The recent post on building a home greenhouse included a snapshot of flowers therein, tastefully set off by beaucoup de snow outside. Most responders wanted to know what they were, but one reader not only knew, she went me far, far better in doing justice to Iochroma cyanea, a plant that as far as I know has no common name.
Iochroma cyanea by Bobbi Angell
who could help with an ID?
Any of the pale ones look familiar?
My friend Gary Lincoff, author of The Audubon Field Guide to North American Mushrooms, teacher at the New York Botanical Garden and crocus enthusiast, is a naming things kind of guy. So when he saw the crocus picture in the Maple Syrup post he wanted to know exactly which species and cultivars they were.
still, although there are only a couple left – both of them big gaudy Dutch hybrids. Then all will be quiet until the promising papilios bloom (or don’t) sometime in early to mid summer.
This is a stem of Benfica, reputedly the deepest, darkest red. It's much darker and redder than this picture suggests.
or this one either, for that matter.
Thus we arrive at the moment for talking about long-term amaryllis care. Questions have been coming in, so here’s the drill:
This year’s first to flower, a Butterfly (Hippeastrum papilio), opened about a week ago.
Butterfly amaryllis, photographed yesterday
There are 5 more – 2 papilios and 3 Giant Dutch Hybrids – in various stages of budded up. Also, par for the course, we have 4 in healthy-but-not-promising mode; 1 pot of 3 robust papilios that has “wait ‘till summer” written all over it and 6 bulbs that have refused to green up well and will not be with us much longer.
They may be harboring bulb fly or simply be discouraged by last year’s cold dark spring.( It didn’t get warm and bright enough for them to grow until it was almost time for them to stop.) On the good side, they’ve underlined a lesson I probably should have absorbed some time ago.
Juniper in winter garb
Beautiful big snowstorm on Sunday, not predicted but not minded. Glittering blanket smoothing the world, nowhere to go but a chair by the fire and nothing to do but read and try not to eat leftover cookies – until it was time to shovel a foot of it off the driveway.
Today it’s still bliss-productively white, white white everywhere. Including in my head where after Sunday’s catalog wallow I’m looking eagerly ahead to spiffing up the white garden
A corner of the white garden (in Maine)
and that brings us to the story of my adventures with Fragrant Angel,
'Fragrant Angel'
in all respects except one an enormous improvement over good old White Swan.
White Swan
Fittingly, we have a beautiful evergreen for the holiday – in the landscape, not in the house. Our friend Eric over at Yale’s Marsh Gardens is extolling the merits of cedars, his baby blue one in particular.
A close-up of the foliage shows the whorled-arrangement of needles along the stem. This is distinctive to all of the Cedars.
One of my favorites! For trouble-free late fall bloom on a plant that’s lovely all summer long, I’m with Eric in finding it among the best.
Over in Connecticut, our friend Eric at Yale’s Marsh Garden has lifted his eyes from his greenhouse’s travails and fastened them on the ginkgo trees. Herewith his overview of the ginkgo’s unique place in the plant kingdom, its fascinating history – and its worthiness in the garden.
Ginkgo biloba, a late-bloomer in the fall color department
This post is the debut of a new regular feature: Eric’s Pet Plants, written and photographed by my friend Eric Larson, manager of Marsh Botanic Garden at Yale University. This week, Eric extolls the persimmon, describing the differences between species and pointing out the tree’s many merits: It’s small, it’s not fussy about soils, it doesn’t require a lot of spraying — and the fruit it produces is delicious (if you know the freezing trick).
Student Intern Ben Ashcraft holds a small portion of the Marsh harvest. Most commercially available persimmons are larger, sometimes three to four inches across. But we like them small and tasty.
The discussion about protecting the fig was resolved in favor of the trench method, so I went back and put in a few more details about how we actually did it. Just a few – right now the story is a report , not a recommendation.
The trunk is of course a bit springy and must be held down until the leaf pile is big enough to act as a weight. The holder here is Bill’s ever-handy Italian rototiller, still on site after being used to dig the trench.
