Foot-long spires of indigo blue pea-like flowers (it’s a legume) in June followed by ornamental black seed pods on this perennial that looks like a shrub. Internationally known garden designer Piet Oudolf’s 100 “MUST HAVE” plants, Gardens Illustrated 94 (2013).
Foot-long spires of indigo blue pea-like flowers (it’s a legume) in June followed by ornamental black seed pods on this perennial that looks like a shrub. Internationally known garden designer Piet Oudolf’s 100 “MUST HAVE” plants, Gardens Illustrated 94 (2013).
Balloon shaped buds as though puffed with air, open to white, five-petal bells from mid-summer to early fall.
Size: 24" x 12"
Care: Sun to part shade in moist well-drained soil, heat and drought tolerant. Deadhead for rebloom.
Native: Eastern Asia
Wildlife Value: attracts hummingbirds, bees & butterflies
Awards: England's Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit.
Platycodon is Greek from platys meaning “broad” and kodon meaning “bell”, referring to the shape of the flower. Cultivated in China for hundreds of years where it is called Jie-geng. The Chinese used the root boiled to cure a chill in the stomach. Mentioned in Man’yoshu, a Japanese anthology of poems written in the 8th century. German botanist Johann Gmelin first collected this in Siberia in 1754. Gmelin’s Siberian mission, sponsored by Catherine the Great, took 10 years and nearly killed him. Gmelin introduced it to European gardens by 1782. Robert Fortune found the white form in a nursery near Shanghai and sent it to England in 1845.
SHRUB Boxwood
Size: 24” x 30”
Care: Light to Part shade in well drained, alkaline soil. Do not crowd with other plants, roots prefer no competition. Fertilize regularly for dramatic growth. Prune in early spring. Unlike English boxwood this can be pruned back hard. One of a few shade tolerant evergreens and deer resistant too. Also the most hardy Boxwood.
Introduced from Asia to American and European gardens around 1900 by Ernest Henry “Chinese” Wilson (1876-1930) who scoured Asia for plants.
OUT OF STOCK
White-lavender flowers in May atop wiry stems look like fantastical birds with too many wings, or a four-cornered bishop’s hat. Ornamental heart-shaped leaves and red stems.
Size: 6-12” x 18” slow spreader
Care: shade to part shade in well-drained to moist well-drained soil. Once roots established, valuable in dry shade
Native: China, Japan & Korea
Its Chinese name is “Yin Yang Ho” meaning “Licentious goat herb, “ because allegedly an aphrodisiac for goats! In China & Japan thought to remedy impotence, liver ailments & all age related maladies. In Western gardens since 1834.
Small crimson-red bells dangle from July to September
Size: 8’ x 3’
Care: Sun in humusy, fertile, moist well-drained soil. Mulch around the base. Flowers on current year’s stems so cut back to 6-9” in late winter or early spring.
The genus Clematis was named by Dioscordes, physician in Nero’s army, from “klema” meaning climbing plant. The species 1st collected by the “Father of Texas botany,” Ferdinand Lindheimer in 1830’s. Max Leichtin of the Baden Garden sent Clematis texensis to Kew Botanic Garden near London in 1880’s. French nurseryman Francisque Morel sent this selection to William Robinson who named it for his English nursery at Gravetye Manor in 1914.
