Description
Very distinctive, variegated, chocolate-green chevron-marked leaves. Nodding, eggplant purple flowers in late spring-early summer.
Very distinctive, variegated, chocolate-green chevron-marked leaves. Nodding, eggplant purple flowers in late spring-early summer.
Very distinctive, variegated, chocolate-green chevron-marked leaves. Nodding, eggplant purple flowers in late spring-early summer.
OUT OF STOCK
Green flowers in summer then, “conspicuous in winter when covered with its grayish white fruits which stay on the branches until spring.” Bailey “The leaves turn a fine brown-purple in the fall, but the berries are the thing – pewter in color, with a texture like those Fourth of July sparklers of childhood memory, they have a delicious fragrance.” Allen Lacy.
Size: 9’ x 10’
Care: sun in any soil
Native: Canada to Southeastern U.S. No pruning needed but can be pruned at any time of year, if desired.
Wildlife Value: Berries relished by chickadees, red-bellied woodpeckers, swallows, Titmouse, catbirds, bluebirds, Northern flicker & yellow-rumped warblers. Bayberry thickets also provide nesting sites for songbirds, offering excellent protection from predators.
Probably 1st collected for gardens by John Bartram (1699-1776). Offered for sale in Bartram Garden’s 1783 Broadside, America’s 1st plant catalog. In 1800’s considered “very ornamental in the shrubbery.” Fragrant leaves used for potpourri, abundant berries used to make candles. Good road-side plant, salt tolerant. Berries used to make candles. Boil berries (drupes) to melt wax coating. Collect wax from surface of water. In American Medicinal Plants Charles F. Millspaugh noted that “Candles made from this wax, though quite brittle, are less greasy in warm weather, of fine appearance, slightly aromatic, and smokeless after snuffing, rendering them much more pleasant to use than those made of either wax (paraffin) or tallow (animal fat).” 1892.
Golden daisies waive at the sun from July to September, its cup shaped leaves hold water where butterflies drink & bathe
Can not ship to: Connecticut and New York
Size: 7’ x 3’
Care: full sun to part shade in moist to moist well-drained soil
Native: Central North America, native to Wisconsin.
Awards: England’s Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit
Sap used by Native Americans to chew and freshen breath. Also used to cure colds, neuralgia, fever, and liver disorders. The Chippewa used it to stop lung hemorrhaging, menstrual bleeding, and cure chest pain. Winnebago drank a potion from the plant to purify themselves before a buffalo hunt. For the Iroquois it cured paralysis, prevented children from seeing ghosts and illness caused by the dead. Lakota Sioux children sometimes chewed resin like chewing gum. An infusion of the whole plant is used to rid horses and humans of intestinal worms. An infusion of the leaves is used to loosen phlegm in the lungs. Described and classified in 1753.
Violet racemes all summer through fall
Size: 36” x 12”
Care: Sun, well-drained soil
Native: Southern Europe
Both the Latin and common names are related to flax. Linaria comes from “linum” which is Greek for “flax” and toadflax includes the word “flax.” The leaves of Linaria purpurea resemble flax leaves. According to 17th century English herbalist, John Parkinson, the plant “causes one to make water.” Grown by English plantsman and explorer, Tradescant the Elder, 1634.
Atop a mound of spatula-shaped, crinkled leaves with scalloped edges rises a bounty of 4 to 5 inch tall spikes, each crowned with a hoard of tiny fuchsia-colored trumpets blowing their horns “look at me” in early to mid-summer.
Size: 4-8" x 8-12" spreading slowly by rhizomes
Care: sun to part shade in moist well-drained soil
Native: South Africa
Wildlife Value: Deer resistant. Attracts small bees and butterflies
English adventurer and naturalist William John Burchell (1781-1863) scoured South Africa from 1803 to 1815 collecting more than 50,000 specimens packed in 48 crates. In places unexplored he found insects, animals, fish and unknown plants, this being one. Although he published two volumes of his exploration, he did not finish the last, third volume, leaving another to write the botany. Premier English botanist George Bentham (1800-1884) took up the task authoring Labiatarum Genera et Species, published in 1834. He wrote the first published description and named this tiny plant with outsized charm.