Fab Foliage Friday

Furcraea are freakin' fantastic! I've proclamied my undying love for all things bromeliaceous or agavaceous in the past, and my ardor shows no sign of abating. Here's why: These plants have a supremely sculptural quality, for my money, one of the best shapes in the whole plant kingdom. Its sturdy, meaty leaves thrust purposefully from the ground. Like broadswords, they parry the elements, slashing at wind, and cutting through the rain. The plant's resolute nature gives it an elegant, classical quality.

As a collector of plant oddities, I am always on the lookout for plants that are like little works of art, and consider my garden (at least parts of it), to be a living gallery of chlorophyllic, sculpturous shapes and textures-furcraeas fit right in. They also appeal because they are spineless-which is not to say they have no presence--on the contrary! What they don't have are spines, or, colloquially, prickers, stickers, thorns or whatever you want to call the lethal protrusions that make handling agaves a dicey proposition. Put a furcraea in a pot (or better yet, an urn), put the pot anywhere there's enough room, and presto-you have just  improved the neighborhood. Sadly these things aren't hardy in my USDA Hardiness Zone 6 garden, but they seem content lolling away the winter in my basement, illumined by a few florescent lights. I photographed these specimens at the New York Botanic Garden, so not certain of the species or cultivar name but probably Furcraea gigantea 'Variegata'.

Beauteous Bulbines

Guess what's odd about Bulbine frutescens. It's got no bulb. Nor does it have a rhizome, corm or tuber. But aside from its ill-chosen name, there's plenty to like about this stellar South African native known to locals as snake flower, cat's tail, or burn jelly plant (yes, it has some medicinal value). Bulbine is actually a succulent, but I know few that flower as freely as this one. I grow bulbine in a pot, where its hummock of rather finely textured grassy foliage looks tidy and well mannered early on. Later in the season, narrow wands rise skyward to erupt with a clown hat of tightly nestled buds which, soon enough, yield delicate orange flowers. When a plant produces 10-15 or more spires at a time, the effect is glorious. There's one drawback: the whole thing is kind of dinky, with the wands reaching, on a good day, maybe 18-24 inches and each flower smaller than a thumbnail. But pretty! And so wonderfully complex. Carefee as any succulent, and easy to overwinter indoors in cool temps and bright light.

Man-Eating Plants!!!

OK, have I got your attention? Good. Now take your mouse, tickle it, and head straight over to Dark Roasted Blend for a superlative photo collection of carnivorous plants in all their resplendent glory. These pix are just great, and the whole carnivorous clan is represented, from pitcher plants to sundews and venus flytraps. The only one missing and--come to think of it--the only actual man-eater is Audrey, the vexing vegetation from the Little Shop of Horrors. Though none of these are hungry for Homo sapiens, some are big enough to eat a rat. Yum!

Fab Foliage Friday (on a Sunday)

Golden creeping speedwell (Veronica repens 'Sunshine') sure knows how to brighten the day. This sweet little groundcover forms a half-inch (not even) mat that serves as the perfect backdrop for a red lettuce, Helmond pillar barberry (Berberis thunbergii f. atropurpurea 'Helmond Pillar') or black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscarpus 'Nigrescens'). Or heck, why not all three. This super, simple plant needs plenty of sun to be at its brightest; mine starts heading toward chartreuse in the least bit of shade. It spreads slowly to form a carpet of shimmering gold that's sure to catch the eye. Oh yeah, tiny purple flowers too (sometimes) in spring.

Wisteria: It's Back

Why won't my wisteria bloom? I can't tell you how many times I've seen this question asked in magazines, newspapers, and the like. Maybe I'm just lucky, but my wisteria not only blooms, it does so three times a season. Once in late spring as per usual, again just now and then yet again later in the season. I reckon this happens because: A) the roots are restricted--yes it's in the ground, but in an island bed in the middle of our patio, so it is, in essence, a small oasis of good soil in an ocean of stone dust and gravel. B) I never feed it. C) It gets cut back-ruthlessly-after every flush of flowers.

But those are just guesses. Maybe it's the way the stars align over Clatter Valley. Or maybe something even more esoteric. Really, I don't know why it happens. Gardens are often full of mysterious, hard-to-explain events? How wonderful is that?

Fab Foliage Friday

Oh yeah! Gold feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium 'Aureum') glows like there's no tomorrow. Old herbalists believed, and still do, that feverfew is a good remedy for fever and for headaches. Well, if your headache comes from wondering how to brighten up the garden, this variety will have you feeling better in no time. For me (here in Zone 6a), gold feverfew is a short-lived perennial but it does self sow. Unwanted seedlings are easy to pluck, but better still is a plan to give the plants a shearing before--or when--their little, yellow-centered white daisylike blooms appear. As I've mentioned, I'm not fond of white except in specific circumstances, and where I like gold feverfew is rarely included in those instances. So I shear my gold feverfew down by about half or even a bit more and soon bright new growth comes up to keep it vigorous looking for the remainder of the season. I do let a few flower, so I can collect the seed--which I just scatter--to establish new colonies.

Poppy Perfection

It's here! The arrival in my garden of the stunning poppy Lauren's Grape (Papaver somniferum 'Lauren's Grape') is one of my favorite moments in the whole garden season. Blooming as it does about the first day of summer, this Kool-Aid-colored poppy signals the start of the celebrated (by me anyway) season and the beginning of hot weather, when the tropicals, tender perennials and annuals really take off and, soon after, give my garden its late-season zing. Plus, what's not to like about this deep dark color, appearing atop a stem clothed in crinkly blue green foliage and studded with nodding buds that salute the sky when flower time comes? It even self sows, so once you've got it, you've got it forever after.

When this distinctively hued flower first popped up in papaverphile Lauren Springer's garden, she recognized it as the apex of annual poppiedom, ripped out all its lesser rivals and spent something like seven years to develop a seed strain that would come true. It was worth every minute. Some years back, she gave a bag of seeds and I've appreciated this plant ever since. Thanks, Lauren!

Fab Foliage Friday

Is it a leaf? A flower? Or what? I'm calling the lovely veined pitchers of Sarracenia 'Judith Hindle' a leaf, because its flowers look a lot more like, well, flowers. Whatever you call them, this plant is one handsome piece of chlorophyll. I grow it in a little bog container garden, which I overwinter in a cold frame since the plant would not be likely hardy here in USDA Zone 6. It's worth the trouble.

Peony Time

Peonies are the belle of the ball. Any ball. Without doubt they are the most overdressed, most blowsy, most extravagant flower in the garden. They are an ode to botanical excess. I guess that's why you gotta love 'em. No other plant in my garden contributes as little as the peony for 11 and 1/2 months of the year, but during their brief moment in the sun, they rule. Totally.

All my peonies are anonymous. No idea who they are. As luck would have it, some years back the Artiste's brother purchased a farm, which had been, back in the day, a peony, iris and daylily farm. As my brother-in-law planned to turn the former flower fields into veggie gardens and hay-filled meadows, we got out there lickety split with shovels and filled my pick-up truck several times over with whatever goodies we could glom. As for the flowers, it was all sight unseen--we had no idea what we were getting. But hey, free peonies? How bad could that be? Still, it was a lot of work-the fields had been abandoned years earlier, so we had to carefully weed each clump of unidentified stuff we dug.


But nameless doesn't mean graceless. As it turned out we had dug loads of old-fashioned single peonies, which, for me have a charm that harkens back to an earlier era. They also have a wonderfully delicate fragrance. Due to their limited season of interest (Okay, early spring's emerging stalks are cool too, and the ruddy colors look great with the right tulips), I've relegated most of our peonies to a peony ghetto, which looks--and smells--splendiferous for about 14 days--if, God willing, it don't rain and the creek don't rise. We're entering that two-week span right about now, and doggone if those old-fashioned peonies don't look better every year. So, breathe deep. It's swoon time here at Clatter Valley.

One last thing...What's a peony without ants? The buds and even the flowers are usually crawling with them. The little critters just go nuts over the sweet, nectary secretions of the plant's globelike buds. They just can't keep away from those oh-so-ephemeral flowers. And neither can I.

My New BFF

Jatropha (Jatropha integerrima 'Compacta') is my new Best Friend Forever. Wow! What color! I had to position this near the French doors, where I can look out anytime to see its bright red beacon blazing away like a lighthouse. I was lucky enough to recieve a standard last fall, from someone who didn't want to overwinter the thing, and it survived the dark (no light at all) recesses of my cool basement, and was flowering within a couple weeks of bringing it back into the heat and light this spring. I woke the jatropha up from its winter slumber by placing it in my little pop-up greenhouse.

Ever since, the thing has been going great guns, with beautiful screaming scarlet flowers erupting from bright red buds. Okay, the flowers are small, but that color! I never tire of looking at it. And the leaves! They're cool too! They come in several shapes--like sassafras leaves--and as the new ones appear they have a beauteous bronzy sheen. I'm smitten. Gee, looks like the start of yet another tropical love affair.

Fab Foliage Friday

What time is it? It's Sem, Sem, Sem, Sem, Sem, Sem, Sem, Sem, Semmertime! I am bowled over by the way-cool foliage of Ural false spirea 'Sem' (Sorbaria sorbifolia 'Sem'). Absolutely, positively had to have it the instant I laid eyes on it. The ferny foliage is utterly distinctive, so it promises to combine well with just about anything, and as if that weren't enough, this small shrub's leaves are utterly colorific, with hues of yellow, orange, bronze and red. Wowsa! So what if it suckers like crazy? I can deal with that. Love it with tulips (top), plus, the emerging foliage of early spring is killer (at left) and so are the first sets of unspooled leaves (below). 'Sem' and I are going to have lots of fun together.

Lady Slippers!

We live in what is primarily hemlock forest, and if you've ever walked through a wood like that you might have been impressed by something--the almost complete lack of any understory growth. But our hemlocks are a bit mixed and enough light reaches the earth to allow the growth of several kinds of terrestrial orchids, even pink lady slippers (Cypripedium acaule). We're lucky to have such rare treasures. The stars must be aligned just right, as these dainty pouchlike plants require very specific growing conditions. But we've been worried of late--the hemlocks are dying off as a result of wooly adelgid, and the changing forest is playing havoc with what little life is on the forest floor. Our biggest swaths of pinks lady slippers have declined amazingly in the last few years. In one spot we went from more than 20 a couple years ago to a lonely trio now. So, it was a fine surprise yesterday, when I happened on a brand new stand of lady slippers growing in the shade of several magnolias I planted at the forest edge. Life goes on.

Fab Foliage Friday

I've been remiss in posting of late. Too many writing deadlines! And at a time of year I rarely undertake much in the way of writing assignments. So between that and the demands of the season, well, I seem stretched pretty thin. But enough excuses. TGIFFF!!!

Can't quite put my finger on what it is that appeals to me quite so much about Chinese Neillia (Neillia sinsensis). Maybe it's the Japanese maplelike foliage...I'm a sucker for anything like that. Could be it's more like a ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius 'Diablo')...I like them too. Or perhaps it's the coppery, burgundy-tinged hue of the new leaves...ditto. Or maybe even the way the leaves ride this small shrub's delicately arching branches. Who wouldn't like that? Really, I guess it's all those things, on this neat new plant given me by my friend Lydia Wallis, who's hosting me this weekend while I give a talk at the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons in NY. Thanks again Lydia!

You know, maybe there's an additional reason this plant is looking so fine right now, and though FFF is not about flowers, since you may not be familiar with Neillia I thought I'd include a pic of its blooms, which have just burst open from tight, bright, coral-colored buds. All in all, Neillia is a refined, delicate looking plant and I'm delighted it now has a home in my garden.

Wordless Wednesday

Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)

Wordless Wednesday (Well, Almost)

Gotta love glory of the snow (Chionodoxa forbesii). At the moment, fortunately, there's plenty of glory, and no snow to speak of.

Fab Foliage Friday

I'm cashing in on gold vein plant (Sanchezia speciosa). Again. This regal foliage plant really pays the rent in mixed containers, in groupings of pots, and, if you've got the right spot, in the ground. I love its more-or-less hand-sized, dark, dark green leaves, with each glossy leaf divided into neat little segments by rich-as-Croesus, buttery colored veins.

This tender tropical is easy to propagate from cuttings so you can amass a bunch, which is a good thing because it makes an utterly stellar background for more finer textured foliage or flowers-- lantanas, for example. And it overwinters easily for me as a houseplant, so getting nice sized specimens -3 or 4 feet tall--is just a matter of patience. Back when I first discovered this plant I had no idea how much I'd come to value it or how much its role as a player in my container creations would expand. Finding gold vein plant was like hitting the motherlode.

What's Old Is New

Ace New York Times garden writer Anne Raver attended the recent Plant-O-Rama confab at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where she got a feel for which plants are hot and which are not from speakers including Dan Hinkley, Ken Druse and Michael Dosman , of Harvard's Arnold Arboretum. In large part, they see a return to tried-and-true plants. But no late winter garden story would be complete without mention of several highly desirable new plants, and Raver includes several relatively new worthies suggested by Dan Hinkley. For her account, go here.

Jungle in the Garden

Not only is there a garden in the jungle, but I managed to find a jungle in the garden. No, not my own sometimes out-of-control patch of property, but a real garden, with real jungle plants. Tromping around in Panama's cloud forest and seeing gardenesque jungle scenes was the subject of a post last week, and those scenes were not my only discovery in that part of the world. We set off on a hike through the steep-and-deep ravines of the Three Cascades trail, and after climbing through tangles of vegetation, fording creeks and getting lost a few times, we stumbled back out onto the road., or what passes for one hereabouts, and headed downhill, toward the charming hamlet of Guadalupe.

Along the way we--the Artiste, Birdboy and I--happened upon Finca Dracula, a huge edge-of-the-cloudforest garden named, not for the famous bloodsucking Transylvanian count, but rather for a genus of orchids native to the northwestern Andes (mostly Ecuador) and Central America. Finca Dracula, as it turns out, cultivates one of the world's largest collections of orchids. Needless to say, I had to pay a visit. Birdboy and the Artiste, being wet and cold from our high-altitude ramble, proceeded to town for sustenance and a wood-fired sauna at Los Quetzales.

What drew me through the gates and into the spooky green twilight of the farm's entryway was not a love of orchids. Oh, I like them just fine, but have not yet really surrendered, gardener-wise, to their charms. Instead I was lured by the rushing stream along the finca's edge, the glimpse of a lake within, and the sight of enough giant plants to make Gulliver feel homesick for Brobdingnag. When I happened upon the garden's anteroom, where visitors arrange for a tour or to simply pay a nominal fee to wander around, I knew I had come to the right place. All that orange!

Aside from the orchid collection, here was a garden busting out with all the plants we'd seen on our hike. And they were used in all manner of dynamic, eye-catching combinations. It was a jungle, but cleaned up and ready for prime time. There were, for example, those gunnera. I have NEVER been able to grow those darn things, though certainly not for lack of trying. As if to prove their value as garden plants, there they stood, bold shapes silhouetted against a filmy bamboo background. Talk about textural contrast. Wowsa!

Or how about this bold vision of Dracaena, tree ferns, and bananas? Foliage rules!

Of course it's nice to have color too. These heliconia certainly provide it. And look at all those impatiens. I like the Spanish name for them, miramelinda--which I'll translate roughly as "Look how pretty I am!"

Then there are the cool mosaic pathways winding through the gardens.

Lastly, a grab bag of sights around Finca Dracula. Can't wait to get back there.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day at Clatter Valley

There's precious little in the way of flowers in January here at Clatter Valley, so I try to compensate for the lack of quantity by going all out for quality. Queen's tears (Billbergia nutans) is a Brazilian bromeliad relative that blooms without fail here when days are darkest. Its amazing combination of colors sure brightens up the room. Carol over at May Dreams Gardens hosts Bloom Day; head over there to see what's brightening the day for other gardeners.

Fab Foliage Friday

I'm still on the gold standard, foliage-wise. This beauteous gold poet's jasmine (Jasminum officinale 'Fiona Sunrise') is a rambling, vinelike plant whose lacy gold leaves are welcome wherever they go. It can play a strong supporting role in all kinds of plant combos, in ground or in pots. Here, it echoes off 'Dipt in Wine' coleus while accenting the gloriously burgundy trunk of a red Abyssinian banana (Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii'). Unfortunately this great jasmine--grown for its foliage rather than its flowers--is tender so I need to bring it in each winter. But on the bright side, I've noticed this plant layers itself, setting roots wherever it touches down. So, propagation is a no-brainer. And since it's so easy to build up my supply, I can put 'Fiona Sunrise' to more and different uses each season.