After my last post about growing beautiful black bamboo indoors, I thought that I would keep a sort of theme going today and write about a stunning new nearly-black Delphinium that Wayside Gardens is featuring this year. Our Delphinium elatum ‘chocolate’ is absolutely unlike any Delphinium that I’ve ever seen. From several feet away, it’s flowers look to have petals of the deepest, richest black. When examined more closely, though, you discover a variety of colors on one flower. From the bright lime-green at the base of the petals, it quickly darkens to the deep purple that dominates the flower. It also has white flecks and slight pink spots. It is a far cry from the more traditional Delphiniums, such as the popular Delphinium ‘blue lace’. It is also more heat-tolerant (hardy all the way from Zone 3 to Zone 10) and blooms earlier, but is no less attractive to butterflies. Unlike most butterfly-attracting flowers, with Delphiniums you don’t have to sacrifice beauty of your flowers to bring in butterflies, which is a big part of why they’re so popular every year.
I'm very excited about my next houseplant project. This year Wayside Gardens has one of the most stunning and hard-to-find bamboo varieties you'll ever see, Phyllostachys nigra. It is a deeply colored black bamboo, and I've always heard that it makes an excellent large indoor plant. I've got a perfect spot for it this year, left empty when I finally planted my container-bound Japanese maple tree outside.
Black bamboo is a great choice for indoor planting for a few reasons. Most obviously, the dark culms are very dramatic and interesting. It is a relatively slow-growing bamboo, so it requires less pruning and thinning to keep it looking wonderful. It is also a larger bamboo than most varieties commonly grown indoors, so it will grow taller and with a straighter upright habit, which is great for a very impressive effect and can give an entire room, even a large room, an amazing exotic feel. I'm hoping that, as it gains height, it will draw the eyes upward and emphasize the tall ceilings in my living room. Of course, as with any large houseplant, it can dominate a small room, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. This bamboo in a smaller room could create a wonderful meditative feel of being in a perfectly calm outdoor temple somewhere in China.
Bamboo is never a houseplant requiring no care at all, but it is a relatively easy plant to care for. It is important whenever growing bamboo indoors to keep it trimmed, but with taller varieties, such as Phyllostachys nigra, it is especially important to keep it from overgrowing the ceiling. Trim the tops of the culms (they're technically not "canes" until after they've been cut) just above a high branch. This pruning shouldn't harm the plant at all. You'll also want to thin it, cutting off most of the smaller new shoots and culms at the soil, especially once the plant is well-established (though you'll probably want to keep some of them, as the green of the new shoots looks wonderful against the black of the older culms). Trim the branches from the lower third or so of each culm to emphasize the shape and wonderful ebony color of the bamboo, and prune the branches above that to the second or third branching.
If black bamboo indoors isn't for you, keep in mind that it thrives in zones six to nine, and makes a fantastic privacy or border plant, or it can just be grown as an interesting grove. It is one of the best bamboos for landscaping not only for its beauty but also because it is a less invasive variety of bamboo, requiring less work to keep.
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When you’re blogging about gardening, there is often a tendency to
write about what you’re doing now. This means that we’re talking about new planting in the Spring, conserving water and weeding in the Summer, planting tulip bulbs in the Autumn, and cleaning up the yard in the Winter. While that stuff is all great, sometimes we just want to talk about what is actually going on in our gardens, especially what’s currently in bloom. When it comes down to it, gardening bloggers are gardeners first, and so we love to brag.
Winter is always tough on gardeners, as our supply of color in the garden is so much more limited than in the rest of the year. Fortunately for me, I live in Greenwood, South Carolina, and we get some great winter color down here. I’ve been enjoying my Helleborus niger, which has been giving me blooms for almost two weeks now. I still find myself envious, though, of my boss’s Camellias. He came into a meeting yesterday and announced that his wonderful hedge of Camellias is now in full bloom. My envy is not without product, though. I’ll be planting a small hedge of Camellia ‘Yuletide’ this Spring (Not, of course, because I want to
have earlier blooms than my boss next year. Well, not just because I want to beat out his Camellias.). Which, of course, brings me to the "what I’m doing" side
of things. If you want winter color, than now is the time to be planning what you’ll plant this spring and fall for next winter. It is far easier to plan for the current season, as you’re able to see the lines of your garden, the position of the sun, and all of those other things that go into great seasonal garden design. Of course, it’s not yet time to plant winter bloomers, such as Camellias or Helleborus, but if you plan now and order soon, you should be able to get them happily in the ground this spring to have maximum growth by next winter.