stalking the beloved silver-leaf sunflower, helianthus argophyllus

No other plant native to South Carolina has such fragrant and beautiful spring blooms and stunning fall color as the witch-alders. Fothergilla was named after Dr. John Fothergill, an English physician and gardener who funded the travels of John Bartram through the Carolinas in the 1700’s. These beautiful shrubs have been planted in both American and English gardens for over 200 years, including gardens of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Have you noticed the persistent brown leaves still hanging on some deciduous trees long after their foliar companions have fallen? This usually becomes very apparent after normal leaf drop in early winter. These brown leaves may remain attached until spring bud growth pushes them free.

Virginia copperleaf is a tall, branched summer annual that can grow three feet tall. It takes its name from the copper colored leaves of its late summer color. This weed is a North American native that is found from Maine to Georgia and as far west as Texas and north to South Dakota. It is a member of the spurge family and is poisonous, but it does not have the milky sap that is typical of other family members. The simple leaves are oppositely arranged on the stems when the plant is a young seedling, but they change to an alternate arrangement as the weed matures.

Perennial vines in the genus Vinca have proved to be sturdy and seemingly indestructible groundcovers for the Southeastern Unites States. However, over the past few years, vinca leaf-folder caterpillars have been ravaging landscape plantings of perennial vincas (Vinca major andVinca minor). Both can be infested, but V. major seems to sustain more damage. According to Dr. Matt Bertone, Entomologist at NC State University, this pest is likely Diaphania costata.

The pioneering American landscape architect Frank Lloyd Wright once said: “A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.” Aside from hiding things, vines are great for vertical accents. Unfortunately, perennial vines tend to have a shorter flowering period, and once planted, you are stuck with them forever unless you dig them up and plant something else. I do not mean this in a negative way; I love many of the perennial vines and have several in my landscape, but you may want to add some annual vines to your garden palette that can bloom over several months during the growing season.

The plant was first discovered near Vladivostok in the 1920s, above the treeline, where it survived the deep cold of Siberian winters, making it a Zone 3-hardy creature, supposedly.Although it is a groundcover species, don’t expect it to grow in the dark: That was the mistake made at first when Microbiota reached the American market in any numbers maybe a decade ago. Saying a plant can handle some shade is different from saying it’s a shade plant; this one wants half a day of sun or more, I think, and wholesalers who propagate a lot of it say sun to part sun on their labels. In warmer zones, protection from afternoon sun is important, and in fact Microbiota isn’t a fan of the hottest zones at all.Though Microbiota (seen above in winter color) is said to have few if any pest and disease problems, I will confess to this: I have killed a number of them, without ever

First, the disclaimer. I know I said the plant is specifically Pinus strobus ‘Nana,’ and that’s how mine came to me, but here’s the wrinkle: ‘Nana’ is kind of a grab-bag name for many relatively compact- or mounded-growing Eastern white pines, a long-needled species native to Eastern North America, from Canada to Georgia and out to Ohio and Illinois.Today, you can shop for named varieties that are really compact, with distinctive and somewhat more predictable shapes, like‘Coney Island’ or ‘Blue Shag’ (to name two cultivars selected by the late Sydney Waxman at the University of Connecticut, who had a particular passion for this species).I could have pinched the tips of the new growth, or candles, by half each year to keep

At the time of the transplanting of the young umbrella pine, I had never seen another except in botanical-garden collections; unusual or rare was the word. Now they’re at nurseries, but usually quite small and always quite expensive, and they’re pretty easy to kill, at least at first. But what did I know when I uprooted the tree and had it put in that truck?I was just getting really serious about plants, and was a beginning garden writer, meaning I had the privilege of getting paid to visit gardens and nurseries and interview experts for stories. Those years formed my advanced education in horticulture—and also my downfall in self-control. Everybody showed me or told me about something I simply had to have. Or two or three.An umbrella pine first spoke to me in a come-hither voice at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, Long Island, a place I’d visited a lot as a

Quick backstory: You may remember Charley, co-author of my most-used field guide “Tracks and Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates,” from our recent interview about galls and leaf mines, two of his specialties.(I’m giving away two more copies; enter by commenting in the form way down at the bottom of this page, after reading the entry details in the tinted box just before that. The book can help you to know what you are seeing when you look closer, too—kind of like always having Charley by your side.)When that story ran, Charley had noticed a photo I used to accompany it–of a squiggly “leaf mine” I’d observed in my Asian-native big-leaved perennial called Petasites. He’d wondered if it was caused by the insect that feeds in a few different genera in the tribe Senecioneae (including some native American botanical cousins of Petasites).  Why don’t you come try to find out, I’d suggested—and while you’re here, why don’t we have a

(click any green type to link to the profile of that plant)Golden hinoki cypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Crippsii’Japanese umbrella pine, Sciadopitys verticillataConcolor fir, Abies concolorWeeping Alaska cedar, Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula’Korean fir, Abies koreanaLacebark pine, Pinus bungeanaFavorite Coniferous ShrubsRussian arborvitae, Microbiota decussataGolden spreading yew, Taxus baccata ‘Repandens Aurea’Dwarf white pine,Pinus strobus ‘Nana’Conifer SlideshowIf you missed it earlier this year, tour the above favorites and more in my slideshow of favorites conifers.Categoriesconifers for beginners trees & shrubs

A NOTHER SELECTION FROM MY EARLIEST PROSE, circa 1961, unearthed in a bout of housecleaning here this winter. This one earned me a star (which seems just right for a penmanship exercise about space travel), and marked the day the first American, Alan Shepard (who in 1971 would walk on the moon) went up in space.

LIKE CLOCKWORK THEY START TO APPEAR ABOUT NOW: A first harvest of cucumbers, and also one of Japanese beetles. Into separate and quite different “brines” they go as fast as they develop, one a vinegar-salt formula, the latter a bit bubbly.