Good day, gardeners, and happy first week of autumn! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.
This week, I write about the harbinger of autumn, Lycoris radiata. It’s a great bulb for reliable color in early autumn, and if you can find 500 bulbs like I did, it’s even more spectacular.
A new subscriber found the blog by looking up perfoliate leaves like those found on Lonicera sempervirens (coral honeysuckle) or Silphium perfoliatum (cup plant). And, since I just taught about them in class a few weeks ago, I had to do a deep dive on theories about why they evolved. The two most prominent are they either help reduce herbivory or they help pollinators find the flowers.
The NY Times has a great article about an alternative lawns project at Cornell University. They used Danthonia (oatgrass) and various wildflowers to create attractive plantings. It’s a gift article, so let me know if there’s any issues with accessing it.
On GardenRant, Susan Harris wrote about visiting Ed Snodgrass and his green roof farm. It’s been 10 years since I last visited, but it is great to see his approaches to stressing plantings for increased diversity.
This week at Ephemera Farm, I put up my pea trellising. I’ve come up with a nifty way to quickly erect a structure for their support.
As always, thanks for welcoming me into your inbox each week to share what I’m learning about plants.
Cheers, and keep growing!
Dr. Jared