of the season when fall rolls
around. We are particularly enamored with the dark foliaged types, of which
many new cultivars have been recently released, most from European breeding
programs. We're constantly asked about winter hardiness, and in our region
of NC, dahlias are reliable when left in the ground over the winter. Based
on our experience, it should be fine to leave dahlias in the ground in
regions which only hit 0 degrees F for short periods. Since dahlias are
tubers, there is no problem planting them in the fall. D. 'Party' and
D. 'Flame' are personal favorites, but then I like my plants a little on
the tacky side.
Without question, one of the other great plant groups for fall is salvia.
Salvia greggii is actually a woody subshrub that we treat as a perennial.
Like dahlias, they start flowering in spring, but their real show comes in
fall as the nights cool. Other salvia species with the same traits include
the US native Salvia farinacea and the South American Salvia guaranitica.
I do not recommend planting them in fall if you are in the same zone of
their maximum hardiness. In other words, don't plant a Zone 7 salvia in
the fall while living in Zone 7 ... fine in Zone 8, etc. Another group of
salvias are those that only flower in fall, triggered by shortening day
length. These include the giant yellow-flowering Salvia madrensis, the
tall blue-spiked S. 'Blue Chiquita', the tall Salvia leucantha and Salvia
puberula, and the bright red-orange Salvia regla.
Not only are there good salvias for fall, but there are good salvia
relatives that are easy to miss because they were kicked out of the genus
salvia for alternative sexual habits. These include rabdosia, perovskia,
rostrinucula, leonotis, and lepechinia. Rabdosia longituba is the one of
the five that must have shade ... no sun or it'll burn like a blue-eyed
blonde. For us, rabdosia comes into flower from late September to
mid-October with hundred of tiny blue flowers. It reseeds politely, so
plant accordingly. Rostrinucula is unquestionably one of my favorite
fall-flowering plants and one I would not garden without. From the ground,
it resprouts in spring to reach 4' tall, and starting in late August, it
flowers into November, covered with long, pendent terminal catkins of
lavender that open at the top and progress downward while the catkin extends.
It's one of those cool plants that just makes you smile. Lepechinia hastata
is the crown jewel of the genus and looks like a 5' tall salvia. The
menthol-fragranced leaves serve as a nice foil to the tall spikes of mauvy
lavender flowers that last from late August until frost. Lepechinia is
particularly drought and heat tolerant as well as being a favorite of
hummingbirds. Leonotis is known in some gardening circles, but virtually
unknown in others. Here in our part of NC, we are at the northern end of
hardiness range for this gem. Leonotis is just coming into full flower
with tall spikes of bright orange flower balls. There isn't much unknown
about perovskia, but after being the 'flavor of the month' for years as a
staple of 'The New American Garden,' its availability has waned in recent
years as growers moved on to other new introductions. Despite not getting
the headlines it used to, it is still one of the stalwarts for hot, dry
gardens. As is the case with most of these genera, drought tolerance
isn't an issue once the plants are established.
The cyclamen, in particular C. hederifolium, have just outdone themselves
this year. As always, they start flowering for us in July and continue
non-stop into fall. Early on, we had little success with them until we
learned they need to be planted where they will be dry in the summer months,
simulating their Mediterranean upbringing. We look for areas we can't keep
wet in the summer, despite irrigation, and plant them there. Areas near
water-hogging trees and shrubs are perfect ... as long as they aren't
completely dark. We find light shade to several hours of sun is perfect.
These are great to plant now, since they continue to grow through the winter.
We all recognize the toad lilies as being great fall bloomers for the
woodland garden, and I hope you have explored some of the newer and lesser
known members of the genus. Most folks start with the axillary-flowering
Tricyrtis hirta, which is still one of the best in the genus. Another of
the purple-flowering species is the stoloniferous Tricyrtis formosana,
which is less hardy, but flowers terminally for a much longer time in late
summer. There are also a number of hybrids between T. formosana and
T. hirta including T. 'Imperial Banner', and T. 'Sinonome'. In addition
to the great variegated foliage, our clumps of T. 'Imperial Banner' are
simply stunning in flower this fall.
Many folks grow red hot pokers, but most of the common species and cultivars
are either spring or summer growers. Kniphofia rooperi is one of the few
exceptions, as it starts flowering in late August to early September and is
still in flower. I particularly like the flower heads, which are shorter,
but much wider than the spring flowering species. If you haven't grown
this great plant, and like pokers, I think you will find it outstanding.
You don't normally think of coreopsis for flowering in the fall, but
southeast US natives, C. helianthoides and C. integrifolia are simply
stunning this time of year. Both species are spreading plants, native to
wet soils, yet both are amazing garden specimens in the driest garden spots.
We're currently sold out of C. integrifolia, but put this on your list for
spring.
We all know ornamental grasses are stalwarts of the fall garden, but few
can hold a candle to Muhlenbergia capillaris 'White Cloud'. Unfortunately
this gem comes into flower about four weeks after our fall open house, so
visitors don't get to see it in person. The 4' tall x 4' wide clumps of
this great native are topped now with airy plumes of white flowers. The
other favorite fall bloomer is the giant sugar cane, Saccharum arundinaceum.
This grass is not for the faint of heart with its 12' plumes of lavender,
opening in mid-October.
In the Top 25 this month, there were no new moves into the top 30, although Aloe polyphylla, Agave 'Creme Brulee', Anisacanthus wrightii, and Clematis 'Stolwijk Gold' lurk close behind. Euphorbia 'Nothowlee' continues its climb upward, moving into the 3rd position, where it will need a huge leap to overtake either of the top 2 by year's end. The lovely and talented Salvia chamaedryoides moves into 7th place, while Tiarella 'Pink Skyrocket' also cracks the Top 10. It is amazing to be this close to the end of the season and still find 3 agaves in the Top 10 and 6 in the top 30. Gaillardia 'Fanfare' has made a late season move, jumping from 20th to 15th, but no other significant moves took place. We hope your choices have put you in place to win our $250 Plant Delights gift certificate. We hope you enjoy your garden this fall season as much as we do ours. For a little solace from the constant barrage of 24/7 media, remember, there's no place like a garden. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for your continued support and hope to see you soon! Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. November 2008Happy fall greetings from Plant Delights to all of you out there in gardening land! We hope you're enjoying your fall garden as much as we are, unless of course, you're in a region that has already seen the arrival of winter. Those reports of 4' of snow in the Dakotas were amazing for this early in the fall. 2008 has been a dizzying year so far and as fast as things are changing, we don't really know what to expect for 2009. Who would have dreamed that we would see $4-$5 per gallon gas and then a few months later watch the price tumble back to below $2 per gallon ($1.89 currently in our area)? Those high gas prices sucked up all my plant buying money and that wasn't a good thing!Here at PDN, we're busy raking leaves after the recent temperatures in the 20's F sent an avalanche of leaves from the overhead canopy tumbling to the ground. Remember that leaves are free compost with free delivery, so don't throw them away. We rake and blow the leaves from the beds to a nearby path, then mow them with a bagging mower. The leaves are then either added to a compost pile or applied in shredded form back to the beds... just as long as you don't smother smaller plants. If you are really into composting and organic gardening, or would like to be, I hope you'll read Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis. This wonderful book, published in 2006 by Timber Press, is one I highly recommend to help understand how the world of soils really work. You can easily find it by doing a Google search for the title. There's still some interesting plants strutting their stuff in the garden including one of my favorites, the fall-flowering Gladiolus 'Halloweenie'. This amazing glad not only fills the garden with colors of fall, but is great for arrangements inside the home. gladiolus page Another plant that has amazed us this year has been Fuchsia 'Sanihanf'. This is one of a series of fuchsias, bred in Japan for both heat and cold tolerance. Our plants have been in full flower in the garden since spring and are still spectacular in flower now. I had given up on fuchsias in our climate until these gems hit the market ... truly amazing. fuchsia page Last month, I mentioned the fall flowering salvias, and while some have finished, others continue strong despite our two freezes. Looking good in the garden now are the pink-flowered Salvia puberula 'El Butano', the blue-flowered S. 'Blue Chiquita' and S. 'Van Remsen', the purple and white S. leucantha, and the amazing Salvia dark blue-purple 'Balsalmisp'. It's hard to not get your money's worth out of the perennial salvias. salvia page In the orange and red color range, the abutilons still look fantastic and will for quite a while. These amazing hibiscus relatives love the fall nights and produce some of their best flowers of the season now. A US native abutilon relative, Malvaviscus drummondii is also in ablaze of glory now, despite flowering all summer long. Continuing in the same color theme, Cuphea micropetala is also in peak bloom with its spikes of small orange and yellow bicolor flowers. abutilon page cuphea page malvaviscus page The farfugiums are just wrapping up what has been a superb flowering season. If you don't know these Asian woodlanders, they are usually grown for their ornamental foliage, but in the fall, they reveal their close resemblance to garden mums with attractive stalks of yellow daisies. Farfugiums grow best in slightly moist, rich soils, where they form stunning clumps ... especially now. One of the plants we don't think about for flowers are the tree ivies, or fatsia. This genus of shrubby plants usually begins flowering only when they reach heights of 3' tall. Our clumps of Fatsia japonica 'Variegata' are now approaching 7' tall and are covered in amazing alien-like spikes of tiny white flowers ... a great conversation piece. fatsia page I've spent all my time talking about plants in flower, but as we all know, it's foliage that makes the garden work. One of the reasons I love gardening in the fall is the re-emergence of the arums. These unusual members of the aroid family have a dyslexic growing season. They emerge in fall, grow through the winter, flower and fruit in spring, and sleep during the summer. On second thought, maybe they've got it right. One of the growing tips we've learned over the years is that arums don't like wet soils, and mature clumps need to be divided every 3-5 years to prevent the clumps from becoming too crowded. I lift the clumps either in late spring as they go dormant or now as they emerge. You will find several large rhizomes with small brown pea-shaped offsets along the rhizome. I like to remove the small offsets and replant the large pieces. The smaller pieces can be moved to a new location where they will be able to grow and prosper without competition from the larger pieces. If you do this before it gets too cold, they won't miss a beat. arum page Finally, fall would not be complete without members of the Ruscaceae family. This bizarre family of plants doesn't even have leaves, instead they are stuck living with prehistoric leaf-like structures called cladodes. Both ruscus and its sister genus danae (poet's laurel), are adorned now with red and orange berries respectively. Unlike the spiny ruscus, danae has soft foliage and is a favorite of flower arrangers, but both can't be beat for color in the fall garden. danae page ruscus page We're wrapping up our shipping season for 2008, and with the exception of a horticultural emergency, the last orders will go out the week of Dec. 1-5. We will resume shipping on Feb. 16, 2009. If you put off that fall order, consider this your last call before we close the horticultural bar. This marks week 7 of spring catalog preparation, a process that spans 12 grueling weeks each fall. We start the process by examining the pool of potential plants that have merited catalog consideration including current offerings, past offerings, and potential new offerings. We then look at sales figures from the current year and decide which plants currently being offered will make the financial cut for the 2009 catalog, while forecasting potential sales for new plants whose performance has merited consideration. The final part of this selection process involves looking at past sales figures for plants we haven't offered in a while for a number of reasons, which might be worthy of re-inclusion. To keep the nursery viable, we know how much money each page of the printed catalog must generate, therefore the revenue generated by the plants on that page must equal our target number. Plants that historically have been below this sales mark or those with sales that we predict will be smaller than required are relegated to the on-line catalog only. The beauty of the on-line catalog is that it allows us to offer some very cool plants that we either have only in small numbers or those that we know will only sell in small numbers. After weeks of give and take, we narrow the prospects down to between 625 and 640 plants that will make the printed catalog. The next step is to determine if we have enough plants of each of these that will be ready for sale. Unlike most large mail order nurseries that buy their plants from other growers, we grow almost all of our own, which allows us to better control availability, trueness to name, and quality. The other critical factor determining which plants make the printed catalog is our ability to find a good image. For those of us that deal with new or little-known plants, this problem adds another layer of complexity to an already difficult process. PDN is one of the few mail-order nurseries our size that takes most of their own images. This is problematic, however, because it means we must first grow the plant, then be ready to drop everything when the plant is at peak growth and the light is just right to run outdoors to capture the perfect photo. Even with our best efforts, we usually wind up short about 20-30 images out of 1500 (catalog + on-line). We are truly indebted to those who allow us to use their images for these items. We were both surprised and pleased to find PDN written about in the November 2008 issue of Garden Center Magazine. Garden Center Magazine is a trade publication available at no charge for anyone actively involved in garden product retailing. If you are so involved and you don't know of this wonderful publication, check it out at the link above. In news from the horticultural world, Dr. Dennis Werner, director of the JC Raulston Arboretum, has stepped down from his position after only three years on the job. Denny will be returning to two of his loves, plant breeding and teaching. We are very disappointed with Denny's decision, because having worked with arboretum directors around the country, we found Denny to be one of the best in the business. Not only is he a great leader of people, but he has a grand vision and the ability to turn that vision into reality. We are pleased to introduce Denny's first two buddleia releases in the new catalog, which ranked #1 and #2 in public voting at the current worldwide buddleia trials at Wisley Gardens in the UK. We wish Denny continued success in his breeding efforts and hope NCSU moves swiftly to find a qualified replacement with the same leadership and visionary qualities for the JC Raulston Arboretum. Our get-well soon wish this month goes out to Bob Stewart, co-owner of Arrowhead Alpines, who is fighting a tough battle with colon cancer. Arrowhead is always one of my favorite specialty nurseries to visit and Bob and his wife Brigitta are always great hosts. I hope you all will keep Bob in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time, and like all of us in the business, Bob says, 'Don't forget to order.' Being in the mail order business, we get the opportunity to meet an array of fascinating people, if only over the phone. One such person was Millar (MM) Graff, a well-known gardener from New York. In fact, Millar sent us one of her favorite iris just over a year ago, which will be included in our upcoming catalog. Millar just passed away at age 97, but not before living a full life that included writing several books/pamphlets about NY's Central and Prospect Parks including; Central Park -- Prospect Park: A New Perspective - 1985; The Making of Prospect Park: Notes for a Projected Historical Study - 1982; and The Men Who Made Central Park - 1982. You can read more about Millar this artical in the NY Times. We're getting close to the end of the season when moves in the Top 25 are usually minor, but of note this month is a late charge by Lilium formosanum from 13th to 8th and Agave 'Kara's Stripes', which moved from 18th to 14th. Next month, we'll do a final tally and announce the winner of the $250 Plant Delights gift certificate. Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. December 2008Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's greetings from Plant Delights. We hope you're having a great holiday season and are already anticipating the upcoming spring season. Much of the country has experienced an early blast of winter, unseen in some areas for decades. Much of the Pacific Northwest got blasted by both cold temperatures and snow, putting a quick end to the "zone denial" that has pervaded that area for decades. The winter storms didn't stop there as they continued their march across the country, blasting the Midwest and then the Northeast. Like Elvis, the 2009 Plant Delights catalog has left the building and is on the way to your mailbox. If you can't wait, the updated website is also ready for your perusal. As always, the on-line catalog has nearly 1000 more items than can be found on the pages of the printed catalog ... we hope you can find something to suit your needs. We've made a few changes this year due to customer suggestions, most notably a reduction in our minimum shipping charge as well as a reduction in the amount required for a minimum backorder from $35 to $20. For these changes to be economically viable and to remain permanent, they must result in more customers placing smaller orders ... fingers crossed. The writing and production of the catalog involves three all consuming months, so the great joy of completing the catalog is being able to get back into the garden and start reworking beds. Granted it is winter now, but that's okay in our part of North Carolina. I actually prefer to rework beds in the winter because I can easily see the structure of the garden without the "clutter" of the plants that detract my eye in the growing season. I always advocated the idea that if your garden looks good in the winter, it will look good any other time of year. Unfortunately, most folks only garden for a particular season ... most often spring, and the garden looks uninteresting during the remainder of the year. For those unfamiliar with the gardens here at Juniper Level, all of our planting is done in beds. Each bed was initially prepared using compost so that the entire soil root zone is similar. This is preferable to the commonly used technique of planting in individual holes, which doesn't take into account that the roots will ever grow outside of the prepared hole. In our renovations we focus on beds that are 10 years old, where we perform a nearly complete renovation by first removing all digable size plants. As a general rule, anything of a 2" caliper or below is fair game to be dug. This means that deciduous, herbaceous plants must be well marked before they go dormant or they become very time consuming and difficult to locate in winter. Twenty years ago when we began the gardens, we simply added compost to the mounds of soil and rototilled it in. What seemed like lots of compost 20 years ago turned out not to be nearly enough as the beds became established. Nowadays, we are fortunate enough to have equipment that allows us to mix our own garden/nursery generated compost together with native soil from our property, producing our own garden soil mix. To get enough native soil, we use a commonly established landscape architect technique of balancing cut and fill. In other words, if we want to make a raised bed, we have to construct an equal size sunken bed somewhere else in the garden. By blending our own mix of 40% soil and 60% compost, we create a mix that we can then add directly to our established beds. From fresh garden debris to finished compost mix usually takes us from 8-12 weeks. One of many things we learned decades ago is that old wives tales of not being able to fill around established trees is just that ... an old wives tale. The key is to use a well-drained, microbially active soil mix. If you visit during one of our open house days, we'll be glad to show you trees that have been filled around for more than a decade. These renovations allow us to enrich the soil as well as change the terrain and form of the beds. We have developed a real fondness for raised, sculpted beds which allow us to not only grow more plants (think Pythagorean theorem), but make the plants more visible. Have you ever noticed that some plants in your garden don't seem to get noticed? Sometimes it's simply a matter of how they are arranged in relation to each other, sort of like products on a grocery store shelf. Arranging plants in a garden is a bit like painting a picture. You must be conscious of how you use colors, textures, and forms ... either by repetition or contrast. No doubt you've had some plants that got larger than expected, while others got crowded out by more aggressive neighbors. The renovation process allows these mistakes to be corrected while allowing underperforming plants to be moved around, hopefully to a place that they will grow better. By spending virtually every winter weekend in the garden, I get to see up close which plants still look great in the winter. Now, those of you in the northern hinterlands, don't expect me to talk about plants this time of year that will thrive in Zones 4 and 5 ... first, there are many evergreen perennials for your zones, and any hardy plants would be under snow anyway, so just skip this section unless you have a winter home in the south.
Here at PDN, we had our early blast of winter when we dropped to 17 degrees F
on November 21.
While it's impossible to see damage on many plants for quite a while, agaves
show damage soon after it happens. Weather too cold for a specific agave
results in the leaves turning soft and mushy, while the fragrance of decaying
plant flesh fills the air. Agave leaf spotting from cold moisture, on the
other hand, may take several weeks to show up. Of the new agaves we were
trialing, Agave inadequidens bit the dust along with Agave dasylirioides.
Agave 'Weirdo', an A. bracteosa hybrid that we had high hopes for, doesn't
look like it will make it either. Plants that we expected to be damaged
but were untouched, include Agave atrovirens var. mirabilis, A. durangensis,
A. potrerana, A. applanata, A. shrevei, A. schidigera 'Shiro ito no Ohi',
and the hybrids A. 'Blue Glow', and xMangave 'Bloodspot'.
I talked last month about the wonderful Ruscaceae family members, danae and
ruscus, which still look great with their bright red or orange Christmas
berries as we reach the first of the year. Along with the arums that I also
mentioned last month, these two are a great start for winter interest
perennials. Other plants that are also wonderful in the winter garden include
the aspidistras or cast iron plants. Aspidistras aren't held in high regard
by folks in the deep south, because they are so common there. But, as we
like to say, these aren't your grandma's cast iron plants, as the range of
available species and cultivars are increasing exponentially. Most aspidistra
species are fine down to 0 degrees F, which makes them great garden plants
from Zone 7b south, and great house plants for those of you in the northern
zones. Even in our garden, aspidistras blend into the background during the
growing season, only showing their true structural garden value in the dead
of winter. Not only are aspidistras great in the garden, but their foliage
is fabulous when included in Christmas wreaths or indoor holiday arrangements.
Another superb winter interest plants are the adult ivies. Thanks to the
tireless work of Richard Davis, we are able to offer a number of superb
cultivars. Every time I mention adult ivy, people shake their heads or
launch into a diatribe about how they hate ivy. Once I get them calmed down,
I get to explain about why these plants are so valuable to the landscape.
When regular ivy grows up a wall or tree, the leaves become larger each year
that the plant climbs. After a decade or so, the plant undergoes a
horticultural puberty and switches from being a juvenile to an adult.
This includes gaining the ability to have sex and reproduce, while losing
the ability to run around. In other words, ivy becomes a shrub growing
atop a vine. By taking cuttings from the shrub-like top of the ivy ...
assuming you can reach it, the resulting plant will act as a shrub instead
of a vine. Some of our oldest adult ivies are over a decade old, resulting
in 4' tall x 4' wide evergreen shrubs. There is a rare occasion that
some adult cultivars will throw a juvenile running shoot, but we have
found this to be quite rare and nothing a quick snip won't cure. Just
like the juvenile ivies, they come in an array of leaf patterns. Despite
their prolific flowering in fall and attractive seed heads in winter,
we have seen very little reseeding ... less than a dozen plants in 15 years.
In some parts of the country, such as the Pacific Northwest, ivies invade
natural areas and should never be planted there.
Although not often thought of as winter interest plants, there are few that
stand out more in the winter garden than the hardy palms. Palms are completely
misunderstood, as evidenced several years ago with a less-enlightened
supervisor for the Raleigh Parks and Recreation Department who issued an
edict that no more palms could be planted in the city parks. It seems the
supervisor didn't find them regionally appropriate, not realizing that two
species used (Sabal minor and Sabal palmetto) were both NC natives with
S. minor historically occurring within an hour of Raleigh, and Rhapidophyllum
hystrix (needle palms) being native to South Carolina. Palms are commonly
grown in more tropical climates and are underappreciated for their winter
interest, since in the tropics, few plants grown around them ever go dormant.
In our temperate climate, they really stand out in the winter since so much
else hibernates in the winter months. The best genera of palms for temperate
climates include rhapidophyllum (needle palm), sabal (palmetto palm),
chamaerops (fan palm), and trachycarpus (windmill palm).
Other great winter evergreens include the wonderful disporopsis. These
evergreen Solomon's Seals really stand out now, making wonderful 1' tall
x 2' wide patches in the winter garden. They will get burned a bit if the
temperatures drop below 0 degrees F, but until then, they look great.
Another winter favorite is the wealth of coral bells (heuchera). Since
they look great all season, some folks forget that they are evergreen and
can be used to great effect to brighten the winter garden. I love all the
purple leaf forms that grow here, but am particularly entranced with the
gold foliage cultivars, especially H. 'Citronelle'.
While there are a number of evergreen ferns, not all remain attractively
evergreen in the winter. Those that do include Dryopteris erythrosora
(autumn fern), Dryopteris formosana (Formosan wood fern), Polystichum
acrostichoides (Christmas fern), Polystichum tsus-simense (Korean Rock
Fern), Pyrrosia (felt fern), and Arachniodes standishii (upside down Fern)
Last, but not least is Helleborus niger, the Christmas rose. There are
many different forms, some flowering in early winter, while many of ours
are in full flower now. Their large pure white flowers are simply wonderful
additions to the winter garden. H. niger prefers a rich, organic soil, but
one that doesn't stay too moist in the summer months.
I hope those of you who qualify as plant nerds are subscribers to The
Plantsman magazine. This UK Royal Horticultural Society publication is
head and shoulders above all other publications of which I am familiar when
it comes to detailed plant information. That being said, it's not a
publication for the average backyard gardener. Editor Mike Grant does a
superb job soliciting articles from experts around the world. I'm one of
those people who rip articles from magazines and file them according to
subject. I was particularly amazed that there were so many great articles
in the September issue that I removed virtually the entire magazine and
filed it. One great example was a wonderfully detailed article on Musa
basjoo, explaining why it is really not native to Japan, but is instead from
Sichuan, China. You can find out more and purchase your subscription on
their website.
If you're looking to sneak out of the house and get a plant fix, consider
coming to the North American Rock Garden Society's Eastern Winter Study
Weekend, January 30-February 2 in Reston, VA ... just outside of the nation's
Capital. These meetings are always great, but this year's speaker lineup
is quite impressive ... despite the fact that your's truly is included.
Please check out the link below and I hope to see you there.
In the world of gardening, I'm sad to report that the father of NC garden designer Edith Eddleman has passed away after an extended illness. Edith took leave of her Durham home and garden six years ago to return to Charlotte, NC to take care of her elderly parents. Her mom passed away a few years ago, and her father last month. The bright spot is that Edith has begun the process of packing up and moving back to her well-known Durham garden. I know lots of us look forward to seeing Edith back in the gardening world and on the speaker circuit. A couple of years ago, I mentioned that Dr. Kim Tripp had resigned her post as Director of the NY Botanic Garden to switch careers and start medical school in Maine. Lots of folks had asked about Kim, so I was delighted to hear from her last week for the first time since she left NYBG as she wraps up her school work and prepares to start her first internship. We wish Kim the best of luck as she continues down her new life's path.
I also mentioned last year that Mark and Louisa of Messenbrinks Nursery
had closed down their business, both the wholesale side and their retail
store at the NC Farmers Market. I thought that those of you who knew Mark
and Louisa would like an update on their whereabouts. They have moved from
their farm in the country to a house in the town of Nashville, NC. Louisa
is an elementary school art teacher, with a sideline of selling herbs at
the Rocky Mount Farmers Market, while Mark has started a new business,
The Macho Taco, a Mexican food vending business ... see link below. I'm
glad to hear that we haven't completely lost them from the gardening world.
Other news comes from the world of NPR, where gardening doyenne, Ketzel Levine has been a victim of the wave of layoffs at NPR. I'm sure many of you remember Ketzel from her days in Maryland, before she headed to her current digs on the West Coast. I'm sure Ketzel will find enough projects to keep her busy and we wish her the best of luck. You can read more about her plans on her blog. After 137 years, the New England Flower Show is no more. Plagued by directorship problems (3 fired directors in the last 6 years) and board oversight incompetence, the Massachusetts Hort Society awoke to suddenly realize they were once again deeply in debt and nearly bankrupt. The once-proud society has fired 18 of its 30 employees, including the Flower Show director. As one of many speakers who still have not been paid or reimbursed by the society for talks at the 2008 show, we are not amused. At least not until I received the letter from the society asking everyone who is owed money to consider the debt as a contribution to the society ... now that's funnier than anything I've seen on the Comedy Channel. This is the first time in 30 years I've been stiffed for an honorarium ... shame on Mass Hort! This is the most recent debacle in a series of comical financial mismanagement problems, including the famed 2002 debacle when the society was forced to sell $5.25 million dollars of selections from their rare book collection just to pay bills. Perhaps they should get in line with everyone else for a government bailout. We are also sad to report the passing (November 16) of lily guru, Edward Austin McRae at age 76. Ed was born in Scotland, but in 1961 went to work for Oregon Bulb Farm in Oregon, where he hybridized lilies for a quarter century. In 1988, he moved to Van der Salm Bulb Farms in Washington where he continued his hybridizing work until he retired in 1995. After retirement, he founded the Oregon based Species Lily Preservation Group, wrote numerous articles and his wonderful book, Lilies: A Guide for Growers and Collectors. McRae's former wife Judith still breeds lilies for her company, the Lily Nook. Finally, congratulations to Brian James of Elizabeth City, NC for having the best score in correctly guessing the Top 25 Best sellers for 2008. He wins a $250 gift certificate. For the year, six agaves made the top list along with three colocasias. Salvias, with two entries were the only other genera to be represented by more than one in the Top 30. We hope you'll try to predict our Top 25 for 2009. You have until Feb 15 to submit your entry for the $250 gift certificate which will be awarded at the end of 2009. Please direct all replies and questions to office@plantdelights.com. Thanks and enjoy -tony
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