Beautiful Plants

I like wierd plants and one of my favorite is the 'viagra lily' - the 3 feet tall Dracunculus vulgaris:


But, more commonly, I like the following a lot. Remember, I live in the city where there is always too much shade for many plants.

Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa)

Toad Lily (tricyrtis)

Korean Spicebush (viburnum carlesii or burkwoodii) - it's over-planted, maybe, but it has a heavenly scent

Swamp Azalea, or Rhododendron viscosum (another good smelling bush)

Oh! And Itea Virginica - sweetspire

Uhoh..... more

Like itea, Clethra smells great, has flower spikes and blooms at a good time- when other stuff is not blooming.

I'm going to start hyperventilating - how long til spring?

Another plant which mimicks grass and can be grown in various amounts of shade is carex, this is carex tumulicola


heucherella (a cross between heuchera and tiarella) and tiarella are also much adored by moi. Here's a heucherella (viking)

I can not get enough of epimediums. They are pint sized plants wich pack a punchand should be planted right up front where you can see them. They bloom after the bulbs, but before the full swing of bloomtime.

Epi leaves (about 1.5-2 inches at their widest)




One of the flower types

Ephemeral favorites. Or rather, favorite ephemerals.....

Trout lily


trillium

here's what we call cali poppies - to me, much less red and much more orange

Queen Anne's Lace (one of the few flowers I know):

Coleus: Geraniums:
Begonias: Impatiens:
Petunias: Marigolds:
Salvia:
Verbena: Vinca:
Ageratum:

Sunflowers:


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once came across a recipe for queen anne's lace jelly

i love sedums

Lungworts - great in a shade garden. Love those fuzzy spotted leaves when they start coming up through the leaf mold as the squills and crocus are finishing off - they look nice with the darker green violet leaves in the yard.

I guess I'm just a sucker for interesting leaves more than the flowers. Though the Mexican Hat plants I've got in the hot part of the backyard always make me smile.





any plant that doesn't need to be watered is my friend

A giant split leafed philodendron I once raised:

A local favorite. A a wild orchid in New Hampshire.

From Bali and Singapore.

From Japan.

Rosborne - those there are some of my favorite ephemerals - the pink lady slipper....... I tired of posting last nihgt and stopped short of posting them. Thanks for doing it!

From Kuekenhof Gardens, Amsterdam.

Echium fastuosum, Pride of Madeira




Echium again, in a somewhat different color that I've not seen myself..


source

I found another Echium, this time with rosy red flowers, but I didn't want to copy the photo because it has someone standing by the flower facing the camera. But it's neat, it was on an italian website, looks like a garden site.




Bougainvillea spectabilis -


source

Bouganvillea again, closer -


source


Calliandra hematocephala (Pink powder puff)


source; Location: Missouri Botanical Garden, Credit: Xiangying Wen


Calliandra tweedii (Brazilian flame bush) - this one espaliers nicely:


source




On gardens with lots of flowers - I like them, at least sometimes, but I also like gardens that are more about the greens and or greys, the leaf textures, the plant massing....

I love most flowers, but I realized my most favorites are those that grew in my mother's garden when I was growing up. Nothing will ever come close to plain simple daisies. So clean, so straightforward. I was never happier than when my parents gave me gigantic bouquet of daisies on my graduation. Made me far more happier than the graduation itself...that they knew exactly what would make me super happy. They bloom on my birthday, when spring cannot go back and summer is within reach. I also love the smell. So gardenly.

Mom also had wild daisies- orange/brown with dark brown middle, lilacs, snow drops, narcises, peonies, hyacinths, "rabbit ears" - no idea what that would be in english, but they had fuzzy whitish fur on their leaves, wild roses that climbed on the fence, blue bells and lots more. Bottom line - if it grew in her garden, chances are it will make my top thirty or however many top there are.

I like the pink lady slippers too. It always seems odd to me to see orchids like that growing in the cool woods of New England. But there they are.

I also like large broad-leafed plants. The philodendron I grew reached almost 6' high with a few leaves over 2' across, before I moved and had to divide the plant just to get it through the doors. Dieffenbachia's are also beautiful plants.

mmmm, I like those too...