staghorn sumac

Staghorn sumac is one of those native shrub-like trees (or tree-like shrubs?) that I have wanted in my yard for some time. I am out of room for even this 10-15 tall beauty...but if I lose my golden retriever sized chaste tree sapling, then Rhus typhina 'will be the next candidate for that slot. This picture is of a cultivar called 'tiger eyes' that sits on one of the terrace beds in Sarah P. Duke Gardens. Its yellowish green leaves may be a bit much for some folks but I think the color would be perfect surrounded by the darker green foliage of  Carolina allspice or cherry laurel. The more everyday Rhus that you might find growing along the Blue Ridge Parkway has darker green leaves. Staghorn sumac should not be conufused with the weedy and invasive tree-of-heaven which has similar leaves. You can count on the sumac to colonize by suckers, even on sites that are dry or have poor soil-- a perfect choice for a steep embankment that you do not wish to mow or fertilize. I should also mention that the Staghorn sumac is probably best known for its bright red fall color.

Butterfly Weed

Asclepias tuberosa  is near the very top of my list of favorite native perennials. Because of its long taproot, it survives drought  but is hard to transplant. This means that you are probably not going to find a gallon of it in the Kmart garden center. The best bet is to buy the seeds and be patient. In a year or two you can have pretty large clump. It is a favorite for butterflies and makes a nice seedpod in the fall. This year I finally have enough that I will not mind cutting a few reddish-orange clusters to bring inside.

The photographed page is from the Golden Nature Guide series, "Flowers: A Guide to Familiar American Wildflowers" published in 1964.

Not a true rose and not really from Japan...or Texas

Pictured at right-double flowered Kerria japonica planted on the east side of Duke’s Nello Teer Engineering Library.

Kerria japonica is one of my favorite shrubs. It is in the rose family and has a wonderful litany of common names (kerry rose, Easter rose, Japanese kerria, Japanese tea rose, and yellow rose of Texas).  It is an old-fashioned plant that folks love to divide and give away. One of the reasons for its popularity is the early flowers. They bloom just before before the waves of roses, dogwoods, and azaleas grab everyone’s attention around here. 

In the landscape, you can find it growing in partly shady to sunny spots. Mine does fine with that difficult morning-shade-afternoon-sizzle equation which often ruins azaleas and hydrangeas in central and southeastern North Carolina. They can form a thicket up to six feet tall but unlike forsythia or winter honeysuckle, it does not seem to turn into a monster. After it loses its leaves in the fall the thin crayon-green branches are very attractive and airy. It survives drought once established and can be found in double-flowering and single flowered forms. Old thickets of kerria have a tendency to look a bit scraggly if the oldest canes are not cut down. Like a lot of other flowering shrubs, any pruning should be done after the blooms give out.

Call it kerry rose or yellow rose of easter or whatever you want to; Kerria japonica  would make a very popular shrub if homeowners could find it more easily ….or if more of us gave some away from our own yards. Here is a link to Chapel Hill’s Niche Gardens’ online catalog. It shows the beautiful single flowered version that they have for sale. 

a few months from now.....

If  you are a parent, March can be a month for making summer plans. The school and camp enrollment forms are probably due and folks are beginning to search through the calendar for the best potential summer vacation week.

These pictures are of new growth from perennial clumps of black-eyed susans.  I was surprised to see them so far out of the ground this time of year, but their location is in a very sunny and sheletered spot between the two buildings of Duke's Fitzpatrick Center . They are part of a perennial border that is a useful display of  low-maintenance plantings....plants like these are just the kind of thing you might cherish later on this summer when you need to go out of town for a week.

no, it's not forsythia

it's winter jasmine.... why would you want to plant an embankment with turf when you can grow this instead?

winter's honeysuckle

Winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) is an old fashioned pass-along plant that is invaluable for large Southern shrub borders. The Scottish plant explorer Robert Fortune brought it to the UK after a visit to China in 1845. I have also heard it called "sweet breath of spring."

It is rangy and suckery and doesn't have a spectacular flower (appearance-wise). But it is blooming right now. I can see a large grouping as I write this from my lunch break in Duke's Perkins Library. The strength of the blooms' fragrance will grow more powerful throughout the weeks ahead. I love the light green leaves that stay semi-evergreen throughout the winter. It is an excellent choice for an out of the way spot in a yard or garden---actually, since it smells so nice in the doldrums of late winter, you may want to plant it closer to a path. It can always be pruned hard after if finishes blooming. Left unchecked it can grow 8-12 tall.

good choices at golden belt

I ran into Katherine Gill last week. She is a landscape architect who lives in southwest central Durham, not far from my house. I profiled her and her wonderful garden for the Durham Skywriter back in May. Besides starting a community supported agriculture project (literally in her own backyard) she was also commissioned to design and implement parts of a new landscape around the renovated Golden Belt factory in east Durham. There, she has filled containers, beds, and pathways with smart plant choices. Especially noteworthy are the perennials, shrubs, and trees that can stand the heat and the humidity of our summers.

(pictured above: Stones of this shape and size have always been necessary to control erosion and vegetation along rail lines. Here, their use in a parking lot median is a nice touch given the industrial history of Golden Belt and the track that still runs nearby. Native switchgrass and a low growing evergreen juniper will soften this feature throughout the year --even after winter turns the grass an appealing brownish-blond .)

what's in bloom in my yard this week?

....mostly stuff that needs little attention: obedient plant, lantana (miss huff), green headed coneflower, and cypress vine. I am glad since I have very little attention to give.

best mail order bulb supplier for southern heirlooms. period.

www.southernbulbs.com

I've got my mind on Oxblood lilies. Besides a cool name, these amaryllids will perform past the dog days of summer well into the swelter of September when nothing else wants to bloom.

they are old-fashioned and tough and pretty... who wouldn't like that. And I promise, you won't find these at Home Depot.

Neon spring

We will feel spring this weekend. Accompanying the warmer temps will be colors we’ve missed-pale and primary yellow. The sunny daffodils and forsythia will be the most talked about flowers. But another of my favorite late winter colors has joined the fray- the small and bright greenish-yellow buds of Wintergreen barberry Berberis julianae. The shrub's thorns are incredibly long and sharp, so please plant carefully. If you want a drought resistant hedgerow, this evergreen shrub could be a good choice. Its color and bite make it an electric fence for the garden.

Japanese sacred lily

I am not sure why this herbaceous perennial is not more popular. Japanese sacred lily (Rohdea japonica) would make a great replacement or companion plant for the hostas we see everywhere. In addition to thriving in shade, this 12-24 inch high mound of evergreen straps sports subtle cones of red berries in the coldest months. Deer supposedly pass it over and it can stand drought.

These pictures were taken today in the Culberston Asiatic Arboretum at Sarah P. Duke Gardens. The lacecap hydragena makes a nice contrast behind the sacred lily (left).
I notice this grouping almost every day that I walk to and from work. Today, the rain and fallen leaves seemed to make the dark green foilage beg a little louder for attention.

The closest place to Durham I know for buying Japanese sacred lily is Niche Gardens , just outside Chapel Hill.

butterfly seed

Asclepias tuberosa or Butterfly Weed is a great native perennial. Mature clumps do not need any coddling once established. These seedpods are striking but it is prized, of course, for its Monarch attracting flower clusters.

Starting them from seed is not a bad idea since their long taproots make them resistant to transplanting.

Hello (again?)

My Mordecai issue ditch lilies, have bloomed again?!
This late summer encore is a strange thing to me but probably not the thousands of daylily fanciers roaming the planet. My question spun itself onto gardenweb the other week, check out the comments. Maybe I’ve got something special?

Summer Fling

A little over two years ago, local artist Sheri Wood launched a public garden from the roof of an empty two story-building in downtown Durham. Her seed-filled “Pinata Anchor of Hope” broke open in a vacant lot near a pad of prepared soil. Children and volunteers pressed the carefully blended mix of summer annuals and drought-hardy perennials in place. Several weeks later I noticed the piñata’s insides had morphed into a rowdy collection of green stalks with a few spare cosmos flowers. Other seedlings would identify themselves later.

Working downtown at the time, I loved seeing the Anchor of Hope growing in a mostly empty and central location. It was a temporary exhibition, but supposedly so was the state of downtown- a lot of street construction and few pedestrians. Unlike the streetscape improvements, the Anchor of Hope project looked better as the summer wore on. I coveted the carefree blooms for my home garden and tried to identify the jumble of plants in the circular plot. I made a list on the back of an envelope with plans to recreate a version myself one day.

Sometime in September, Sherri and a helper put the flowers to bed. The conglomerate was still flowering, but the summer was over. As I stopped to chat, she gave me a few packs of seeds from the original Anchor of Hope mix as well as a division of aster. The aster had almost a dozen powder-purple daisies clinging to the sticky bundle of stems. I took these back to my windowless office on the first floor of City Hall and thus began to day-dream about a humble start for my own yard. That weekend, I put the aster in the ground and saved the seeds for the next spring. I was giddy. My list was now inside of an envelope.

For the past two springs and summers, my family and many a bumblebee have enjoyed a decent growth of upright or “purple top” verbena courtesy of the Anchor of Hope. Their ability to reseed keeps them around. The gift of aster has given birth to its own clumps that have been moved around a couple of times already. They should start their display again in few days or weeks.

I am glad I got to witness the Anchor of Hope’s growing season. It lives on in my yard and probably several other lots in town whose owners were lucky enough to pass near the intersection of Main and Corcoran streets on the day it had to go away. The streets and sidewalks in downtown are much improved. New restaurants have come and more are due. Today, a promised revitalization for Durham’s core is easier to imagine. This vision includes a planned office tower for the site where the Anchor of Hope once held a small place. Perhaps a landscape architect can make room for some xeriscaping or low-maintenance plantings when those plans are fine-tuned. I’ve got some stuff that would look great there.

I wish I could have gotten a hold of Sherri before writing this post. I wanted to ask her some more questions and see if she would be offended by my attention on this blog. I hope she is not, and am glad that she was so generous with her project.