I get a lot of questions from customers asking about unique and interesting blooms.  A lot of gardeners love to have centerpiece flowers that really draw the eye and make you want to lean in for a better look.  My first responses are usually flowering vines, particularly Passion Vine and various Clematis varieties.

Of course, despite my great love for them, climbers are not always the right solution.  Another of my favorite blooms that is both really unique and that you don’t see in a lot of gardens is Tricertys, common name Toad Lily.  The blooms of the Toad Lily are absolutely fascinating, and really invite you to stop, come closer, and give them a nice long inspection.  They do well in full and part shade, which brings out the texture and form of the flowers and lending a certain air of mystery to the rich colors.  We chose the Tricertys ‘Raspberry Mousse’ for inclusion in our catalog because its very nearly solid coloring (unusual among Toad Lilies) really brings out the best qualities of the almost alien form of these small blooms.  The flowers are small; just about an inch across, but they bloom all along the stems, so the size only serves to make them all the more interesting.  If you’re looking for a truly unique flower to star in your shady garden, you really can’t do any better than this Toad Lily.

In honor of Earth Day, I thought that I would write a post today about something that you can do to help the environment.  In recent years it has become more and more common for regular folks to keep plants in an effort to produce oxygen and sequester CO2.  It only makes sense, then, that we would want plants that does this most efficiently.  For reducing your carbon footprint, you just can’t beat bamboo.  Recent studies have shown that it produces 35% more oxygen than an equivalent amount of trees, and sequesters as much as 5 times the carbon.  It also grows very quickly, so your plants start to make a real difference almost right away.  Of course, it also helps that bamboo is beautiful and low-maintenance.  Most bamboos also adapt well for growing in containers.

One of the best things about growing bamboo is that there are so many varieties available.  With more than 1500 known species of bamboo, there is almost certainly one for you.  Some of these species that are available are really interesting and unique.  I’ve already mentioned on this blog that I have a great fondness for Black Bamboo, but we recently made available the amazing Candy-Cane Bamboo, Himalayacalamus falconeri, and it’s competing for my heart.  The culms of this interesting bamboo are striped randomly with vivid colors: dark green, red, yellow, and pink.  If left to grow as high as it likes, the culms will reach between 20 and 30 feet tall, but it’s a true clumping bamboo, so you don’t need to worry about it spreading out of control.

The weather has been going a little crazy the last few years, and each year it seems that more and more of the country is affected by drought conditions.  It’s no surprise, then, that drought landscaping (sometimes called xeriscaping) is becoming a hot topic.  There are a lot of easy things you can do in your garden to conserve water.  A rain barrel under your house gutters is an obvious solution, and one that’s becoming more and more popular (I’ll be installing a 55-gallon barrel at my parents’ house tomorrow).  Putting down a thick layer of mulch can help a lot of plants to retain moisture.  Many landscapers are recommending less grass, most types of which require a tremendous amount of water.  In the place of grass natural areas and planting beds are taking over.

Possibly the best way to save water with little effort is by choosing your plants with water conservation in mind.  Many slower-growing perennials need much less water, and can give you just as much beauty.  There are also a huge variety of drought-tolerant plants available that, once established, will do wonderfully with almost no irrigation.

Of course, true xeriscaping requires a great deal more than just putting in some drought tolerant plants.  The most advanced xeriscaping efforts require rethinking the entire landscaping from the bottom up, using specialty grasses, carefully built gradients to channel water in the appropriate ways, and careful balancing of shade and sun.  You don’t, however, have to be an advanced xeriscaper to get real water-saving benefits from your garden this year.

This is one of my very favorite times of the year.  Everything is really starting to come out here in South Carolina.  We've got White Dogwoods blooming strongly right now, and, of course, one of my favorite blooms of the year is out in force right now: Wisteria.  Around here we have Wisteria growing everywhere.  It peeks out from somewhere in almost every yard, it seems, and many of the pine groves around town have at least some of the amethyst or lilac-blue blooms on almost every tree.  Wisteria hangs off of trees all up and down the streets in the older parts of town, and sometimes a strong wind will dislodge small showers of the small purple petals.  The Wisteria bloom gets started across town, usually over the course of just a couple of weeks, just when the weather really starts to turn for the better.  The first few picnics and hikes of the spring are usually accompanied by Wisteria in Greenwood.  Growing Wisteria is probably a tradition around here because in large part because it's so easy, but it certainly doesn't hurt that it means amazing purple against the bright green of new tree growth just when we're most ready for lots of flowers,  after the Daffodils have stopped blooming.  Either way, I'm glad for it.

I was just looking around over in our Wayside Gardens Garden Center, and I happened upon some fantastic Sweetshrub.  I asked one of our helpful Master Gardeners about the plant, and she told me that it’s x Sinocalycalycanthus ‘Hartlage Wine,’ a crossbreed of Chinese Sweetshrub and our native Carolina Allspice.  All of these shrubs are descended from a single plant bred at the Raulston Arboretum in the early 1990’s.  The plant is named "Hartlage" after the undergraduate student, Richard Hartlage, who was in charge of the experiment ("Wine" comes from the blossom color).  It really is a rare find, because it is a hybrid with all of the best traits of both stock plants from which it was bred.  Like the Carolina Allspice, it is a hardy, vigorous shrub, but it has the large blooms and leaves of the Chinese Sweetshrub.  The buds that start to come out in spring burst into large, brilliant red blooms that will be the envy of your neighborhood, especially against the backdrop of the shrub’s lovely glossy foliage.  That foliage changes to a soft yellow in fall, which can be almost as beautiful as the flowers themselves.  Plus, because it’s an unusual shrub, you’ll most likely be the first on your block to have one!

After years of badly wanting to go, I finally got a chance to attend the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C.  We left on a last-minute (and poorly-planned) whim Friday evening and returned Sunday night.  We were extremely fortunate to have had a free weekend just when the blooms were at their peak, and it was absolutely amazing.  It’s kind of hard to imagine without being there, but for a few days out of the year, a huge portion of our Nation’s capital turns pale pink.  Hundreds of thousands of people come to the festival each year (more than a million by some estimates).

The Japanese Cherry Trees (Sakura trees) in Washington were a gift in 1912 from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to celebrate the friendship between Japan and the United States.  The initial gift was of around 3000 trees and was reciprocated a few years later with a gift of flowering dogwood trees.  The festival was first held in 1935, but it was suspended just a few years later during World War II.  It was restarted in 1947, once America’s relationship with Japan had improved.  More trees were given to the US in 1965.  The US was able to return the favor in 1981, when a flood destroyed many of Japan’s Yoshino Cherry Trees.  Cuttings were taken from the cherry trees in Washington and taken back to be planted in Japan.  These Cherry Trees are an important symbol of femininity, beauty, and the fleeting nature of life in Japanese culture.  They are not, however, fruit trees, as are the Cherry trees that most Americans think of.

The festival is absolutely amazing.  Not only were the cherry trees in full bloom, but so were the daffodils, some of the tulips, magnolia trees, and apple trees.  While it rained all weekend here at our home in Hodges, South Carolina, it was a beautiful weekend in Washington.  It was a little overcast, but the bluer light just highlighted the sea of white and pink blossoms surrounding the entire tidal basin.  I’ve never seen so many kites as there were flying above the Mall.  While we didn’t have much time to visit the museums, spending a beautiful day walking around Washington in the peak of the Cherry Blossoms just can’t be beat.  I’m putting a few of the pictures I took up here on the blog.  Be kind, though; I’m a writer, not a photographer!