The first four photos this week are from my garden. The last two are animals, not plants, and were taken at Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham–so from a garden, just not my garden.
1. Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’
I have two Narcissus hybrids currently flowering which have lovely contrasting color patterns. ‘Golden Echo’ has a golden yellow corona which contrasts well with white tepals. It’s not uncommon for Narcissus to have a corona that is darker than the tepals, but I find this hybrid to be particularly striking. ‘Golden Echo’ was produced by Brent and Becky Heath in Gloucester, Virginia.
2. Narcissus ‘Pipit’
‘Pipit’, with its white corona and yellow tepals is almost the reverse of ‘Golden Echo’. I know zilch about plant genetics, but surely there is something interesting going on here. Presumably, pigment production in tepals and corona is regulated independently with either corona-specific or tepal-specific enhancers or transcription factors.
3. Narcissus ‘White Petticoat’
This is hoop petticoat season. I have been growing Narcissus ‘Golden Bells’ ( photo 6, here) for about eight years, but this one I planted just last autumn. ‘White Petticoat’ is a hybrid of N. cantabricus x ‘Diamond Ring’. N. cantabricus flowers in January, so this hybrid must take after N. ‘Diamond Ring’. It makes for a nice color contrast with ‘Golden Bells’ which is also flowering now.
4. Anemone coronaria ‘Mr. Fokker’
‘Mr. Fokker’ is one of the French de Caen cultivars of A. coronaria which date from the 18th Century (surely it should be M. Fokker, not Mr.). A. coronaria seems to grow quite well as a perennial in our climate, so I have been adding more colors after growing the red flowered ‘The Governor’ (photo 4, here) for several years.
5. Pantherophis alleghaniensis (eastern black rat snake)
While visiting Sarah P. Duke Gardens last week, we spotted this rat snake having a drink from a puddle. It was fairly large–perhaps 4 ft, 1.2 m–and seemed unbothered by the many, many people visiting the gardens on a gorgeous spring day.
6. Anolis carolinensis (green anole)
Gardens aren’t just for plants. Close to the rat snake, this green anole was sheltering in a house for native solitary bees. I suspect it had found the perfect spot to intercept ‘spicy flies’.
Jim at Garden Ruminations is the host of Six on Saturday. Head over there to see his Six for this week and find links to the blogs of other participants.
Six on Saturday two weeks in a row! I haven’t managed that since May of 2020.
Temperatures are forecast to drop into the mid 40s (~7 C) for the next couple of nights, so I’ll be busy moving plants back into the greenhouse this afternoon. Things like vireyas and neotropical blueberries will be fine outside for a few more weeks, but lowland tropicals like Medinilla and bonsai Ficus are not happy much below 55 F (12.5 C).
1. Habranthus ruber (red rain lily)
Habranthus ruber, an amaryllid from southern Brazil, is uncommon in cultivation. Its rarity is somewhat surprising given its spectacular red flowers (unusual in a genus dominated by various shades of pink and white). I obtained a bulb in 2020, but this is the first time it has flowered well. I can’t say I have mastered its cultivation at this point, but I think it prefers cool (not cold) growing conditions and, like many of its congeners, flowers after heavy rain–hence the name rain lily. Over the last couple of years, the original bulb has split into a small clump. They grew leaves early this spring, went dormant shortly after the pot was moved outside in early summer, and flowered after temperatures began to cool and Tropical Storm Ophelia gave us a good soaking. Some of the subtropical Habranthus and related Zephyranthes are hardy in my garden, but I haven’t risked this plant. It over-winters in the greenhouse.
Update: The Kew plant list accepts the merger of Habranthus with Zephyranthes, in which case this species would be Zephyranthes rubra (note different spelling of species name)
2. Crocosmia aurea (falling stars)
First bloom for another bulb. Crocosmia aurea is a member of the Iridaceae, the iris family, from southern Africa, and unlike many of its relatives it will grow well and flower in shade. I first saw it blooming about five years ago at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden near Charlotte, NC, but I found plants very difficult to obtain. Eventually, I got hold of some seed, grew the seedlings in the greenhouse for about two years, and planted them out last year. The plants at Daniel Stowe BG, were fairly tall, with nodding flowers on elegant inflorescences, so I was a little disappointed by the compact, almost dwarf plants that I have grown. The seed came from a reliable vendor, and the flowers look right, so perhaps this is a variable species. It remains to be seen if my plants get any taller as they mature.
3. Macleania stricta
Like Macleania pentaptera and Macleania sp. aff. smithiana, Macleania stricta is one of the relatively few neotropical ericads which grow at low altitude (down to 350 m above sea level in the case of M. stricta) and therefore has a reasonable chance of surviving a summer in the NC piedmont. I obtained this rooted cutting last January. It flowered twice over the summer and produced healthy looking new growth, so I am optimistic about its long-term survival. When I first saw the flowers of this species, I was a little disappointed by the size–they are significantly smaller than those of the other two species I grow. The color is good though, and I think the plant will be very attractive as it matures and (hopefully) has multiple inflorescences at once. It will stay outside for a few more weeks, but I’ll move it back into the greenhouse before first frost.
Comparison of Macleania flowers: (left to right) Macleania stricta, Macleania pentaptera, and Macleania sp. aff smithiana H.B.G. 89922. Scale is centimeters.
4. Isodon effusus
For most of the spring and summer, the nondescript stems of Isodon effusus lurk almost invisibly in the shade garden. Then, in early autumn, the plants are suddenly covered with purple flowers on airy inflorescences. This member of the mint family, Lamiaceae, is endemic to Japan (Honshu and Kyushu) and like many Japanese plants does very well in our climate. It produces some volunteer seedlings but is not obnoxious about it.
I have considered including I. effusus in a Six on Saturday post several times over the years but could never get a satisfactory picture. It is almost impossible get a good focus on the three-dimensional cloud of little flowers without many being blurred. I’m still not really satisfied with these ones, but I don’t think I can do any better.
5. Cestrum ‘Orange Peel’
‘Orange Peel’ is supposed to be a hybrid of Cestrum diurnum x Cestrum nocturnum, but Plant Delights Nursery (where I bought my plant) says it is actually a cultivar of the Chilean species Cestrum parqui. I bought it on a whim, not really expecting it to be hardy in the garden, and then never got round to planting it out. It’s too late in the year now, so it will have to stay in its pot and spend the winter in the greenhouse. Maybe I’ll find a sunny spot for it in the garden when weather warms up next year.
My wife grows marigolds from seed and plants them around her vegetable garden to deter any rabbits that slip through the fence. I’m not sure if it is an effective strategy, but the marigold flowers certainly are bright and cheerful.
Jim at Garden Ruminations is the host of Six on Saturday. Head over there to see his Six for this week and find links to the blogs of other participants.
I recently started taking walks in the garden at night, mainly because it is cooler when the sun is down, but also because there are different things to see after dark. I like the way the narrow focus of my headlamp draws my attention to things that I might have missed when everything is lit up.
1. Limax maximus (leopard slug, great grey slug)
North Carolina has 200+ native species of terrestrial gastropods (slugs and snails). This is not one of them. Limax maximus is native to Europe, and according to Wikipedia was first found in the United States in 1867, in Philadelphia. This was a small specimen. They are very common in my garden and seem to love the greenhouse.
2. Snail (genus? species?)
This might be one of our natives, but I’m not sure. As mentioned, 200+ species in NC, and although most of them are in the mountains, a reasonably large selection live in the piedmont.
3. Hyla chrysoscelis (Copes gray treefrog)
Cope’s gray treefrog on a leaf of Eucomis comosa ‘Sparkling Burgundy’
A very noisy neighbor. North American treefrogs have recently been split into genus Dryophytes, but as of last year, the name change had not been accepted by the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles.
4. Fuchsia hatschbachii
This Fuchsia species from southern Brazil is somewhat spindly with smallish flowers, but it is heat-tolerant, which is what matters in North Carolina.
5. Ismene x festalis ‘Zwanenburg’
If you want to grow Ismene x festalis, take the time to seek out this clone. It flowers reliably, unlike some unnamed clones which just tend to split, producing many small bulbs. This hybrid of South American species has been hardy in my garden for almost ten years.
6. Crinum ‘Ellen Bosanquet’ buds
I have featured this Crinum hybrid several times before (here and here), but the buds look particularly attractive illuminated by a headlamp.
Jim at Garden Ruminations is the host of Six on Saturday. Head over there to see his Six for this week and find links to the blogs of other participants.
As we approach the end of the year, here are a few photos from the garden and greenhouse in 2022 that inexplicably failed to make it into other blog posts.
Felis catus flying high on Nepeta cataria (catnip)–literally on the catnip.Red eft–the juvenile terrestrial phase of the eastern newt (Notophthalmus viridescens)
I found this red eft when I was repotting my meyer lemon tree. It was tucked in at the bottom of the root ball and must have entered the pot through a drainage hole while the tree was outside for the summer.
Solanum carolinense (Carolina horsenettle)
If its stems weren’t so viciously spiny, the interesting flowers of Carolina horsenettle might make it a valued wildflower instead of a dreaded weed.
Asarum splendens
The spring flowers of Asarum splendens (Chinese wild ginger) are easy to miss in the leaf litter.
Eucomis bicolor
Eucomis bicolor is the last of the pineapple lilies to flower in my garden. It blooms in mid-September, about a month after the other species and hybrids
And in the greenhouse/summer shadehouse…
Eucrosia bicolor
E. bicolor is smaller than E. mirabilis, E. aurantiaca, and E. eucrosioides, and its thinner leaves suggest that it is less adapted to arid environments. Unlike the larger species, E. bicolor bulbs multiply rapidly and soon fill a pot.
Scadoxus puniceus ‘Magnificus’
S. puniceus ‘Magnificus’ is a large, spectacular clone of the South African paintbrush lily. I’m not sure if it would be as cold hardy as the typical variety, and I have been hesitant to risk my only plant. Its dormancy is quite short, and I have learned not to try storing it in the crawl space of our house along with other summer-growing tropical bulbs. Inevitably, I discover that it has sprouted sometime in the winter and produced a ghost-white etiolated stem in the darkness.
Paphiopedilum tranlienianum
P.tranlienianum is one of the smallest slipper orchid species. It is endemic to Vietnam and was described in 1998
While western Europe has been experiencing historically high temperatures, and the western US is in extreme drought, we have had a more-or-less normal summer. Much of June and early July was dry and hot and humid, but not unusually so; the high temperature recorded on our screened porch this summer was 95.5 F (35.3 C), in-range for the region and time of the year. The dry spell was broken by a brief storm this week which dropped three inches of rain in about half an hour. The garden is currently at its most lush and overgrown point in its annual cycle, and with 80 F (26.7 C) and 94% relative humidity this morning, it feels like we are in the tropics. In keeping with that impression, today’s six plants have a subtropical feeling to them.
1. Platanthera ciliaris (yellow fringed orchid)
Platanthera ciliaris is an orchid that looks as though it should grow in the tropics, but it actually has a native range extending from Florida north to Michigan and New England. In North Carolina, it grows in the mountains, piedmont, and coastal plain. Its distribution in the piedmont seems to be spotty, and although I have seen it growing wild along country roads near the coast, I have never seen it here in central NC. This one is growing in one of my mini-bog planters, a large pot filled with peat, sand, and perlite which sits in a shallow tray of water. P. ciliaris seems relatively easy to grow in costantly damp, acidic soil as long as it is not over-fertilized.
2. Lychnis senno ‘Once in a Vermillion’
I wasn’t sure if this Japanese species would thrive in my garden, but in its second year it has more than doubled in size. It is growing on a dry, sandy slope made drier by the roots of a rapidly growing fig tree.
3. Crinum ‘Ellen Bosanquet’
This classic Crinum hybrid is looking particularly good with six inflorescences this year.
4. Dionaea muscipula (Venus flytrap)
Despite its common name, the ground-level traps of D. muscipula catch more crawling insects than flies. Old capsules with just a few shiny flytrap seeds left in them. Most of the seeds have already dropped into the pot below.
Another plant that looks as though it should be tropical, D. muscipula is actually native to a small region of coastal North and South Carolina centered around Wilmington, NC. These seed-grown plants in my mini-bogs are doing their best to increase their numbers by dropping seeds all over the place.
5. Eucomis ‘Glow Sticks’
Eucomis ‘Glow Sticks’ is noted for its foliage which emerges golden yellow and matures to bright green. Its pale flowers attract our local bees.
6. Chlosyne necteis (silvery checkerspot) on Iris domestica
I haven’t seen many butterflies this year. Even our usual crop of pipevine swallowtail caterpillars is absent from the Aristolochia fimbriata, and there aren’t any black swallowtail caterpillars on the fennel. I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with our neighbors’ habit of outdoor spraying against mosquitoes.
Perhaps this little checkerspot is a sign of better things to come. In a few weeks the big clump of Silphium perfoliatum (photo 6) will be flowering, and it usually attracts large numbers of tiger swallowtails whose caterpillars feed on the surrounding trees.
The Propagator is the host of Six on Saturday. Head over there to see his Six for this week and find links to the blogs of other participants.
Sweetgum and Pines 