Sunday, December 07, 2008

Keeping Up With Martha Stewart


It's funny how over the years, the so-called "signature" plant signifying a sophisticated garden keeps changing. I think when my gardening first got to the point where I knew about, and lusted after such things, that the Japanese jack in the pulpit, Arisaema sikokianum was THE plant; now it's practically a blue light special at K-Mart... I had probably a hundred of them from seed, and tried to give one to everybody who visited our garden (I even gave one to the UPS driver who delivers boxes of plants every spring, and instead of taking a bottle of wine to social gatherings with other gardeners, I'd take a couple of sikokianums in full bloom). I just planted another huge seedhead so probably will have a hundred more in a couple of years. I think the double bloodroot came along about then and was hot stuff, then maybe the lovely lilac Glaucidium palmatum from Japanese woodlands. Somewhere in there the yellow ladyslipper orchid also became the holy grail; these beauties have multiplied and been divided in our garden to the point that, during May there's a clump around every corner.
The next plant that was "the one" that I can think of, was the blue corydalis... well, that might still be the one around here, as they all die in the summer heat. It seems like the double Trillium grandiflorum has been gushed over a lot lately. I have been laudably stubborn about getting it, because the price has been quite absurd, but this last spring I picked one up for a relative song. Somehow I don't think I'll be pulling any of these out and throwing them on the compost pile.
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Comments:
This is a nice plant. I also wonder about the double bloodroot that is now occasionally showing up here and there. I got one of those this past spring that never came up. So it goes.
 
Philip... I've got a couple of the double bloodroots; they are really pretty!

don
 
If I had an Arisaema, any Arisaema, in plentiful supply, I would feel rich.
 
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