Archive for January, 2011

An Ode to Seed Strain Hellebores

Posted in hellebores, Shade Perennials with tags , on January 28, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Plant breeders have been hard at work for years trying to get hybrid hellebores (Helleborus x hybridus) to submit to tissue culture.  For a long time the hellebores were winning, and I was quietly cheering from the sidelines.  But it seems even the mighty hybrid hellebore, the toughest plant I know, was not a match for modern technology.  You can now purchase tissue cultured hellebores that all look the same.  But my question is: why would you want to?

You have to realize that I am a person who treasures diversity even with its inherent risks of dissatisfaction and unpredictability.  I still shop at my local hardware store with its wood floors and oily smells.  I have a tab, the people there know me, the people there know hardware.  They might not have what I want—I can take that risk.  You couldn’t get me to go to a Home Depot if my life depended on it.

When I travel, I try to stay at a local B&B.  I introduce myself to the owners, I appreciate their eclectic decorating schemes, I eat their funky breakfasts.  They know the local area, they have eaten in the restaurants, they can give directions.  I stayed at a chain recently where the very nice desk clerk was not aware that there was a gas station two doors down.

So I am a person who doesn’t treasure predictability, as in sameness, the way most people seem to.

When it comes to hybrid hellebores, I don’t understand the most common concern expressed by gardeners: if the hellbore is grown from seed you can’t be 100% sure what the flowers will look like unless it’s in bloom.  There is an element of risk involved in the purchase.  Tissue culture of hellebores was developed to eliminate this unacceptable risk.

But to me that is the magic of hybrid hellebores: each plant is a unique individual, with the potential for inheriting genetic material from any of the possible 9 or more species that could be its parents.  It’s like having a baby, you don’t know and you can’t control who he or she will be because that is determined by generations of intertwining DNA.  I am assuming that even in the predictability driven US, where we invented the almighty chain store, we still would rather roll the dice than clone the cute little baby next door.  I could be mistaken.

Don’t get me wrong, the poster child for tissue-cultured hybrid hellebores ‘Kingston Cardinal’ with its large double raspberry flowers is gorgeous.  I would grow it.  But here is its main marketing mantra: Tissue cultured so every plant is identical.  Every one on your block can have the exact same plant right next to their ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum and ‘Goldsturm’ rudbeckia.   I like ‘Autumn Joy’ and ‘Goldsturm’ (I have them in my garden), but hybrid hellebores offer so much more than that: the diversity of life in a beautiful flower.  And tissue culture has the potential to destroy that magic just like we are losing the genetic magnificence of apples, and chickens, and tomatoes.

Here is my ode to seed strain hybrid hellebores:

photo Carol Lim

photo Carol Lim

photo Carol Lim

Please let me know in a comment which hellebore is your favorite.

Carolyn

This is part of a series of articles on hellebores, one of the specialties of my nursery.  Here are links to the other articles:

Part One        Hellebores for Fall

Part Two       An Ode to Seed Strain Hellebores

Part Three   Christmas Rose: The Perfect Hellebore

Part Four      Dividing Hybrid Hellebores

Part Five       The Sex Lives of Hellebores

Part Six          Double Hellebores

Part Seven   Cutting Back Hellebores

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

In my post I Need Your Help, I asked readers to send cards to the daughter of Kartik who was the subject of my post New Year’s Resolution to Edit the Garden.  I would still appreciate your help with this appeal.  Tara is home from the hospital, which is good news, but being confined to home and suffering daily intrusive medical procedures has left her lonely and depressed.  The cards she has received from all of you are a major bright spot in her day, and your good wishes and prayers are an inspiration to Kartik.  If you still wish to mail a card, they would love to receive it (Tara Patel, 2216 Oakwyn Road, Lafayette Hill, PA  19444, USA).  Thanks.

The view from here:


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Snowdrops: Further Confessions of a Galanthophile

Posted in bulbs for shade, New Plants, snowdrops with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops to the US only.  For catalogues and announcements of local events, please send your full name, mailing address, and cell number to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com and indicate whether you are mail order only.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Galanthus ‘Atkinsii’ described in Snowdrops as having “elegant elongated flowers that suggest the drop-pearl earrings of Elizabeth I,”  I can’t improve on that

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Our current snowdrop catalogue is on line here.

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This article includes photographs and colorful descriptions of the 15 snowdrops I am offering for sale in my 2011 Snowdrop Catalogue.

 

In my garden, I have many forms of Galanthus elwesii, which was named for Henry John Elwes (1846-1922), described as a “true energetic Victorian” combing the world for big game, fine trees, insects, birds, and snowdrops

 

In my article Snowdrops or the Confessions of a Galanthophile, I revealed that I am obsessed with snowdrops.  I described my evolution from a gardener growing a few distinct varieties to a galanthophile collecting every cultivated snowdrop I could get my hands on.  I explained that I could now see the often subtle differences between flowers that others might unknowingly (shall we say ignorantly) dismiss as ridiculous.  To understand how far I have gone down this road, know that I recently found myself describing a snowdrop as having “a bold inner marking with a basal blotch narrowly joined to an apical round-armed V.”  There is no turning back.

 

Galanthus nivalis ‘Flore Pleno’, probably the oldest snowdrop cultivar  in existence with records as early as 1703

 

But I didn’t talk about one of the things I find most fascinating about snowdrops.  They are the only plant that I would purchase as much for their colorful history as for their ornamental characteristics.  And how do I find out about their captivating  lineage: I consult Snowdrops: A Monograph of Cultivated Galanthus by Matt Bishop, Aaron Davis, and John Grimshaw (Griffin Press 2006).  This book, always referred to as the snowdrop bible, has all the information anyone could want about the 500 “commonly” cultivated snowdrops.

 

The Greatorex Double, Galanthus ‘Ophelia’

After reading Snowdrops, who would not want Galanthus ‘Ophelia’, a beautiful double snowdrop, when it was originated by Heyrick Greatorex of Brundall, Norfolk, England, a man who lived “an unconventional lifestyle” in a wooden garden shed that might have been a railway carriage?  Or a snowdrop like Galanthus ‘Magnet’ that has reached its centenary [a word not used commonly in the US so I had to look it up] and was probably named for “the old-fashioned child’s game in which magnets are attached to miniature fishing rods for the purpose of picking up painted metal fish, the point being to win the game by catching the most?”  I played that game.

 

Galanthus ‘Magnet’, can you can see the miniature fishing rod?

Galanthus ‘Straffan’, Baron Clarina of Ireland’s souvenir of the Crimean War

Who can resist the indestructible Galanthus ‘Straffan’, the third oldest snowdrop cultivar still in existence, discovered in the later 1800s by the head gardener for Straffan House in County Kildare, Ireland, in a clump of G. plicatus brought back from the Crimean War by the owner, the fourth Baron Clarina?  Or October-flowering Galanthus reginae-olgae, named in 1876 in honor of Queen Olga of Greece, the grandmother of  the current Duke of Edinburgh?  [In the US, we would say grandmother of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband.]

 

The October-flowering Galanthus reginae-olgae, named for Prince Philip’s grandmother, photo Charles Cresson

Galanthus nivalis/Common SnowdropGalanthus nivalis, the common snowdrop, has a 500-year lineage to brag about

 

Even the plain old common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, an imminently garden-worthy plant, has been cultivated as an ornamental in England since the 16th century.  There are written records.  The species snowdrop, Galanthus woronowii, was collected on the eastern shores of the Black Sea and named by a Russian botanist for Russian plant collector Georg Jurii Nikolaewitch Woronow (1874-1931).

The shiny green leaves of Galanthus woronowii named for plant collector Georg Jurii Nikolaewitch Woronow, photo Charles Cresson

 

Galanthus ‘Blewbury Tart’ found by Alan Street in Blewbury, Oxfordshire, England

Even more modern snowdrops have name-dropping heritages.  Snowdrops tells us that when noted horticulturist Alan Street of the well known English bulb house, Avon Bulbs, and the discoverer of Galanthus ‘Blewbury Tart’, gave three bulbs instead of one to quirky English gardener, Primrose Warburg (1920-1996), she “characteristically complained” and called it ‘Blewbury Muffin’.  This is the same Primrose Warburg who we are told cautioned visitors navigating her treacherous garden slope to be careful, not because they might hurt themselves, but because the snowdrops were irreplaceable. Galanthus ‘Beth Chatto’ was, of course, discovered in the gardens of the internationally famous gardener and writer, Beth Chatto, OBE [Order of the British Empire].

 

Galanthus ‘Beth Chatto’ from the internationally famous Beth Chatto Gardens

 

Snowdrops describes Galanthus ‘S. Arnott’ as the “classic snowdrop….a first-class garden plant with an unquestionable constitution, admired by everyone,” photo Charles Cresson

Other cultivars have discussions of their origins so complicated as to rival the US Tax Code, something I am familiar with from my former career. Galanthus ‘S. Arnott’ is in danger of losing its name to ‘Arnott’s Seedling’, the name under which it was given the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit, but a name deemed unsuitable because E.A. Bowles, “one of the most revered plantsman of all times,” later called it ‘S. Arnott’.  The  International Cultivar Registration Society in the Netherlands has been so advised. Galanthus nivalis ‘Viridapice’ has evidently had many imitators since it was discovered prior to 1922 near an old farmhouse in northern Holland, and confusion is rampant.

 

Galanthus nivalis ‘Viridapice’, hopefully not an impostor

Please do not think I am in any way making fun of this book.  I love it, and I wish all plant genera had books this information-packed and well written dedicated to them.  I list Snowdrops on my Blotanical profile as the garden book I am currently reading because I am always reading it.  Rumor has it that a new edition is in the works (for an update from John Grimshaw, click here), and I will buy it.  If you like snowdrops, you should own it too.

Well, based on the tales found in the snowdrop bible, what cultivars are in my future?  I am intrigued by ‘Lady Beatrix Stanley’, a vigorous double, whose namesake (1877-1944) struggled to create an English garden in India when her husband was Governor of Madras.  I have my eye on ‘Merlin’ with its solid green blotch, whose stock was maintained by Amy Doncaster (1894-1995), “a greatly admired, no-nonsense plantswoman” who collected my favorite plants, snowdrops, hellebores and epimediums, in her woodland garden.  Finally, I would like to grow ‘Primrose Warburg’, a rare yellow snowdrop, because I think I might be just like her when I grow up.

Galanthus ‘Merlin’ whose stock was maintained by no-nonsense plantswoman Amy Doncaster

 

Carolyn

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), click here.

The view from my office this morning:

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New Native Shade Perennials for 2011

Posted in native plants, New Plants on January 18, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Sweet Wakerobin, Trillium vaseyi: I saw this trillium last spring in a local garden and fell in love with its large red flowers and huge bright green leaves; native species to just south of PA (photo Arrowhead Alpines).

In my previous article, New Shade Perennials for 2011, I highlighted some of the new non-native plants I will be offering at my nursery this year.  I also described my blog’s two audiences and my philosophy about what plants I grow in my gardens and sell at my nursery.

This article features some of the 17 native plants that are new (or returning) to my Spring 2011 Catalogue.  For a full description of the ornamental and cultural characteristics of these plants, please consult my Spring 2011 Catalogue by clicking here or going to the sidebar of my homepage where it is permanently posted in more manageable chunks.  For an illuminating (I think) discussion of why growing native plants is crucial to our survival, please read my article My Thanksgiving Oak Forest in which I profile Doug Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home.


Rue-anemone, Anemonella thalictroides: an elegant wildflower that naturalizes in my dry woodland, I also grow single and double pink forms; native species to PA (photo Arrowhead Alpines)

I am reluctant to enter the “what is a native plant” fray,  but I feel I have to if I am going to use the word native to describe these plants.  For the purposes of my catalogue, I treat all plants indigenous to the US and cultivars of and hybrids between those plants as native, always adding a comment on what part of the US the plant inhabits.  Most of my natives are endemic to Pennsylvania and its immediate environs.  However, many horticulturalists don’t consider cultivars and hybrids of native plants to be native.

To try and address that issue, I went right to the horse’s mouth and asked Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home and Chairman of the Entomology and Wildlife Ecology Department at the University of Delaware, where he stood on native cultivars and hybrids.

Prairie Trillium, Trillium recurvatum: native species to PA (Prairie?) and I think the easiest trillium to grow (photo Arrowhead Alpines).

In responding, Tallamy first pointed out that: “We know very little from experimental data [because] comparisons just haven’t been done yet” between the ecological value of native plants and the value of their cultivars and hybrids.  “Insects have adapted to the chemistry of their host plants, so if we don’t change the leaf chemicals too much when making cultivars, most of the insects that use the native parent should be able to continue using the cultivar.”

However, Tallamy cautions: “Most of our cultivars focus on flowers, … and flower energy budgets are very tight.  If we make flower petals larger, that may come at the expense of nectar production…or pollen production. Pollinators will visit the new flower but get no reward.  Double flowers typically have no nectar production at all….  A big down side of cultivars, even if they do support insects, is that they are clones with no genetic variation.”

Large-flowered Bellwort, Uvularia grandiflora:  it is really the full habit of this plant that grabs you in the garden with its many twisting flowers and leaves on upright stems; native species to PA (photo Arrowhead Alpines).

So how do I apply this to my new native plants?  Well, of the 12 plants  featured in this article, six are straight species native to Pennsylvania and its environs (see commentary under photos).  These plants satisfy even the most narrow definition of native.  The fern is a native hybrid that occurs naturally in the wild and should be as good as any straight species.  The same can be said for the yellow columbine, which is a naturally occurring color variation.  The double bloodroot, although double-flowered, was discovered and not created by humans.  None of these are clones; they are all seed strains ensuring genetic diversity and vigor.

That leaves only the three heucheras described below.  If your goal is to support native insects and through them the whole ecosystem, then purple-leaved heucheras like  ‘Midnight Rose’ are not the plant for you.  Tallamy says, “if [when creating a cultivar] we change a green leaf to a purple leaf, we are loading the leaf with anthocyanins, which are feeding deterrents for insects.”  The same may be true of gold-leafed heucheras like ‘Electra’.  Those two cultivars have also been created through extensive hybridizing of several heuchera species native to the US.  ‘Green Spice’, however,  is a cultivar of a species native to Pennsylvania and probably has leaf chemistry close to its parent and thus beneficial to native insects.

Wild Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis ‘Corbett’: pale yellow and shorter alternative to the bright red species and, like the species, does best in the well-drained but moist soil so difficult to find in my garden; naturally occurring color variation native to PA.

Where do I come out on all this?  I really care about this issue so I try to have the majority of my property planted with straight PA native species friendly to native insects.  I also think any plant with a native background even if it’s a “created” cultivar or hybrid is better than a non-native for supporting  our environment.  But I specialize in  non-native hellebores and snowdrops, and I have hundreds of them in my garden.  Balance in all things, including the garden.

Here are the rest of the new native plants I am excited about:


Dixie Wood Fern, Dryopteris x australis: a naturally occurring hybrid native to just south of PA, the fern growing behind and through my bench in the deep, dry shade of a Japanese maple overhung by a white pine is Dixie Wood Fern on 11/11/10—need I say more?

Indian Pink, Spigelia marilandica:  there is no better way to get me going than to write yet one more shade gardening article that starts “Now you may not be able to have showy flowers in the shade, but….” ; native species to PA (photo Arrowhead Alpines)

Double Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis ‘Multiplex’: naturally occurring double flower native to PA, this is my all time favorite flower—I could stare at its perfection for hours—so it has taken me years to get to the point where I felt I had excess to sell!

Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis: so much to love, the way it spears through my leaf mulch, the unusual blue-green leaves, the pure white flowers, and, believe it or not, the short time they last in the garden—it forces me to savor them; species native to PA.

Who can resist the kaleidoscope of colors that heuchera leaves add to the garden and containers?  If only all these beautiful plants thrived equally well in our tough mid-Atlantic conditions, but they don’t.  I only sell the cultivars whose parents are the heat and cold tolerant heucheras native to the eastern US.  Here are three new tough heucheras for 2011:


Coral Bells, Heuchera x ‘Electra’: cultivar parented by two tough species native to PA and one Pacific Northwest species; with leaves and veins like this, who can resist? (photo Terra Nova Nurseries).

Coral Bells, Heuchera americana ‘Green Spice’: straight species cultivar created from our PA native so imminently suited to mid-Atlantic conditions, pumpkin orange fall color (photo Terra Nova Nurseries).

Coral Bells, Heuchera x ‘Midnight Rose’: cultivar parented by two tough species native to PA and one Pacific Northwest species; yes, it really looks like this  and is a wonderful plant for containers, but requires a little more coddling in the ground because the Pacific Northwest species is more dominant in this cultivar (photo Terra Nova Nurseries).

In addition to the above and what was covered in New Shade Perennials for 2011, I have new snowdrops, hellebores, and hostas, which will be covered in future articles on those topics.

Carolyn

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

The view from my desk this morning:


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New Shade Perennials for 2011

Posted in New Plants on January 12, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Cyclamen coum 'Pewter Leaf' photo Arrowhead AlpinesSpring-blooming Hardy Cyclamen, Cyclamen coum ‘Pewter Leaf’: grows and spreads well in my shady rock garden where it gets the excellent drainage it needs; can’t beat the solid silver leaves paired with the pink flowers (photo Arrowhead Alpines).

My blog has two audiences, one anticipated and one unexpected.  The first is composed of the wonderful, loyal customers of my shade plant nursery, Carolyn’s Shade Gardens, over 340 of whom subscribe to my blog.  My primary goal in starting the blog was to communicate more information to interested customers in a garden magazine-type format without sending emails to customers who weren’t interested.


Japanese Painted Fern, Athyrium niponicum ‘Burgundy Lace’: I love the colors of Japanese painted fern and they can only be improved with more purple; naturalizes in dry shade in my gardens (photo Terra Nova Nurseries).


My second group of readers is the garden-blogging community, an audience I never anticipated  when I started this project.  Nan at Hayefield told me to register my blog with Blotanical, the international garden-blogging registry.  I did, and now I have readers all over the world.  Blotanical is a great site to visit if you like to read about gardening, and you don’t need to have a blog to access it.  Several of my customers have joined Blotanical and enjoy reading the popular articles posted there.  It is also a very warm and friendly virtual community of gardeners.


Helleborus x nigercors ‘Green Corsican’: a superior cross between Christmas rose and Corsican hellebore with many beautiful green flowers and gold-marbled leaves (just a taste, I will cover all my new hellebores in a separate article).


It is the time of year when I send out my new catalogue describing all the plants I will be selling at my nursery this spring.  I have already emailed it to my customers and posted it in Pages on my sidebar here.  It describes over 300 varieties of shade plants, including almost 80 hard-to-find natives and 60 plants that are new this spring.


Silver Lungwort, Pulmonaria ‘Silver Bouquet’: I collect pulmonarias (especially the silver cultivars) for their early flowers and striking wintergreen leaves (photo Terra Nova Nurseries).


Although I don’t do mail order (except for snowdrops), I still put together a catalogue for my customers to use as a reference when shopping at the nursery and planning or planting at home.  This came about because I find that plastic plant tags and most general gardening books are about equally inaccurate in their descriptions of the characteristics and  cultural requirements of shade plants.


White Checkered Lily, Fritillaria meleagris ‘Alba’: unlike most fritillarias, checkered lily is easy to grow and takes shade, it has naturalized throughout my woodland gardens; I love the purple and the white forms.


My catalogue has never included photos, but this year I want to show pictures on my blog with additional commentary for some of the new plants about which I am especially excited.  Complete descriptions and cultural information are in the 2011 catalogue.  Be forewarned  though, you are not about to see the glitzy new cultivars hot off the patent-laden presses of hot  shot plant hybridizers (in fact, you will probably never find most of them at my nursery).


‘Black Scallop’ Bugleweed, Ajuga reptans ‘Black Scallop’:  I usually don’t get excited about ajuga or sell it at my nursery, but ‘Black Scallop’ is exceptionally beautiful and has remained so, photo taken on 11/29/10


With a few exceptions, I don’t offer a plant for sale unless I have grown it successfully in my own gardens for a few years.  That eliminates all those perennials that look great in pots but are miserable failures in the ground or really any plant that requires even a modest amount of pampering to succeed.  I don’t believe in growing or selling those kinds of plants.  So, on with the 2011 show!


Double Snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis ‘Blewbury Tart’: if you have been reading this blog, you know I love snowdrops, and this one is quite special! (just a taste, I will cover all my new snowdrops in a separate article).

Fairy Wings, Epimedium grandiflorum ‘Lilafee’:  I have a large epimedium collection and ‘Lilafee’ is one of my favorites for flowers and fall color (photo Arrowhead Alpines).

Fairy Wings, Epimedium x warleyense: this is another one of the favorites in my collection, the orange flowers are magical in the dry, full shade in which epimediums thrive (photo Arrowhead Alpines).


Japanese Woodland Primrose, Primula sieboldii: foolproof primrose for dry, full shade, treasured in Japan with over 500 cultivars named, but rare in the US; I have been selling several named cultivars but this year I will include divisions from my own collection of unnamed varieties.


Gold Siberian Bugloss, Brunnera macrophylla ‘Diane’s Gold’: I haven’t grown this cultivar but all my other brunneras thrive in my dry woodland, and you can’t beat this gold color (photo Terra Nova Nurseries).


Crocus 'Ruby Giant'Snow Crocus, Crocus tommasinianus ‘Ruby Giant’:  I have always valued this very early-blooming species, which naturalizes in my garden, but ‘Ruby Giant’ has knock-your-socks-off deep violet-purple color (photo Charles Cresson).


Spring Vetchling, Lathyrus vernus: I am a sucker for all flowers in the pea family, and if they grow in full, dry shade, I’m sold; I grow four varieties of spring vetchling and love them all.


Japanese Forest Grass, Hakonechloa macra ‘Stripe It Rich’: a new cultivar of this tried and true grass for shade with gold leaves and white stripes; I treasure its lovely cascading habit (photo Terra Nova Nurseries).


Dogtooth-violet, Erythronium dens-canis: a beautiful and easy dogtooth-violet that self-sows in my dry woodland.


Part 2 of this article will showcase the new native plants I will be offering in spring 2011, and new snowdrops, hellebores, and hostas will be covered in their own dedicated articles.

Carolyn

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

In my post I Need Your Help, I asked readers to send cards to the daughter of Kartik who was the subject of my post New Year’s Resolution to Edit the Garden.  I would still appreciate your help with this appeal.  Thanks.


The view from my desk this morning

63 Comments »

I Dream in Latin

Posted in garden essay with tags , on January 7, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

Arum italicum 'Tiny Tot'Arum italicum ‘Tiny Tot’ AKA Lords-and-Ladies, Cuckoo’s Pint, Willy Lily, or Aaron’s Pen

You may have heard that Latin is a dead language.  To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumor of its death is greatly exaggerated.  Latin is the language that professional horticulturists use to talk about plants, study plants, acquire plants, and dream about plants.  When I talk about a plant using the common name, I am translating from the Latin text in my brain.  Why is this?  Is this some kind of nasty horticultural snobbery?  Are we trying to exclude all the “common folk” and preserve our elite status?

The short answer is a resounding NO.  But here is the explanation.

First of all, thanks to Linnaeus, Latin-based botanical plant names are used worldwide.  The botanical name for Arum italicum is Arum italicum in the US, China, Belgium, Nigeria, Chile, and in Micronesia if they grow it there.  If I were to visit a country where I didn’t speak the language, I could still talk about plants with the local horticulturists and visit labeled arboretums because we all use the same botanical names.  Now that’s cool.

[I just experienced this first hand when I watched a video on snowdrops narrated completely in Dutch, which I don’t understand.  But when the narrator said each snowdrop’s botanical name, I understood him perfectly.]

Spanish bluebells at Carolyn's Shade GardensScilla campanulata ‘Excelsior’ AKA Spanish bluebells

But why do we have to use botanical names at home in the US where, according to us at least, we all speak English. Because when I want a Geranium, I want a hardy geranium not a Pelargonium, the annual.  When a customer asks for bluebells, does he want Mertensia virginica, often called Virginia bluebells, or Scilla campanulata, Spanish bluebells, or Campanula rotundifolia, Scottish bluebells, or Wahlenbergia gloriosa, Australian royal bluebells, or Eustoma russellianim, Texas bluebells, or Hyacinthoides non-scripta, English bluebells, or maybe Phacelia campanularia, desert bluebells.  All these “bluebells” are not even closely related—they all represent a different genus—and yet they are all called bluebells, presumably because they have a blue bell-shaped flower.  You can see how confusing this can get, and it happens all the time at my nursery.

Then there are the plants that have different common names in different parts of the country or the world.  In the mid-Atlantic where I was born, we call Narcissus daffodils.  But in the Midwest, where my husband grew up, they call them jonquils.  I honestly had no idea what plant my mother-in-law was talking about when she mentioned her beautiful jonquils.

Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’ AKA barrenwort, bishop’s hat, fairy wings, horny goat weed, rowdy lamb herb

Or plants that have more than one common name.  Epimediums, an imminently pronounceable and spellable botanical name, bear the common names barrenwort, bishop’s hat, fairy wings, horny goat weed, and rowdy lamb herb.  Barrenwort because people thought they helped women conceive; bishop’s hats for the shape of the flowers; fairy wings for the leaf structure; and your guess is as good as mine for the last two.  If a customer came to my nursery and asked for horny goat weed, I would have no idea what she wanted (or maybe I wouldn’t want to know).

Or plants that share a common name.  In the western US, Indian paintbrush is the wildflower Castilleja linariaefolia.  But in New England, it is the wildflower Hieracium aurantiacum, also know as orange hawkweed.

summer snowflake at Carolyn's Shade GardensLecojum aestivum AKA summer snowflake

But the most important reason I think about plants in Latin is because common names are always getting me in trouble.  For example,

Gardener:  “I am really disappointed in the summer snowflake I bought last year, it blooms in spring.”  Me: “My catalogue says it blooms in spring.”  Gardener: “Then why do you call it summer snowflake?”

Gardener: “I am not buying that hellebore even though you say it’s your favorite.”  Me: “Why [I’m a glutton for punishment]?”  Gardener: “It smells bad.”  Me: “But it doesn’t smell.”  Gardener: “Then why do you call it stinking hellebore?”  I finally adopted an alternate common name, bearsfoot hellebore, to avoid future conversations like that.

And my favorite:  Gardener: “I didn’t like the iris I bought last year, when it bloomed the flowers were purple.”  Me: “You are right the flowers are purple.”  Gardener: “Then why do you call it blue flag?”  I could write a whole different article on the color I call “horticultural blue”, which results from plant breeders’ apparent need to describe purple flowers as blue.

Iris versicolor AKA blue flag

So Latin makes my life easier.  When I dream I can tell the plants apart!

Carolyn

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.), just click here.

The conversations with gardeners above are fictional and merely meant to represent the problems caused by the use of common names.  For more information on the interesting things you can figure out from the botanical names of plants, visit Hayefield’s 12/2/10 and 12/17/10 posts.

In my post I Need Your Help, I asked readers to send cards to the daughter of Kartik who was the subject of my post New Year’s Resolution to Edit the Garden.  I would still appreciate your help with this appeal.  Thanks.

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I Need Your Help

Posted in Uncategorized on January 5, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

On December 26, 2010, in New Year’s Resolution to Edit the Garden, I wrote about being inspired to edit my garden (and life) by my friend Kartik’s decision to simplify his life after visiting his family in India.  The post really struck a chord with numerous comments, 107 picks on Blotanical by 33 garden bloggers around the world, and several links.  I am writing to you now because three days after I posted, Kartik’s 5-year-old daughter, Tara, was diagnosed with leukemia.  She is in the hospital right now for a minimum of 5 weeks receiving chemotherapy and will need two years of chemotherapy after that.

Kartik and his family have a long, hard road ahead of them, and I would like to ease their trip in even a very small way if I can.  But how to do that?  And then I read Allan Becker’s powerful post in which he describes  garden bloggers as a  “supportive social group that swarms around its members when they need to be comforted, validated or encouraged.”  I hope and believe that what Allan says is true because I am appealing to you to help me provide a small amount of comfort to Tara and Kartik, whom I made part of our community through my original post.

Kartik says the hardest thing for him is when Tara starts acting wild from being confined to a hospital bed 24/7: difficult for an adult but impossible for a five-year-old.  I would like to do something to provide a few moments of distraction for Tara every day.  With Kartik’s permission, I am asking everyone who reads this post and feels moved to send Tara a card representative of your home state in the US or your country.  Opening her mail from you will be a welcome relief, and I intend to send her a map of the world with sticky stars to mark the location of every card she receives.

Address: Tara Patel, 2216 Oakwyn Road, Lafayette Hill, PA  19444, USA.

My hope is that you will do this if you feel moved but not feel an obligation.  Your unwritten thoughts and prayers are welcome too.  If bloggers want to publicize my request among their blogging friends that would also be welcome.

Every day I try to focus on how lucky I am and avoid getting bogged down in the little set backs of life.  I am not usually successful, but Kartik’s inspirational approach to life and the way he is handling his daughter’s illness will keep me focused for a long time now.

Thank you,

Carolyn

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Flowering Wintergreen Ground Covers for Shade

Posted in evergreen, groundcover, Shade Perennials with tags , , , , , , , , on January 1, 2011 by Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas.  For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

golden groundsel as groundcover in my woodland in spring

Here in the mid-Atlantic (US), we go through long periods of winter weather that are just plain cold without the compensation or covering of snow.  Any patches of exposed ground look barren and downright ugly.  That is why, during this time of year, I treasure any little patch of green, any ground cover that is presentable through the winter.  Yes, I have the usual evergreen  triumvirate of vinca, ivy, and pachysandra.  I can even find good things to say about each of them.  But I want more: native plants, deer resistance, tolerance of dry shade, fragrance, abundant flowers, drought tolerance, and beautiful foliage.  All four of the shady ground covers described below have a majority of these desirable characteristics.

fragrant flowers of native golden groundsel

Our native golden groundsel, Senecio aureus, has to be my favorite all time ground cover.  It spreads as fast and aggressively as any of the reigning three.  It is not a plant to be mingled into your perennial beds: it is a plant for the bare patch—wet, dry, sunny, shady, infertile, clay—where nothing else grows.  Put it behind the garage, around the base of a tree with surface roots, along the bottom of a fence, or in your “hell strip” by the road.  You will be rewarded with evergreen leaves through winter and an abundance of  fragrant flowers suitable for arrangements.

winter foliage of golden groundsel

Golden groundsel is native to meadows and woods of the eastern half of the US.  It quickly creeps to form large, 6″ tall patches of wintergreen leaves even in full dry shade.  In spring, buds emerge bright maroon-purple opening to cheery yellow, 2′ tall fragrant flowers in May.  The new leaves, which appear after the flowers, are large and round, providing a bold texture (see photo at top).  My deer have never touched it.

creeping phlox ‘Bruce’s White’ in my woodland in spring

The other native I highly recommend for wintergreen shady ground cover is creeping phlox, Phlox stolonifera.  Not as aggressive as golden groundsel, creeping phlox can be mingled in your perennial beds or used alone under shrubs and trees.  It moves at a medium rate to fill in around surrounding plants without overwhelming them.  Then, from March into May, it is covered with blue, pink, white, or purple flowers.

creeping phlox with foamflower (Longwood Gardens)

winter foliage of creeping phlox

Creeping phlox is native to wooded areas of the eastern US.  The 2 to 3″ tall mat-forming leaves are completely covered by 8″ tall flowers in spring.  It is very tolerant of soil conditions and, once established,  grows well in full dry shade.  My deer leave it alone.  As an added benefit, it comes in white, ‘Bruce’s White’ (photo above), pink, ‘Home Fires’ or ‘Pink Ridge’, pale lavender-blue, ‘Blue Ridge’, or purple, ‘Sherwood Purple’ or ‘Fran’s Purple’.  The purple cultivars are the most vigorous, and I think the most beautiful.

beautiful colors of creeping phlox

For a refined and elegant, truly evergreen ground cover, I recommend dwarf sweetbox, Sarcococca hookeriana var. humilis.  Technically a small shrub, dwarf sweetbox slowly creeps by means of underground stolons to form a 4′ patch over 10 years.  But it is well worth the wait—or if you are impatient, planting it close together—because in February its tiny white flowers produce the most heavenly fragrance for your winter enjoyment.  My patch perfumes my whole garden.

dwarf sweetbox in winter as ground cover under a dogwood

Dwarf sweetbox is native to the western Himalayas in China.  Its stems grow to 18″ with narrow, glossy evergreen leaves and creamy white, extremely fragrant flowers in February in the mid-Atlantic.  It thrives in average soil and part to full shade and, once established, is tolerant of drought.  Deer do not bother it.  It tends to be pricey so I planted very small plants which periodically needed to be poked back into the ground as it roots right below the soil surface.

dwarf sweetbox flowers getting ready to bloom

The final plant that has the characteristics I want in shady wintergreen ground covers is hybrid hellebore, Helleborus x hybridus.  My customers are always asking me what to do with the multitude of seedlings produced by their hybrid hellebores, and here is the answer: move them to a place where you need ground cover.  In three years, you will have 2′ wide plants covered with huge, beautiful flowers from February to May and pristine foliage that remains green all winter—for free!  I have done this under my Kousa dogwood and throughout my woodland, and the result is spectacular.

hybrid hellebores in winter as ground cover under Kousa dogwood

Hybrid hellebores have many different parents mainly native to eastern Europe.  Their wintergreen leaves are 2′ tall and remain ornamental until new leaves appear in spring.  Each plant produces a multitude of large, cup-shaped nodding flowers in many colors ranging from dark purple to pink to white to green with doubles, spots, and picotee edges quite common.  They grow anywhere in any soil and light conditions as long as they are well-drained.  If you want to spoil them, give them organic matter, but no supplemental water is required after they are established even in the worst drought.  They are slightly poisonous so deer do not eat them.

some of the flowers on my ground cover hybrid hellebores

Next spring when you are looking for ground covers, I hope you will consider one of the fantastic four described above.  In the meantime, leave a comment with the name of your favorite wintergreen ground cover for shade.

Carolyn

Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information.  If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.

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