You'd think I'd be raving about this beautiful amaryllis. It's a stunning shade of coral and the blooms are at least six inches across.
Truth is, I've been pretty disappointed with this plant because it's been a perennial underachiever in my yard. I planted it back in early 2001 after receiving it as a gift plant just before Christmas. While it's put up plenty of great foliage over the years, it had never bloomed. Until now, that is.
And bless its heart, it was kind enough to open up just before we left for our recent vacation to the Pacific Northwest. By the time we got back, the flowers had wilted down to little wisps.
Speaking of the Pacific Northwest, I shot nearly 400 photos of plants, gardens, and other fun things while I was out there. In the next weeks, I'll be putting up a few posts highlighting what I saw and revealing my newest plant crush.
Epcot wrap-up
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
If you can't make it this year, you can always mark your calendar for next year. The festival typically begins in March and runs through mid-May.
These photos were taken when I was there a few weeks back helping out with the Florida Master Gardener "Ask the Expert" booth. The first shot features a new topiary installation that played off of "American Gothic." I loved that the bed included a number of edibles, given that people have gone so crazy over vegetable gardening.
Okay, so the purple lablab beans in this photo aren't exactly edible, but they do look good growing up those bamboo tripods. I'll bet that the tomato plants in the mid-ground are setting fruit by now.
I was also excited to see that the horticulture staff had included cardoon in a few of the planters this year. I tried to start some cardoon from seed last year, but my poor plants never made it past the seedling stage.
Here's a close-up of the amazing texture on the leaves.
I also got a chance to visit with my friend Debra Prinzing from the Garden Writers Association. She was the featured speaker that weekend and was talking about her beautiful book Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways. And just before I saw Debra, I learned that she's
Every year there's at least one plant that people stop by the booth and keep asking about. This spring, it was definitely delphinium. I found this container with delphinium over in the England pavilion, though they've probably changed it out by now to a warmer-season plant.
And finally, here's a signature view over one of the lagoons by the monorail. People just love the floating containers and the broad strokes of colorful bedding plants. If you look closely, you can see that the pink plants were just installed. They look like petunias and they probably replaced a cool-season annual. They'll no doubt fill in over time to create the wall-to-wall plants look that Disney is known for.
Well, I hope to blog again soon about my own garden. I still have some design tweaking to do in the front yard, but it's amazing how quickly all of my new plants are all filling in. I get butterflies every time I pull into the driveway and see how well my new cannas and bananas are doing. Stay tuned for photos!
Plants to drool over, part III
Monday, April 12, 2010
This time I'll be recapping what we saw at the JC Raulston Arboretum on the NC State University campus. I'll start by saying that we saw a ton of cool things, and I'll do my best to highlight them all. I'll also say that it was pretty nasty while we were there -- overcast and drizzly -- so not all of the photos are the best.
The first photo shows some inventive planters that we eventually saw in the trials garden. I'm pretty sure they were just sections of drainage pipe that had been painted. Colorful, cheap, and affordable -- all good things in my gardening world!
Emily and I officially started our tour looking at some of the trees, including this cool magnolia. Can you believe that it has variegated leaves? It was hard to get a good picture since it is a full-sized tree, but I think you can see some of the yellowish leaves.
Once we made it to the bedding plant trials garden, I fell in love with Gomphrena spp. 'Fireworks'. The flower heads had much more interest than a typical round Gomphrena flower, and the plants themselves were quite thick and robust. I might need to buy myself some seeds from Burpee next year and give this one a try.
This orange bulbine was really beautiful. It was taller than the yellow bulbine that I'm used to seeing around here and had denser foliage. I could totally see myself using it in my garden somewhere.
And check out this odd-looking plant! Apparently it's a milkweed family plant called Gomphocarpus physocarpus. The seed pods were really cool, so much so that Emily and I both ran over to look at it as soon as we laid eyes on it. It was pretty tall, too -- maybe 6 or 8 feet. Very striking.
This is what they called the lath house. I liked that it seemed like a clever and easy way to create a shade house by creating a framework with standard lumber and then topping it off with wood and wire snow fencing. Again, easy and affordable -- both good things.
We saw Illicium mexicanum 'Aztec Fire' in the lath house, and boy, was it hot! The leaves of the plant looked like our own native Florida anise, but the red flowers made it so much better. The sign said that it's native to Northeast Mexico. Apparently it's commercially available and is suited for Zones 8-9, so maybe I'll have to give it a try.
Finally, we saw a lot of cool succulents in the rooftop garden and the xeric garden. The one on the left is similar to the one that I bought at Plant Delights Nursery. It was only a foot or so tall. The one on the right was Agave 'Mr. Ripple'.
That's all for the 2009 GWA updates. Come September, I'll be heading to Dallas for this year's conference. Can't wait!
Plants to drool over, part II
Monday, April 5, 2010
Our second set of tours took us to holy ground -- Juniper Level Botanic Garden at Plant Delights Nursery. If you don't know, the Plant Delights catalog is THE catalog to drool over every spring. Plantsman Tony Avent keeps it packed full of interesting and exotic plants that plant geeks everywhere love to covet. Plus, he has a great sense of humor. How many other catalogs do you know that stock cultivars like 'Get Nekkid', 'Red Neck Heaven', 'Elvis Lives', and 'Bubba'?
Needless to say, we were all pretty excited to see the nursery and garden, and few of us left without buying a plant or two. The first picture is me proudly holding my purchases:
+ Agave parryi 'J.C. Raulston'
+ Chasmanthium latifolium 'River Mist'
+ Canna indica 'Red Stripe'
+ Canna 'Intrigue'
+ Solidago stricta
Interestingly, I wasn't the only one to be smitten by the solidago. Several people I know picked up this plant. It's funny because the plant was not on my must-have list at the beginning of the morning. I've never so much as circled it in the catalog. (Note: I just realized that's because it's only offered at PDN open houses and online.) But we saw it in bloom in the garden and it was just gorgeous. The leaves are much less prominent than what I usually associate with goldenrods (even less so than the image on the PDN page), so the form is much more striking. Plus it was in bloom, and any nurseryman knows that customers are suckers for plants in bloom.
I had plenty of cannas to choose from. In fact, this entire aisle was full of cannas! It's a wonder that I came back with only two varieties. Damn budget.
The garden featured several whimsical touches, like this dragon coming out of a grouping of yuccas. Apologies for the blurriness, but this was an early morning tour. I'll say that it's because the lighting was low, but it could've been that I was still waking up.
Speaking of whimsy, Tony Avent even created his own mountain on premises, dubbing it "Mount Michelle" after the famous Mount Mitchell in the Piedmont area of North Carolina. Here's a shot of Emily and Tom walking under that waterfall on Mount Michelle.
Tom insisted that we take his photo in front of this variegated ligustrum. Yes, the light coloring isn't flowers -- it's the leaves. And can you get over how big it is?
And speaking of big plants, check out this agave. Sure, Emily and I aren't exactly the tallest gals around, but this thing really was huge, I swear!
I really liked this plant, which was just around the corner from the agave. I think it might be Curcuma zedoaria 'Bicolor Wonder'. If so, it should get up to 72" tall. I might have to try this in the shady part of my front bed to give it a tropical punch.
Well, those are my favorite photos from PDN. We spent the other half of the tour at the North Carolina Farmers' Market. I bought a small Albizia julibrissen 'Chocolate Summer' there, which made me sooooo happy, despite the $40 price. I have wanted to have a 'Chocolate Summer' mimosa since 2007 when I first saw one in Oklahoma City. Yes, I know that the species type is invasive here in Florida. I'm hoping that the fancy cultivar will be less aggressive. If need be, I'll cut off the flowers before they set seed. I just had to have it!
I didn't take many photos at the farmers market -- just a few fall-inspired shots of pumpkins for sale. I'm not going to bother posting those, since I know that you guys don't come here for pumpkins. You want photos of bold and beautiful plants! Swing by later and I'll have another post that's chock full of beautiful plant photos from our visit to the J.C. Raulston Arboretum.
Plants to drool over, part I
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Today I realized that I never followed up with the post-GWA post that I promised. I hate not coming through on a promise that I've made, so here's the first recap of the trip.
Before we even got out on the garden tours, I was drooling over plants. Check out this beautiful "floral" arrangement that was in the lobby of our hotel. There's nary a bloom in sight! That's the kind of creativity I like to see when it comes to gardening.
Our first tour was of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University. I remember visiting these gardens years ago when my family lived in Durham and seeing beds and beds of spring bulbs that took my breath away. Thankfully, the garden was equally captivating at summer's end.
I was especially in love with the area known as the Terrace Gardens, since they used a host of great tropicals in striking combinations. Here's a beautiful Ensete ventricosum, aka Abyssinian banana. Big surprise that I was drawn to it, eh?
The afternoon light was absolutely amazing the way it danced through the elephant ear leaves. I have no idea what species or cultivar they were, but wow were they pretty!
And as long as we're talking about elephant ears, check out this speckled one. I'm thinking it might have been Alocasia 'Hilo Beauty.' You can just see some of the other bronze-leaved elephant ears from above in the background of this shot.
The Terrace Gardens also included red-leaved castor beans, possibly Ricinus communis 'Carmencita' I know I've definitely mentioned wanting a red-leaved castor bean at least once before. I love the bronze foliage and spiky seed pods.
Okay, enough about specific plants for now. Let's talk about form. It was magical the way the various plant forms in this scene played against each other -- the tall hollies, the broad junipers, and the round mums. It was so energetic, even though all the plants were basically in the same color palette. I think there's a design lesson in there somewhere.
I'll put up another post soon with photos of our visit to Plant Delights Nursery, the Raleigh Farmers' Market, and the JC Raulston Arboretum. The full set of photos is available on Flickr, in case you're craving more before then. Happy gardening!
So much for what I said earlier
Monday, March 29, 2010
I know I said I was probably hanging up my garden blogging gloves, but what can I say? Spring sprang and I got the itch that all gardeners do. I figured as long as I had made some solid progress in the yard, I might as well blog about it!
As always, you can click on the photo to make it bigger and see the plants in all of their glory.
Jason and I purchased a bunch of new plants this week. The amazing part is that we got them all in the ground the very night they came home. If you know me, you know that rarely happens. Heck, I still have plants that I paid good money for a year ago sitting in pots in the front yards! And no, they aren't container gardens.
Here's what we bought and planted:
+ soap aloe (Aloe saponaria)
+ fireworks grass (Pennisetum setaceum 'Fireworks')
+ Abyssinian banana (Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii').
Can I just tell you how excited I am to finally have an ensete in the front yard? I've been lusting after this plant since I first saw it at a Garden Writers Association conference three years ago. I splurged and bought the biggest size I could find so that the plant could get itself nice and big before the freezing temperatures return in December. They're root hardy here, which is good, but the leaves tend to burn back.
If you haven't ever seen the 'Fireworks' fountain grass, you should check it out. It's incredibly colorful. I'm not sure yet if it will survive our winters -- it's supposed to be Zones 9-11 and we're 8b -- but I'm going to give it a try. If it dies, I'll just put in something hardier.
Speaking of ornamental grasses, the bamboo muhly grass that I brought back from GWA is still going strong. Jason and I debated about cutting it back but decided to leave it for now. And the river oats that I bought last year at Plant Delights Nursery are starting to come back, so that's good.
We also a dwarf Cavendish banana in the front yard, courtesy of Tom. Apparently the squirrels in his yard wouldn't stop chowing down on it, so he decided that the only humane thing to do was to give away the plant. Lucky me! I guess his other option would be to shoot the squirrels, but that's probably less humane.
And I can't get over how nice it all looked once we added a "mulch veneer," as our friend Erin calls it. We spent $30 and got eight bales of pine straw. They just barely covered all of the crappy looking mulch that we got for free from the power company. Not a bad use of resources, if you ask me.
In the backyard, we planted the grow box with two 'Sweet Million' cherry tomato plants and also planted two jalapeno peppers in containers. And I finally got the fig tree in the ground after a year and a half. Yes, it's true. I'm hard on plants. Jason says I'm just "trialing" them to make sure they're hardy before I spend the time to put them in the ground.
We still have a lot to do, though. We need to remove the azaleas under the front windows completely -- we cut them back last year, but that's as far as we got. We need to remove the stumps along the south edge of the property where we cut out the overgrown holly bushes and viburnum (yuck). That's where I'm planning to finally plant those yuccas, but I don't want to put them in until the stumps are gone.
At any rate, it's been a busy gardening season so far. Who knows -- maybe it will be a good season for blogging too.
As always, you can click on the photo to make it bigger and see the plants in all of their glory.
Jason and I purchased a bunch of new plants this week. The amazing part is that we got them all in the ground the very night they came home. If you know me, you know that rarely happens. Heck, I still have plants that I paid good money for a year ago sitting in pots in the front yards! And no, they aren't container gardens.
Here's what we bought and planted:
+ soap aloe (Aloe saponaria)
+ fireworks grass (Pennisetum setaceum 'Fireworks')
+ Abyssinian banana (Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii').
Can I just tell you how excited I am to finally have an ensete in the front yard? I've been lusting after this plant since I first saw it at a Garden Writers Association conference three years ago. I splurged and bought the biggest size I could find so that the plant could get itself nice and big before the freezing temperatures return in December. They're root hardy here, which is good, but the leaves tend to burn back.
If you haven't ever seen the 'Fireworks' fountain grass, you should check it out. It's incredibly colorful. I'm not sure yet if it will survive our winters -- it's supposed to be Zones 9-11 and we're 8b -- but I'm going to give it a try. If it dies, I'll just put in something hardier.
Speaking of ornamental grasses, the bamboo muhly grass that I brought back from GWA is still going strong. Jason and I debated about cutting it back but decided to leave it for now. And the river oats that I bought last year at Plant Delights Nursery are starting to come back, so that's good.
We also a dwarf Cavendish banana in the front yard, courtesy of Tom. Apparently the squirrels in his yard wouldn't stop chowing down on it, so he decided that the only humane thing to do was to give away the plant. Lucky me! I guess his other option would be to shoot the squirrels, but that's probably less humane.
And I can't get over how nice it all looked once we added a "mulch veneer," as our friend Erin calls it. We spent $30 and got eight bales of pine straw. They just barely covered all of the crappy looking mulch that we got for free from the power company. Not a bad use of resources, if you ask me.
In the backyard, we planted the grow box with two 'Sweet Million' cherry tomato plants and also planted two jalapeno peppers in containers. And I finally got the fig tree in the ground after a year and a half. Yes, it's true. I'm hard on plants. Jason says I'm just "trialing" them to make sure they're hardy before I spend the time to put them in the ground.
We still have a lot to do, though. We need to remove the azaleas under the front windows completely -- we cut them back last year, but that's as far as we got. We need to remove the stumps along the south edge of the property where we cut out the overgrown holly bushes and viburnum (yuck). That's where I'm planning to finally plant those yuccas, but I don't want to put them in until the stumps are gone.
At any rate, it's been a busy gardening season so far. Who knows -- maybe it will be a good season for blogging too.
Something's gotta give
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Do you ever feel like you're branching in so many directions that something's got to give?
If you're a regular reader (I know there's at least one of you), you've probably noticed that I haven't posted in four months. Shameful, I know.
While I enjoy this blog, I'm not sure if I'll continue it. I've definitely enjoyed it, but I'm just having trouble finding time to blog. One issue is that I have a lot more on my plate at the office these days. I'm writing more scripts for our radio show and working on a big project for Florida Master Gardener Program. I just haven't felt like I can spare the time to blog instead of focus on those other important tasks.
And I also don't feel like I have the time to blog after work. Part of the reason why is that I've been spending more of my free time over at my craft blog, trying to make it better.
So long story short, I'm on hiatus from this blog. Of course, I may get inspired now that it's springtime and there are plenty of things to blog about, but I make no promises.
Thanks again to everyone who has been reading this blog, and I hope your gardens all bounce back beautifully this spring!
If you're a regular reader (I know there's at least one of you), you've probably noticed that I haven't posted in four months. Shameful, I know.
While I enjoy this blog, I'm not sure if I'll continue it. I've definitely enjoyed it, but I'm just having trouble finding time to blog. One issue is that I have a lot more on my plate at the office these days. I'm writing more scripts for our radio show and working on a big project for Florida Master Gardener Program. I just haven't felt like I can spare the time to blog instead of focus on those other important tasks.
And I also don't feel like I have the time to blog after work. Part of the reason why is that I've been spending more of my free time over at my craft blog, trying to make it better.
So long story short, I'm on hiatus from this blog. Of course, I may get inspired now that it's springtime and there are plenty of things to blog about, but I make no promises.
Thanks again to everyone who has been reading this blog, and I hope your gardens all bounce back beautifully this spring!
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