If you are going to be at the IPPS Western Region Annual conference this week in Portland then you will find a few of our plants to bid on in the Silent Auction!
Sunday, September 29, 2013
IPPS Western Region Conference
If you are going to be at the IPPS Western Region Annual conference this week in Portland then you will find a few of our plants to bid on in the Silent Auction!
Three Maples
Also from Far Reaches Farm, 3 different Maples collected from Damingshan in Guangxi, just north of the Vietnam Border. Depending on their hardiness these may be short lived additions to the Plantmad collection but worth a try!
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Two New Clethras!
While perusing the Fall list from Far Reaches Farm a couple of weeks ago (always a fun activity) I noticed 2 Clethra that they had collected in North Vietnam & Guizhou China in 2012. I'm particularly fond of the foliage on the Vietnamese plant (foreground), now time to trial it in the garden.
Four new plants for the Plantmad garden!
We stopped by Xera Plants retail location in Portland today & picked up a few new cool & interesting plants for the garden. I'm sure we will end up making a few cuttings of them too!
Osmanthus heterophyllus 'Fastigiata', Laurus nobilis 'Crispa', a male form of Salix magnifica & finally a new Eucryphia x nymansensis 'Nymansay' to replace the one in our garden that's been among the "Undead" since the last big freeze we had about 4 years ago! They have a great selection of plants over there:
Monday, September 23, 2013
Not another bloody variegated plant ;^)
Like all good plants people we are always on the lookout for an odd looking seedling or something that's different from the rest. You know the kind of stuff that mother nature would quickly dispose of if it wasn't for people like us :^)..
Grading through our crop of 2013 Emothrium coccineum seedlings last week Chiyoko found this one! Now set aside with all the other miss fits, runts & mutants for further evaluation! But I'm not waiting for a variegated Embothrium, It's a weeping one that I'm waiting for ;^)..
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Sometime you buy a plant just for it's story!
Parrotia subaequalis
The Chinese Ironwood, Parrotia subaequalis is the latest addition to the Plantmad collection of "nondescript" Hamamelidaceae. Sometimes though (at least for me) the story behind a plant or its botanic curiosity is enough of a reason to include it in the garden!
The plant was first discovered collected in North Eastern China in 1935 & given the name Hamamelis subaequalis but then lost & forgotten! It was not collected or studied in the wild again until 1988. In 1992 the rediscovered plants flowered and it was obvious that they were not Hamamelis, they were given the new genus name of Shaniodendron but further DNA testing followed & in 1998 it was decided that the plant was actually a sister species of the Persian Ironwood, Parrotia persica & so it was renamed Parrotia subaequalis a second species growing some 3500 miles away from it's only other relative!
For more information on this plant check out this Arnold Arboretum article.
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