Unique Blooms

It's obviously too late to order them for the holidays, but there is plenty dull winter left to brighten up, and a huge blooming fragrant houseplant is just what you need. We've got Amaryllis in green, red, and white–the Jade Serpent is my favorite. With up to 8 huge, lime-green to white blooms in just over a month, it is sure to give you the winter sparkle you're looking for.

It isn't all about the blooms. They grow so fast, you can actually notice the change throughout the day. A coworker who's desk is next to mine has been tracking hers every few hours for the last couple weeks. They are really fun to grow, and the spectacular blooms are really worth the build-up.

You can see here where she was keeping measurements for the the first nine days, from 12/15 until Christmas Eve. But now it's too big for this envelope.

We've really got some interesting flowers in our line-up this spring. Wayside Gardens is known to many gardeners as the place you go to get the varieties you can't find anywhere else, but some of the new blooms are extraordinary.

One of my personal favorites is the Centaurea "Gold Bullion". This beautiful little perennial ground cover will sparkle in your garden. It is hardy from zones 3-8 and does well in part shade or full sun. The bright chartreuse leaves and delicate blue blooms will add the color variety you need.

Another plus for many gardeners, Centaurea are big nectar producers which make them attractive to pollinators like butterlies, humming birds, and honey bees. And, they are less than $10 apiece!

Camellias are blooming right now! Everything is gray, cold, and (if you
live on the east cost) very damp. It is very dreary outside, but
camellias are bright and cheery. If you have this little evergreen
workhorse shrub planted in your garden you will have bright blooms
through the holiday season.

They live for a very long time, hundreds of years, and they are very cold-hardy, blooming and thriving in the winter months to temperatures of
0ºC. Camellias can be a dependable source of year-round beauty in your
garden or landscape design.

These woody perennial shrubs have been bred into thousands of
colorfully blooming cultivars. It should be very easy to find the
camellia that fits your specific tastes and needs. They work well in
containers or as part of a large landscaping plan.

I was browsing through our catalog, as I sometimes do when I can't think of anything else to write about. I just find a pretty plant and then talk about how pretty it is. I know it's boring, and I apologize, but they really are very pretty.

This time was different. It wasn't the picture that caught my attention, but the description. Epimedium Osigui was "named for Mikinori Ogisu, the famed Japanese plant hunter…In the native it is found among limestone deposits near waterfalls." It was discovered in the mountains of Sichuan, China.

Plant Hunter! Browsing the InterWebs, I found Mr. Mikinori was connected with the discoveries of many popular plants. One blogger called him the "most important man in Epimediums." He has trekked though thick forest, up high mountains, and deep into dense river gorges to find some of the rarest and most exciting new plant varieties. One of the most interesting articles was from the Historic Roses Group written by another famed botanist and plant hunter, Martyn Rix. He described Mr. Mikinori's discoveries of exotic Chinese Roses. He spent ten years combing the Chinese wilderness, and has provided us with cultivated varieties of plants that, before him, very few people had even seen.

I guess it was naive of me, but I just had never thought of botanists as adventurers. I guess somebody had to go out and discover all of these things. As gardeners, we often fill our gardens with exotic plants from all over the world, provided either by our local nursery or ordered from a catalog like Wayside Gardens. Rarely, if ever, do we think about how that plant came to be cultivated. Who took the first sample of seeds or the first cutting. Some of the species that Mikinori Ogisu discovered only grow natively at very high altitudes or in deep gorges where there are no trails. The man is a modern pioneer, forging paths for knowledge and future discovery.

It has, for the most part, been a pretty dry year for us here in Hodges.  The last couple of weeks have shown us a healthy dose of much-needed rain, though.  I had the urge the other day to go wandering outside for a bit in the rain.  A coworker and I strolled through the Trial Gardens and the Garden Center, and I was struck as we passed some stunning little plants with small, prolific blooms.  I’m a sucker for interesting and unique blooms, and Toad Lilies are always some of my very favorites.  This was the Japanese Toad Lily ‘Lightning Strike,’ and each plant had tons of perfect little flowers, each white with blue speckles.  Even in the dark gray, rainy day and light fog, these plants, with their prolific flowers and gold-laced leaves, kept my attention for several minutes.  These are definitely worth a spot in any garden, especially since they’re so easy to grow and produce so many flowers (as many as 300 per plant).

Every time I flip through the Wayside Gardens Fall catalog (and I flip through it a lot, as I’m sure you can imagine), I’m stopped by the photo on page 13 of the Paris polyphylla flower.  With it’s unusual leaf-like green petals arrayed symmetrically around ruby red stigma and long yellow anthers, it really is an arresting site.  It’s not just unusual in our catalog, either.  Because this plant is very difficult to propagate (though remarkably easy to grow once you have a plant sprouted), it is a very rare plant.  Rare enough, in fact, that I know of no common name.  This rare little part-shade plant comes to us from the woodlands of Asia and is in the same family as Trillium.