Gardens by Kelly Productions

Well I did it again–I goofed up the interwebs.  To my subscribers, apologies if you received an email link to this post this morning and then found it defunct.

Today, let’s talk about one of the most divine spring ephemerals in my garden–Lathyrus vernus ‘Flaccidus Roseus’.  This gorgeous vetchling came to my garden via Seneca Hill Perennials, the now former nursery of plantswoman extraordinaire Ellen Hornig.  Ellen’s taste for plants is exceptional, and better yer, her taste for selecting fine seedlings resulted in this Latin-esque cultivar from a seed strain she developed.  The word flaccidus in Latin literally means limp, but in this instance refers to the fine, narrower, and linear texture of the foliage in comparison to other strains of the species.  It’s an almost feather-like and hovering aesthetic.  At various times, it’s earned recognition as a subspecies, variety, and cultivar, all the result of horticultural/botanical arguments which are never won and too easily fought.  Ellen’s decision to name a strain of pink-flowered seedlings as ‘Flaccidus Roseus’ is probably the safest way of circumscribing these lovely, early spring peas.

As you may know, the genus Lathyrus is quite diverse and is best known for its vines–the sweet peas of our grandmother’s back fences.  But this lassy clumps and mounds, handsomely growing into a robust clump over several years that shimmers ever so slightly with the rustling of the breeze.  It’s also a perennial that enjoys a little shade.  I grow mine at the edge of my wooded backyard in the company of a merry troupe of daffodils, Carex, and a selection of unusual ferns–a handsome vignette in the waking days of spring.

While this cultivar isn’t in wide distribution, do snatch it up when you can.  These vernal peas are all too rare in the garden and for no good reason.  Early spring flowering, delicate, and tough as nails–what more could you want?

Sources:

Lazy S’S Farm Nursery

Lathyrus vernus 'Flaccidus Roseus' ©2011, Kelly D. Norris

As I said just a few days ago, succulents are all the rage.  While sedums are undeniably a focus of this attention, for much of the last decade, new sedum introductions have come in tall, upright forms.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  Finally, though, some of that succulent love has crept on down to the lowliest, but most virtuous members of the genus–the groundcovers, those just as perfectly suited to a green roof as the crest of a rock wall.

And dipping into the 2012 crop of new introductions, I’m proud today to feature a great new groundcover sedum from my friend Chris Hansen of Great Garden Plants.  Chris has done some exciting breeding work over the last few years and selected several eye-catching varieties on the down low that all hit the market in 2012 under the catchy series moniker Sunsparkler™.  ’Dazzleberry’ caught my eye at the Garden Writers Association symposium back in August, and Chris gladly shared a few plants with me that now call my two rock gardens home.  Let me share a little about why I went screaming with glee up to my hotel room with these plugs…

First, in the architecture department, these sedums take top honors.  For years, I’ve bemoaned the floppy, rangy habits of cultivars like ‘Sunset Cloud’ and ‘Vera Jameson’, even as I praised them for their dazzling color and contrast on the backdoor step of autumn.  In fact they still call my rock garden home, though perhaps not for long.  ’Dazzleberry’, as an interspecific hybrid, brings together the best of both worlds–a lovely array of flowers that reportedly last for up to 7 weeks in Michigan and with a superb, compact, ground-hugging habit.

Second, in the floral department, the inflorescences are bigger than its competitors.  Yes, in the plant world, size does matter, though there’s an argument to be made for using small flowers effectively (NOT in the case of sedums, exactly).  But let’s not go there today (I’ll explain it all when you’re older).

Third, in the disease tolerance department, all indications point to ‘so far so good’.  I’m hoping to repeat Chris’s good luck with it in Michigan throughout the course of my bestial Iowa summers.  Stay tuned.

As a closing thought, I have to candidly admit that I swoon for any flower in this shade of lipstick verging on carmine–my Achilles’ heel.  If you start counting the number of times I say that, you’ll rack up a long list of major weaknesses in my horticultural constitution.  What’s a plantsman to do?

Source:

Great Garden Plants

Sedum 'Dazzleberry', photo courtesy of Chris Hansen

Well here it is, finally, an iris!  It’s hard to imagine that on this whole December list, I’ve included only one iris, but it’s true.  You’ll get plenty of irises on this blog in the coming months, leading up to the release of my book A Guide to Bearded Irises from Timber Press.  Fear not!

One of those irises that you’ll be hearing and seeing a lot more of, especially in 2012, is an excellent border bearded bred by our friend Mitch Jameson of St. Joseph, MO called ‘Put Upon’.  My nursery Rainbow Iris Farm is honored to bring this gorgeous cultivar to market next year, and to kick off the promotional campaign, we’re giving one away to a lucky commenter today!  Entering is simple.  Post a comment to this blog telling me why you’d like to grow this variety and you’re in!  A handy little app on this blog called “And the Winner Is” will randomly select one of you at the end of the day.  When filling out your comment, please enter your email so I can contact you if you win (your email will not be made public when you comment, so no worries!)

Now the chit chat.  Here’s what I wrote about it in my book…

“Put Upon’ (Mitch Jameson, 2012) —A Rainbow Iris Farm introduction from our friend Mitch Jameson of St. Joseph, Missouri, ‘Put Upon’ is another dropout from TB breeding but measures up in swell fashion to all the particulars of the BB classification.  Finely formed flowers of nearly perfect dimension open atop 26-inch stems later in the bloom season.  When this first bloomed in our trial beds, I was beyond impressed by its burgundy brushstrokes “put upon” its strong apricot ground.  Mitch has a playful knack for naming irises, which in this instance results in a clear image of the patterning of the flower.  Definitely a BB worth having in the garden, if only for its unusual pattern and coloration.”

Source:

Rainbow Iris Farm

Iris 'Put Upon' ©2011, Kelly D. Norris

Today, I’m again giving a shout out for a new plant that I feel needs some media attention.  From the masterful hands of plant breeder Dr. Jim Ault of Chicago Botanic Gardens, Veronica ‘Tidal Pool’ tops my list of hot plants to watch for in 2012.  At least it’s not a hydrangea or coneflower (seriously, can we just vow to knock off the ‘me too’ genetics?  Innovation much?)  I first heard about this when Jim, my friend Winston, and I spent a week hunting plants on the Great Plains.  What else do plantsmen talk about while searching out plants besides…plants?

Selected in 2008 from a cross made in 2007, this good-kind-of-creepy groundcover glows in full flower in almost unimaginable shades of blue.  The parents of this hybrid speedwell are Veronica armena and Veronica pectinata ‘Rosea’, both reputable prostrate speedwells.  Jim reports that this variety blooms for four weeks from May through June in Chicago, gracing the garden during the colorful peak of the northern temperate growing season.  Can you imagine the combinations?  ’Tidal Pool’  pooling between sunshiny Allium moly with pink waves of Silene ‘Longwood’ (also a Jim Ault plant…I sense a designer combination set coming on!) hovering in the forefront of the vignette.  Yes, that’ll be $34.95, and I’ll even come plant it for you….

Snapping back, the best part about this groundcover veronica is as Jim writes “Two-year-old plants have grown to 2″ tall by 22″ wide on a clay soil, and to 3″ tall x 30″ wide on a sand soil. ”  Impressive.  As of writing this, I’m not pat positive who all will be carrying this retail for 2012, but I do know that several growers in the Chicagoland Grows® network have it in production.  Stay tuned.  We all need to be growing this.

Source (anticipated):

Plant Delights Nursery

Veronica 'Tidal Pool', photo courtesy of Jim Ault

I would be remiss if I didn’t include some proper succulents in this parade of sorts.  A few more will follow later in the month.  Succulents are all the rage these days–they’re hip, retro throwbacks to the houseplant craze, embraced outdoors for their striking textures and rugged dependability.  One that I happily embrace (with my thumbs) is Orostachys boehmeri.

This chic little dunce’s cap came to my garden via a plant swap with my crazy garden buddy Matthew Morrow, who’s passion for succulents has rubbed off just a little.  A monocarp (meaning it lives long enough to flower, set seed and die), it gladly reseeds to ensure that a stable colony graces the garden scene on an annual basis with its Seussical flowers, seafaring foliage, and actinomorphic rosettes.  I don’t think I would garden without it now.

I’m sort of at a loss for words for a plant that seems so effortless, handsome, and respectable.  At home in a scree garden, trough, or any location with ample drainage, a sunny exposure, and adoring fans, this petite chap, though doomed to where his dunce, takes the cake for botanical entertainment. Plant abundantly.

Source:

Proven Winners

Wrightman Alpines

Orostachys boehmeri, ©2011, Kelly D. Norris

First off, apologies if you received this post with no discernible text this morning.  I hadn’t loaded the text onto the blog yet, but had accidentally hit the ‘auto-schedule’ button.  Whoopsie!  Let there be words!

I also have to admit that today’s post definitely falls in the ‘eye candy that you can’t have’ category.  Why are there no sources listed?  Because this plant, for all intents and purposes, remains unintroduced to modern horticultural commerce.  The genus Astragalus was a focus of mine while I was in northeastern Nebraska and southwestern South Dakota this summer.  They’ve got a lot going on–all 375+ species that exist in the North American flora.  Members of the legume family, these often tap-rooted herbaceous perennials and subshrubs add up to every aspect of the label ‘tough plants’, hailing from environments as harsh and disparate as alpine meadows, rock crevices, and tallgrass prairies.  Plus, they look fab.  A. barrii looks like a rockstar fresh off a tour of America’s best rock gardens.  A. crassicarpus, which I love for its showy and ground-hugging ornamental fruits, was eaten by Indians and early settlers, though a footnote about the genus’s overall toxicity would be appropriate here.  Ethnobotanical accounts suggest that the fruit has the texture of garden peas.  I’ll take their word for it.  A. canadensis was the first species I ever knew, traipsing across tallgrass prairies as a kid and encountering its butterfly laden flowers with gleeful curiosity.  But overall–a genus that lives in obscurity.

What’s more, the information that exists on the web is not only sparse, but when available is hardly relevant.  A page on a website called www.gardening.eu lists A. laxmannii var. robustior as “growing like a tree” and can reach “17 m in height.”  Riiiiiight.  Don’t always trust the interwebs, kids.

Now don’t for a moment think that I’m surprised by this.  Propagating Astragalus isn’t exactly a walk in the park, given their tap roots, recalcitrance to division and root disturbance, etc.  Cracking this nut will take a little craftiness, if it’s going to happen at all.  It’s no fun for people like me to do, but sometimes we have to admit that some plants just may not fit the schemes we often use in horticulture.  Does that mean we give up?  Hardly.  It means that we keep finding ways to increase biodiversity in our managed landscapes, one plant and one horticultural solution at a time.  That’s what we do, and proudly at that.

In closing, I’m hopeful that more species in the genus will eventually prove amenable to cultivation.  This species in particular forms lovely groundcovering mats of many, many flowers borne terminally on the ends of ascendant branches.  Plus, you get this delightful party effect with the spent flowers fading to blue while the freshest flowers still shimmer in pink (or in varying shades to white).  Maybe.  Someday.  (We’ll be together).

Astragalus laxmannii var. robustior, ©2011, Kelly D. Norris

On as many occasions as I’ve heard Allan Armitage speak, I’m pat positive he’s mentioned this plant every single time.  And rightly so.  In the ‘underappreciated’ department hangs a portrait of this plant, the yellow-colored form of the familiar and charmingly weedy wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) that so many of us treasure and curse with fondness.  The story (nearly legend now thanks to Dr. A and his wonderful book Legends in the Garden) goes that two brothers, Andrew and Larry Clemens were out doing what adventurous boys do along railroad tracks near Corbett, Maryland.  They discovered a dwarf, compact, yellow-flowering columbine, knowing well enough that columbines were not normally this color.  They transplanted one to their mother’s garden and enjoyed it for a few seasons before it disappeared.  Out and about in another spring, Andrew rediscovered the plant in the wild, collected seeds, and distributed them to neighbors to keep the plant and the story alive.  One of those neighbors was nurseryman Richard Simon who successfully propagated and introduced ‘Corbett’ to horticulture in 1992, almost 25 years after the plant was originally discovered.

I think of this story every spring that I enjoy ‘Corbett’ among the dwarf irises in my rock garden.  Though I lovingly curse its wild-type forebearer, I have to confess that I’m a bona fide columbine-a-holic.  I love their promiscuity, their variation, and those magical flowers that ever capture my child-like fascination.  ’Corbett’ bewitches me so, a perfectly charming miniature of its larger cousins.

There’s hardly anything to say about growing it, given that it’s such an easy species to please.  ’Corbett’ does have a tendency to die out after a few years, but a few (true-to-type) seedlings will no doubt take its place.

Sources:

ForestFarm

Lazy S’S Farm Nursery

Aquilegia canadensis 'Corbett', ©2011, Kelly D. Norris

Ever since I was a little boy gardener, I’ve had a love affair with plants that cling and climb.  First it was the annual vines–sweet peas, morning glories, ornamental beans, etc.  Then it’s matured into perennial vines, though in making the distinction I don’t want to suggest that there’s something lowly about annual vines.  Nowadays my heart throbs for Clematis (as mentioned earlier in this calendar) and now too for choicer Lonicera, like L. flava.

But I feel like I came around too late to L. flava.  How could I ever have resisted or, worse, ignored its yellow flowers, showy trumpets for ornithophilic pollinators?  A native species throughout the southeast U.S. and north and west to Illinois, Missouri, and eastern Kansas, my first encounter with it in the wild was in the Ozarks back in 2009.  At the kindly insistence of botanist Susan Farrington, I dug up a few small seedlings growing in the clearing of a fire line and toted them home to my garden where they’ve since thrived.  What tremendously lovely plants, and fitting the theme of this blog, so pitifully underused.  The best part about L. flava is its tendency to ramble beautifully–the trellis is optional.  Mine cling to a picket fence, covering it by late spring and early summer with flying saucer-esque foliage and yellow flowers worth adoring.

Also, please don’t get scared by the word Lonicera.  This fine native harbors none of the invasive tendencies of its cousins (in fact it’s fairly uncommon in the wild), grows in full sun to part shade, and survives winters down to USDA Zone 4b.  As with many of the plants on this list, while not terribly rare necessarily, they aren’t terribly common either.  A quick perusal of the net turned up only one mail-order source at the moment.  I previously knew of another, but that nursery is no longer in business.

Source:

Sunlight Gardens

Lonicera flava, ©2011, Kelly D. Norris

I have to admit–as bourgeois as these may seem–that I really fell in love again with simple, carefree California poppies this season.  I hauled out half a dozen packets and cast the seeds about my new scree garden with zeal and glee.  The colors ranged from buttercream to wild rose and of course the usual party time colors–garish yellows and oranges.  Grown from various mixes I’d picked up at some end-of-season sale and stashed for another year, these emblematic poppies bloomed from mid-May through the first hard freeze.

Native throughout the western U.S., these annual to perennial poppies have graced gardens for nearly two centuries.  By any measure, they’re harmless weeds, keen to reseed and reinstate themselves with verve even where they shouldn’t grow.  I look forward to seeing where mine end up in the next few seasons–gracing forlorn crevices, I hope.  The breeding and selection happening in California poppies these days is head-turning–doubles, semi-doubles, plentiful hues.  Fortunately too, if you don’t like where they land, they pull out with remarkable ease.

There’s otherwise not much to say today about a plant so familiar and well-known.  I’ll let the picture do the talking from here.

Sources:

Annie’s Annuals

Territorial Seed Company

Eschscholzia californica, ©2011, Kelly D. Norris

Finally, a grass!  A garden without ornamental grasses of some kind borders on sinful–who can really resist the temptation of soft, curving, graceful lines waving in the wind?  In a world of fuzzy plumes, sharp spikes, and dangling pendants, grasses rule the stage, the main characters of a multi-season show.

On that list of grasses I couldn’t garden without, and it’s a mighty long list, somewhere near the top is Koeleria macrantha with a footnote that says ‘including all other Koeleria‘.  Native throughout most of North America, you probably have a patch or clump growing nearby, sulking in obscurity until some agent (you) sends them to fame.  Known commonly as prairie junegrass, the variation found across that range is just the sort to send a horticulturist with ecological bearings (like yours truly) nuts with excitement.  The form I grow in my garden has bluer foliage than most, though even the most typical forms have remarkably clean-colored leaves.  From caespitose clumps in late spring and throughout summer (depending on the provenance), the flower heads erupt like sky bound fireworks, lessons in the beauty of tawny and tan.  I simply couldn’t envision a scree garden without them.

Perhaps my greatest excitement with this species wasn’t in my own garden, but in the wild lands we perused this summer in South Dakota, coming across meadows that looked like seas of this species minus occasional islands of rock.  The photo below shows a specimen that in reflection looks quite remarkable, though I’m sure there were better.  In masses of millions, the chances of finding ‘the one’ improves significantly, if only you have the time to look.

On a final note, this species is remarkably unavailable in the trade, beyond the commercial seed suppliers who raise most of their crop for ecological restorations, etc.  If you have a greenhouse or means of propagating from seed, it’s not hard work at all.  If you think this deserves a place in your garden, post a comment.  Let’s see how many of you agree!

Source:

Annie’s Annuals

Koeleria macrantha, ©2011, Kelly D. Norris