Saturday, June 30, 2012

The ParanĂ¡ Pine


We received a small bag of these this week, we were unsure if we should sow them or make a necklace out of them :^)...

Friday, June 29, 2012

Waking Giants

We are growing some small seed lots wild collected Pine seeds this year under contract. These Pinus sabiniana seeds were huge!


Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

A Firebush Forest!


We sowed half our collected Embothrium coccineum seed at the usual time earlier this year but after 6 weeks nothing had come up so we sowed the other half! Both lots then germinated about 10 days later! Now we have a forest of the darn things :^).

(Sino) Calycanthus chinensis


We grew this plant under it's old name of Sinoclycanthus chinensis for many years but finally gave up due to lack of sales which is a shame as it's a truly wonderful plant. I think we are going to have to give it another go this summer!  Apart for a couple of hours of dappled morning Sun these plants are growing in complete shade under Acer macrocarpa.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Two Stewartia


One of our favorite Stewartia is Stewartia rostrata. Large flowers with ruffled edges & each flower has one petal with a blush of pink. We live in hope that one day we will find a seedling with all pink flowers! Another less commonly seen species is Stewartia sinensis with smaller but delicate white flowers.



Friday, June 22, 2012

Pileostegia viburnoides

Pileostegia viburnoides

We picked up this zone 8 evergreen vine in the Hydrangeaceae family many years ago from Heronswood Nursery. It's a lovely evergreen vine that never gets too big for it boots. This is our original one living in the corner of one of our greenhouses were it battles a Giant Gunnera for space &; water :^)...

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Fun House


We have greenhouses where we make money & greenhouses where we lose Money. The ones where we loose money are a lot more fun to hang out in :^)..

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Vitis davidii


We love this Chinese Grape Vine with it's prickly stems & fantastic fall color, sadly it seems to resist all our attempts at propagating it!

Friday, June 15, 2012

A Maple Oddity!


We got this curiosity from Talon Buchholz about 10 years ago. I purchased it purely for it's oddity factor but after 10 years in the garden it's turned into a nice looking tree. So much so that we propagated some this winter & will have it available for sale this Fall. 

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Potting is done (well almost!)


All potted by Chiyoko's fair hand, one house of Wisterias & one house of "other stuff"! Potting is never completely done as there always seems to be something that needs shifting up but we are declaring the 2012 potting season over! Now we just need to sit back & watch them grow (if only it were that easy :^)..

Fuchsia magellanica


Back in 2005 we received some Chilean wild collected seed of  Fuchsia magellanica. When our winter temps drop below 15F they freeze down to the ground but if we don't get that cold they don't freeze down & we are treated to Spring flowers..

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Floating Clouds


Our Floating Cloud Maple grows in full shade under some Doug Fir trees, this means it grows very slowly but has great variegation especially in the Spring.


Saturday, June 9, 2012

Ulmus parviflora 'Seiju'


This is one of our favorite dwarf Elms & we are happy to say it will be on our stock available list this Fall. This one is about 10 years old & 6' tall.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Elderflowers Cordial Anyone?

Growing up in the UK it's hard not to have an affinity with Elderflowers! We don't produce them for sale anymore at Plantmad but several are still growing in the garden. These are two of my favorite cultivars. Since I have a strong personal dislike of whole practice of plant name trademarking I'm only going to list them by their botanical names here :^)..