Category: Interesting Plants

Blue orchids?

I was at a big box home improvement store yesterday, and after doing my legitimate business I felt myself drawn to the garden center.  I smirked at the “drought tolerant cactus gardens” that had died from lack of water and the ever-popular GMO “cactus strawflower” (GMO = glue modified organism as illustrated in my January 13, 2010 post).  Then I spotted my prey du jour: a blue orchid!

A disclaimer on the tag warns that new blooms will be white:

Oh, and the source of the magic? … Continue reading this article “Blue orchids?”

New and/or interesting plants/stuff

Worst post title, ever. Sorry. 

Attended the bazillionth annual OFA "The Association For Horticulture Professionals" Short Course in Columbus, Ohio last week. It’s a huge 1500-booth trade show with educational session featuring 150+ speakers. Of which I was one.  The focus used to be strictly floriculture, but has expanded to include some woodies plus lots of garden center items and marketing options. This a "wholesale" show – attendees are mostly growers who purchase propagative materials to grow on and sell to consumers. … Continue reading this article “New and/or interesting plants/stuff”

One of my favorite wildflowers

I’m on annual leave this week, enjoying a family reunion in Sun River, Oregon. I’ve been coming here off and on for decades, and one of the first things I do is hunt down my favorite eastern Oregon plant. Forests in this part of Oregon are dominated by Ponderosa and other pine species, and beneath these trees you might find tall brown flower spikes which many people assume are dead. Actually, they are alive and kicking and fascinating.… Continue reading this article “One of my favorite wildflowers”

Worth seeking out – Silphium perfoliatum

A couple of years ago (have we been blogging for that long?!) I wrote a bit on defining our terms – beyond simply native, non-native, invasive.  One of my points was that natives can be overly-vigorous, but some people take exception with the term "invasive" when used with native plants.   I chose "passive-aggressive" as a way to describe certain mild-mannered natives that end up reseeding rampantly. 

One example: Silphium perfoliatum – Cup Plant.


Climbing right out of the garden and onto our deck.… Continue reading this article “Worth seeking out – Silphium perfoliatum”

MossTiles – a really bad idea

A few months ago a colleague alerted me to MossTiles, which can be attached to walls to create interior vertical gardens. They look really cool, and I assumed they consisted of some tough little moss species rooted in a mesh-enclosed planting mix. But the more I read about them, the more confused I became. They don’t need light – or fertilizer – or water (though misting them occasionally is recommended). More investigation was in order.

It turns out that these aren’t made from moss at all, but lichens – specifically reindeer moss (Cladonia rangiferina).… Continue reading this article “MossTiles – a really bad idea”

Grow Something Rude and Smelly!

Tired of
Tradescantia? Sick of Stachys? Exhausted from Echinacea?
Stick THIS in your border!



Dracunculus vulgaris  at the Hahn Horticulture Garden, Virginia Tech. Hardy to USDA Zone 5b.

Closely related (as one might imagine) to
Amorphophallus. Lovely silver-splashed foliage, velvety crimson spathe, and big honkin’ spadix in early summer.


Easy to grow; part shade and good drainage seem to work well. After a few years, you’ll have several offsets to share with your dearest friends/worst enemies.… Continue reading this article “Grow Something Rude and Smelly!”

Groundcovers for gaps

I promised on last week’s post that I’d mention some other low-input methods of keeping weeds out of the gaps between paving stones.  Here are a few photos of my own yard, where we’ve been installing flagstone pathways and terraces.  (Money-saving hint: check out craigslist and/or freecycle for free pavers and other types of stone.  We got all of ours free – just had to pick them up.)

We bought flats of groundcovers, such as woolly thyme, Irish moss, and blue star creeper.  … Continue reading this article “Groundcovers for gaps”

A great way to plant perennials “en masse”

North Creek Nurseries in Landenberg, PA is a marvelous, native-centric (but not exclusively native) nursery.  North Creek is a wholesale propagator (sells liners
to other nurseries for finishing).  But if you can meet the $300 minimum, they’d probably be happy to fill your order.  They have, among the usual liner sizes, a very neat product – "Landscape Plugs." I’ve been wanting to try them for a while – our work with the backhoe this past summer cleared some nice large swathes of the cursed autumn olive, and made room for perennials. … Continue reading this article “A great way to plant perennials “en masse””

The new American chestnut tree: resistant survivor or Frankentree?

Recently ScienceDaily.com posted an article about American chestnut trees due to be planted in New York City. Researchers hope that these trees will be resistant to chestnut blight, an introduced fungal disease that pretty much wiped out mature specimens over the last 100 years.

When I lived in Buffalo, I was a member of the American Chestnut Foundation and every spring I helped with efforts to replant chestnuts in the hopes that resistant individuals might be found. … Continue reading this article “The new American chestnut tree: resistant survivor or Frankentree?”

Quiz answer – difference between spores and pollen

You got it!  Horsetails don’t produce pollen, and those airborne particles are spores.  Primitive plants such as mosses, ferns, and horsetails don’t have the same reproductive structures as flowering plants and conifers. Instead of producing seeds, they form tiny, windborne spores that can be mistaken for pollen.

(To its credit, the Seattle Times corrected this error the next day.)