Six on Saturday #70 (April 23, 2022)

Now that spring is well under way, it is a little easier to find interesting pictures for a Six on Saturday post. Here are five from the outdoor garden and one from the greenhouse.

1. Trillium grandiflorum (great white trillium)

Trilliums are, notoriously, very slow to grow from seed or from rhizome divisions. It seems that someone must have mastered the procedure on a commercial scale, though, because mass produced rhizomes have started showing up in garden centers beside the spring bulbs. The packages come from the Netherlands, which probably precludes the possibility that they are wild-collected. I have tried boxes from Durham Garden Center and Costco which both claimed to contain Trillium grandiflorum (white) and Trillium erectum (red). The packages from Costco actually contained Trillium luteum and a red-flowered sessile species, but the box from Durham Garden Center seems to be correct.

2. Trillum luteum (yellow trillium)

I planted this species in 2010 or 2011 and featured it once before in 2018. In rich soil, it would probably be a large clump by now. In very poor dry soil under pine and oak trees, it only has two stems, but they return faithfully every spring. Since it spends much of the year hidden under ground, I have left a small eastern red cedar seedling to help mark its location.

3. Clematis ochroleuca (curlyheads)

I could have sworn that I had already shown this native plant, but I can’t find it in a search of the blog. In any case, C. ochroleuca, is somewhat unusual for a Clematis, growing as a clump of short, upright stems rather than as a vine. The small flowers and fuzzy stems have a certain understated elegance, but it is the seeds, which look like heads of curly golden hair, that are the main reason for giving it space in the perennial border. I’ll have to remember to photograph them later this year.

4. Taraxacum pseudoroseum (pink dandelion)

I wanted to grow some dandelions intentionally for chicken treats and occasional salad greens , and I thought that this would be more interesting than the standard yellow flowers that pop up in the lawn. So far, the pink color has been very faint, most noticeable when the flower first opens, but I think the overall effect is very attractive. My wife has included a second species, Taraxacum albidum (Japanese white dandelion) in her seed trays this year, and the first two seedlings were visible this morning.

5. Tulipa linifolia

After several years of testing, I am convinced that a number of the smaller tulip species (Tulipa clusiana, T. whittalii, T. sylvestris, and T. linifolia) grow well in our climate. Unfortunately, rodents love to eat the bulbs, and this year about 90% of my tulips vanished. There was a concomitant increase in the number of pine vole tunnels in the flowerbeds, so I am fairly sure who the culprits are. The survivors, like this T. linifolia, are the ones that were planted in soil amended with permatill or in naturally gravelly soil.

6. Columnea schiedeana

Columnea schiedeana is an epiphytic gesneriad from Mexico. The hummingbird-pollinated flowers have fairly standard shape for a Columnea, but the color is amazing–each one looks hand-painted.

The Propagator is the host of Six on Saturday. Head over there to see his Six for this week and find links to the blogs of other participants.

Six on Saturday #66 (May 22, 2021)

After one of the mildest and wettest winters on record, we have had one of the driest springs. This week, the switch flipped to “summer” and with the increasing heat and humidity, we can perhaps hope for a thunderstorm or two.

Here is some of what is growing and flowering in the greenhouse and garden this week.

1. Medinilla ‘Royal Intenz’

Beautiful plant, silly name. This new cultivar is apparently a hybrid, but it’s not clear what species are in its background. Definitely Medinilla magnifica, because M. ‘Royal Intenz’ looks rather like a very intensely colored, compact M. magnifica. The abstract of the plant patent simply refers to its parents by ID number, not species or cultivar names, and there doesn’t seem to be any way for me to find out exactly what I am growing. It’s somewhat annoying.

In any event, M. magnifica and related species–and by extension M. ‘Royal Intenz’–are epiphytic shrubs from the Philippines which adapt well to cultivation in a warm greenhouse or bright, humid windowsill. Logee’s offered M. ‘Royal Intenz’ briefly last year, and I’m glad I got an order in before they sold out.

I’m starting to see some fungal spotting on the foliage, perhaps due to water dripping from overhead Nepenthes plants. I think it’s time to move it to a brighter and drier spot in the greenhouse, or perhaps outside for the summer.

2. Pearcea rhodotricha

Pearcea rhodotricha is a gesneriad from Ecuador with flowers that are probably the closest that I have ever seen to true black. Adding to its overall bizarre appearance, the stems and undersides of the leaves are densely covered with red hairs (hence “rhodotricha”) not unlike those of a tarantula.

3. Corytoplectus cutucuensis

Another Ecuadorean gesneriad, Corytoplectus cutucuensis has insignificant yellowish flowers. It’s the shiny black berries, sitting within long-lasting red bracts, and the beautifully variegated foliage that make it worth growing. Both this species and the previous are easy to grow from cuttings and appreciate a shady humid environment.

4. Encyclia Gail Nakagaki

Encyclia Gail Nakagaki is Encyclia cordigera x Encyclia alata (see below), and you can clearly see its parentage in its flowers. E. cordigera var. rosea gives the beautiful purple color and hooked tepals while E. alata contributes the striped lip and pale tepal bases. The fragrance of this orchid hybrid is fantastic.

An old photo of an Encyclia alata in my collection

5. Tradescantia ‘Osprey’ (hybrid spiderwort)

I suppose I ought to have at least one outdoor flower in my Six. ‘Osprey’ is a Tradescantia x Andersonia cultivar, but its pastel flowers are much more restful than the hot color of ‘Sweet Kate’ or ‘Concord Grape’ (see photos 2 and 3 of Six on Saturday #44). For some reason, it isn’t readily available at local nurseries, and I had to mail order this plant. It has doubled its size in a year, so maybe it will be large enough to divide and spread around the garden this autumn.

6. Ipomoea batatis (sweet potato)

Slips from some ‘Beauregard’ sweet potatoes that we grew last year are almost ready for planting. Once the slips are about four inches long, I break them off the tuber and put them in a jar of water. They root in a few days. I only sprouted a couple of tubers for fun, but now I wish I had started more. For some reason, I haven’t been able to find slips in local garden centers yet this year.

The Propagator is the host of Six on Saturday.  Head over there to see his Six for this week and find links to the blogs of other participants.

Six on Saturday #64 (March 13, 2021)

What a difference a few weeks makes. This week has been brightly sunny, and the high temperature was about 80 F (26.5 C). The spring bulbs and hellebores are nearing their peak, the garden is perfumed by Edgeworthia chrysantha, Lonicera fragrantissima, and Osmanthus fragrans, and the fence lizards are skittering about in the leaf litter.

1. Cypripedium formosanum (Formosan lady’s slipper orchid)

After three years, my C. formosanum is still going strong. I think this year’s flower is the nicest so far. The plant is in an 8-inch diameter pot with a mix of composted wood chips, peat, and stalite. It lives outside under shade cloth in summer and spends the winter on the floor of the greenhouse, near the cold draught from the imperfectly sealed swamp cooler.

2. Hellebore flowers

The pure white flowers at center left and 5 o’clock are Helleborus niger. The large reddish flower at 10 o’clock is Helleborus x iburgensis ‘Anna’s Red’. The others are all seed-grown Helleborus x hybridus.

3. Narcissus ‘Odoratus’

This is a dwarf tazetta Narcissus. According to various web sources, it was discovered somewhere on the Isles of Scilly by the horticulturalist Alec Gray. To my nose it is only faintly fragrant, despite the cultivar name.

4. Narcissus x odorus (Campernelle)

Narcissus x odorus is a centuries-old hybrid of N. jonquilla x N. pseudonarcissus. It has been grown in North Carolina since the colonial period. The blue-green foliage in the foreground is Tulipa clusiana var. chrysantha (see photo 2 here).

5. Cackleberries

The tiny dinosaurs have started laying, and between the five of them, we are averaging about four eggs a day! The very pale blue-gray eggses are from Hühnchen and Kuritsa. Dark brown with darker speckles is from Pollo, large brown from Kylling, and small, light brown from Frango.

6. Vegetable seedlings

I handle the ornamental perennials, but vegetables are my wife’s domain–she’ll have more than a dozen different varieties of Asian greens and kale, along with tomatoes, malabar spinach, spigariello, lettuce, and a few annual flowers ready to plant out next month. The glow from her new LED grow lights makes our house look like something out of “The Amityville Horror” at night, but the seedlings seem to love it.

The Propagator is the host of Six on Saturday.  Head over there to see his Six for this week and find links to the blogs of other participants.

Six on Saturday #52 (March 21, 2020)

For this week’s Six on Saturday, we are out of the garden and visiting the Eno River Confluence Natural Area.  The Eno River is one of the gems of this part of North Carolina.  A small river, little more than a large stream for much of its 40-mile course through Orange and Durham counties, it flows through the town of Hillsborough and city of Durham before merging with the Flat and Little Rivers to form the Neuse River.  The Eno is home to several rare species that are endemic to the Neuse River basin, and it has been aggressively protected since the late 1960s by the Eno River Association.  The Confluence Natural Area is a piece of protected land in Orange County that includes the spot where the East and West forks of the Eno flow together to form the Eno River proper.  It was opened to the public relatively recently, and this was our first visit.

When my family and I visited, we were the only people on the 200-acre preserve, so I guess that covered social distancing requirements.

1.  The Confluence

This is the point at which east fork (left) and west fork (right) merge to form the Eno (center).

2.  Plethodon cylindraceus (white-spotted slimy salamander)

The kids couldn’t resist lifting a cover board that had probably been laid down for some herpetology classes.  They found a handsome pair of slimy salamanders.  To avoid crushing the salamanders, we gently moved them, laid the board back down, and then allowed the salamanders to climb underneath again.

3. Claytonia virginica (Virginia springbeauty)

A variety of spring ephemeral wildflowers were in bloom on the wooded slopes and rich bottomland along the riverbanks.  In North Carolina, C. virginica is a true piedmont native.  It is absent from most of the coastal plain and from the mountains, where it is replaced by Claytonia caroliniana.

4. Cardamine concatenata (cutleaf toothwort; crow’s toes)

I just love the name “crow’s toes.”

5. Stellaria pubera (star chickweed)

In addition to these three wildflowers, we also saw Hepatica americana (round-lobed Hepatica), Anemonella thalictroides (rue anemone), Sanguinaria canadensis (bloodroot), and Lindera benzoin (spicebush)  in bloom.  Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) leaves were up, but the buds aren’t yet open.

6. Tree “footprint”

The heavy piedmont clay holds together so well, that the imprint of a large tree, including tunnels left by its roots, is still clearly visible after all the wood has rotted away.  The “footprint” is slowly being covered by invasive Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica).

The propagator is the host of Six on Saturday.  Head over there to see his Six and find links to the blogs of other participants.

Woodland orchids

At the south end of my garden is a roughly rectangular flowerbed, approximately 15 x 22 ft (4.5 x 6.7 m), shaded by a mature dogwood tree (Cornus florida). The dogwood bed catches rainwater running off the lawn, so unlike most of the shaded areas in the garden, the soil is fairly moist. It has also been enriched with organic material, the legacy my past attempts to grow vegetables there (hint: veggies don’t grow well in shade). About four years ago, I started turning the dogwood bed into a shade garden planted primarily with woodland perennials from North America and those regions of Asia that have a climate similar to the piedmont. Pride of place in my somewhat haphazard planting scheme goes to orchids, most of which bloom in spring.

Calanthe

Chinese, Korean, and Japanese members of the genus Calanthe are some of the best orchids for shady piedmont gardens. They have beautiful flowers, tolerate transplanting well, and although they prefer moist, well drained soil, they are remarkably drought resistant when necessary. Their new growth is somewhat tender, but they do not seem to be as badly damaged by late frost as some other Asian orchids such as Bletilla striata.

Hardy Calanthe species and hybrids are rarely offered by specialist orchid nurseries, but they are sometimes sold by nurseries specializing in woodland perennials. I have planted four species (C. striata, C. tricarinata, C. discolor, and C. reflexa) and two hybrids (C. Takane and C. ‘Kojima Red’). C. tricarinata is currently in bud, and C. reflexa blooms later in the summer. The other plants are all flowering now.

Calanthe discolor

Calanthe discolor is generally considered one of the hardiest Calanthe species. Its natural range includes Hokkaido, the northernmost Japanese prefecture, and it is often rated for growing in USDA zone 6. It’s not a particularly colorful orchid, but it has a neat and tidy appearance. My plant, purchased from Montrose Garden, has pale green sepals and petals, but dark brown clones perhaps offer better contrast with the white lip. When dumped out of its pot, the plant fell apart into several divisions. I planted them separately, and they are multiplying rapidly, with each division producing several new pseudobulbs.

I really like the Japanese name for C. discolor: ebine, “shrimp root.”

Calanthe striata

I previously featured C. striata under its synonym C. sieboldii. C. kawakamii is also considered a synonym for this species, although the Taiwanese plants with that label may prove to be less hardy than the Japanese plants labeled C. sieboldii.

C. striata is a significantly larger plant than C. discolor, with many-flowered inflorescences standing ~22 inches (56 cm) high. It has proven very vigorous in my garden; the plant had two inflorescences in spring 2017 and six this year.

Calanthe Takane

Calanthe Takane, the hybrid of C. discolor and C. striata occurs naturally in Japan and has also been produced in cultivation. It is intermediate in size between its two parents and variable in color. I really like this clone with its yellow lip from C. striata and its sepals and petals darkened to orange by the influence of C. discolor. C. Takane supposedly benefits from hybrid vigor, but my plant produces a single new growth each year and shows no inclination to multiply like its parent species.

Calanthe ‘Kojima Red’

‘Kojima Red’ seems to be an informal name, not a registered grex. Its parentage includes Calanthe discolor, C. striata, C. tricarinata, and C. aristulifera. Although richly colored, the flowers are barely the size of C. discolor.  I think I prefer the species and C. Takane.

Update, May 11, 2019:

Calanthe tricarinata

In flower and plant size, Calanthe tricarinata is roughly equivalent to C. discolor and ‘Kojima Red’.  The flowers nod, so a viewer mostly sees their backs.   I have to tilt them up to get a good look at the lip.  The flower supposedly resembles a monkey’s face.  I can’t see it..

Cypripedium

North Carolina is home to about 70 orchid species and natural hybrids, but most of the really attractive plants grow in sunny habitat in the mountains or coastal plain. The majority of orchids in the piedmont woods have little whitish or greenish flowers that would only appeal to a confirmed orchidoholic. The exceptions are our two native lady’s slipper orchids, Cypripedium acaule (pink lady’s slipper, moccasin flower) and Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens (large yellow lady’s slipper). I have previously discussed the wild populations of these species that grow nearby.

C. acaule is notoriously difficult to transplant and grow in the garden long-term, but C. parviflorum var. pubescens is generally considered to be one of the easiest lady’s slippers to cultivate. For years, I have itched to add one of the latter to my garden. Last autumn I splurged and bought a blooming-size plant.

Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens

I expected to get a single-growth division that might give me one flower this year. Instead, the plant has produced five flowers on four new growths. I’m not sure if I’ll be able keep it going long term–a potential complication is that although the species is native to the NC piedmont, most of the plants in cultivation probably originate from more northern populations–but the size and vigor of this particular plant surely gives me a head start.

Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens

This actually isn’t my first attempt to grow C. parviflorum. Long, long ago, when I lived in Michigan, I kept a seedling of Cypripedium parviflorum var. makasin in a pot on my windowsill. This northern variety did remarkably well in the relatively cool climate of Ann Arbor, steadily increasing in size and reliably producing small but highly fragrant flowers.  Unfortunately, it really did not appreciate the move from Michigan to North Carolina. One hot summer it went dormant early and never sprouted the next spring.

My late, lamented Cypripedium parviflorum var makasin in 2001.  I loved the dark, corkscrew petals, and it was ideal for growing in a small pot. The flower’s pouch was only about the size of my thumbnail.

About fifteen years later, I’m trying another Cypripedium species in a pot:  the Taiwanese Cypripedium formosanum.

Cypripedium formosanum

I originally planned to plant this C. formosanum in the dogwood bed, but several sources suggested that it has a tendency to start growing in late winter and is badly damaged by frost. I decided it would be safest to grow it in a pot, at least until it is large enough to divide, even though it may be tricky to keep the roots cool in mid-summer.