#173 26 August 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. The weather has been brutal lately, but some plants like Passiflora ‘Incense’ are still surviving. Read on to learn more about this passionflower.

  2. I loved seeing these habitat piles on Gardenista. Whether a stack or some logs neatly arranged, it’s clever use of woody waste in the garden.

  3. The NY Times discussed the pros and cons of tiny forests in a recent article.

  4. A lawn at King's College Chapel at the University of Cambridge that dated back to before the Revolutionary War was replaced with wildflowers in 2019, which led to a plethora of other organisms living in the space.

  5. This week at Ephemera Farm, I’m sowing calendula seed. This herb is a delightful autumn flower for us in the deep south. The petals are edible, and they can be used in cut flower arrangements. Sometimes if the weather is not too harsh, they can actually overwinter.

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

#172 12 August 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. I write about enjoying peaches this week as our fruit trees are starting to bear. There’s a recipe in the piece I share for a delicious peach cobbler.

  2. A few Emmenopterys henryi (emmenopterys) are flowering in the northeast this summer. One is in bloom for the first time at The Scott Arboretum, and I heard from a colleague that trees at Chanticleer and Chestnut Hill are in bud. It is a rare tree to see in cultivation, has sporadic bloom years, and only first bloomed in the US in 1994!

  3. Margaret Roach had a wonderful interview with the folks at Phyto Studio in the NY Times. I loved the inclusive language used in the article and the passion for using more plants. A favorite quote from Thomas Rainer—“Introduce an element of hedonism to ecology — you don’t have to suffer or be puritanical to be good. Embrace the pleasure.”

  4. This week starts the Great Southeast Pollinator Census. While it is only for Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, it doesn’t mean you can’t get out with friends or kids and try to identify the creatures in your garden now! iNaturalist is a great app I use when I find a new insect I don’t recognize on a plant.

  5. This week at Ephemera Farm, I’ve been dragging hoses around. It has been quite dry here in east Texas and up in the midwest. I find that turning a hose on a slow trickle and putting it near the base of a newly planted tree or shrub for about an hour once a week helps it make it through dry spells. An alarm on my phone helps me remember when to move it. If you’re struggling also, here’s some more advice from Colorado State and the University of California.

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

#171 05 August 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. This month, I welcome Molly Hendry onto The Plantastic Podcast. Molly is a landscape architect and garden designer. Prior to venturing out on her own, she worked for five years as Associate Director of Gardens Support for the Friends of Birmingham Botanical Gardens, and she was a Garden Club of America / Royal Horticultural Society's Interchange Fellow. Molly is one of the most eloquent and kind hearted horticulturists I’ve chatted with. In this episode we talk about the stories gardens tell, how design is like the book Salt Fat Acid Heat, and how writing helps gardeners think. Enjoy the show!

  2. The Guardian featured a piece on creating a garden from rubble materials of gravel and sand.

  3. The Perennial Plant of the Year for 2024 is Phlox paniculata ‘Jeana’ (phlox), and it is a stellar choice. The pink flowers are a bit smaller than typically observed for the species, but their density is a beacon to many insects. If you’d like to buy a promotional shirt, there’s four days left.

  4. Ann Amato shared some of her favorite plants of the month recently on her blog. That Lonicera ciliosa (orange honeysuckle) is a beaut.

  5. This week at Ephemera Farm, I’ve been pruning some of the new growth on our grapes. I found this video from the RHS useful on tips for pruning grapes later in the growing season.

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

#170 29 July 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. This week, I write about an incredible afternoon we had visiting Dan Pearson and Huw Morgan at their private garden Hillside last July while in England. The post is packed with incredible pictures, and it is valuable in thinking through how they have relaxed the land and welcomed nature into their gardens.

  2. Jenny Price Nelson wrote about her recent attendance at the Great Dixter symposium and their passion for educating children about plants.

  3. New research has identified a gene that causes apple branches to have a weeping architecture. I didn’t realize it, but apple tree branches that grow downward, whether due to genetics or weighing them down, have higher yield.

  4. The high pressure over Texas has kept us dry for the past several weeks. I started looking for more drought-tolerant trees and found this nice overview from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

  5. This week at Ephemera Farm, I’ve been working on getting my fall seed orders together for cool season plants. A few reliable cultivars I grow are ‘Purple Haze’ carrot, ‘Black Magic’ kale, and ‘PLS 141’ peas. Oh, and Floret Farm is launching their fall seed order on August 1 for those of us eager to get our hands on sweet peas.

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

#169 15 July 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well.

Karen and I are thrilled to announce that we’ve added a new gardener to our family. Magnolia May Barnes was born July 14, 2023. Mama and baby are both healthy and doing well.

As always, thanks for welcoming me into your inbox each week to share what I’m learning about plants (and, some family highlights along the way!). I’ll be back next week with more plantastic content.

Cheers, and keep growing!

Dr. Jared

#168 08 July 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. For this month’s episode of The Plantastic Podcast, I interview Matt Biggs, author of 15 gardening books including his latest one A Plant for Every Home. Matt’s passion for plants and people really shines. We talk about his time at Kew, lessons and stories from great botanists and gardeners, and the wonders of the botanical world.

  2. Margaret Roach wrote this week about Stoneleigh and their use of native plants at this beautiful formal estate.

  3. NY Times also had a nice piece this past week about how corporate landscaping is getting wilder.

  4. Mark Dwyer shared his admiration of Callirhoe involucrata (winecups) in Nursery Management.

  5. This week at Ephemera Farm, our squash are blooming well. I love watching the bees work the flowers in the morning. I get questions every year about why cucurbits are blooming but not producing fruit. Squash and other relatives like zucchini, pumpkins, watermelons, and cucumbers have both male and female flowers on the same plant. So, a female flower that has a baby fruit at the base needs a male open the same day for a chance at fruit set, and then it needs 5 to 10 bee visits on average. Often, gardeners see flowers, but there are usually more male blooms than female blooms. Here’s a nice overview about squash pollination from Farms at Work.

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

#167 01 July 2023

Good day, gardeners, and an early Happy 4th of July to those of you in the US!

I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. This week, I share part 2 of our visit to Oudolf Field, and in this piece I focus more on the beautiful plants in this design.

  2. Eric Hsu wrote about the overlooked Crinum bulbispermum (Orange river lily) on Plinth et al. It sounds like it’s easy to propagate from seed, too.

  3. A new native cane bamboo was identified in Alabama! Arundinaria alabamensis (Tallapoosa Cane) occurs in eight populations in the state. It’s a pretty neat discovery for those who like using native grasses.

  4. I found a nice guide to Texas wildflowers this week. It shares not only popular flowers seen on the roadside but favorite drives to see them, too.

  5. This week at Ephemera Farm, I’ve been struggling with Genista caterpillar on my Baptisia plants. They are bad about defoliating them very quickly! Fortunately, spraying Bt is a control option if you are having issues, too.

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

#166 24 June 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. A special welcome to those who signed up after my webinar this past Wednesday with the Collin County Master Gardeners. The coordinators and I were thrilled to see almost 400 people registered!

Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. The sun has reached its zenith in the sky, and that means it’s time to enjoy the blooms of American basketflowers. Read on to learn about their arrival and their untimely departure.

  2. Gardens Illustrated featured the incredible work of Peter Korn growing in sand.

  3. Jenny Price Nelson wrote about the caretakers of the Lurie Garden in this recent piece on GardenRant.

  4. The arrival of summer and the return of shortening days is a good reminder for me give last chops to many of our perennials like asters or mums to reduce their biomass as we head toward autumn. Jenk’s Farmer covered this topic in a recent post on the Chelsea Chop.

  5. And, for something light hearted, here’s a field guide to identifying wildflowers at 70 mph. Thanks to Amanda Spangler for reminding me about this gem.

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

#165 17 June 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. Last summer, we spent a few hours at Hauser & Wirth Somerset enjoying Oudolf Field. Read on to discover what I learned from seeing Piet Oudolf’s work at Durslade Farm.

  2. To kick off the summer solstice, on Wednesday, June 21 at 11:00 am central time, I’ll be giving a free webinar as part of the Collin County Master Gardeners Summer Speaker Series. I’ll be talking about my travels around the US and the world and ideas and plants you can use in your garden. This webinar is free, but preregistration is required using this link. I hope you can join!

  3. It is National Pollinator Week, and you can check out their website for activities, resources, and more to help celebrate the little creatures that also enjoy our plants!

  4. Floret Farm is offering a free summer mini course on growing, harvesting, and arranging cut flowers.

  5. I have finally found a grape that will do well for us in the southeast with limited spraying. It’s ‘Champanel’, a hybrid between the native Vitis × champinii (Champin’s grape) and ‘Worden’, a selection of ‘Concord’. This week at Ephemera Farm, the fruit are just starting to ripen. It is Pierce’s disease resistant, seedless, and supposedly makes a good jelly, though I can only vouch for eating them right off the vine for now! The only issue I’ve had are grape leaf folder moths eating a bit on the leaves.

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

#164 10 June 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. This week, I write about enjoying Phlox drummondii (annual Phlox) in a Texas (mini) Superbloom.

  2. James Golden asked the question on A View from Federal Twist why you see so few Stewartia malacodendron (silky stewartia) in the trade. It’s a great native small tree that grows from Virginia to here in Texas.

  3. Here’s a cool research project where they simulated an asteroid extinction event to see how ferns responded afterwards.

  4. The American Gardener had an article on creating colorful container plantings for many parts of the country.

  5. This week at Ephemera Farm, our blackberries are ripening, and we are using them to make a delicious cobbler. I got a question recently about the differences between primocanes (the new shoots being produced) and floricanes (canes produced last year that bear flowers and fruit this year). Here’s a nice guide on pruning them.

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

#163 03 June 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. This month on The Plantastic Podcast, I interview one of my long-time friends Leslie Halleck. As far as horticulturists go, she is da bomb and a jill-of-all-trades. Her accolades include scientist, artist, book author, online educator, keynote speaker, consultant, trial garden manager, garden center manager, and more. This episode is spectacular and we go deep on a variety of topics including vernalization, running your own horticulture business, and absolving green guilt from killing plants. Enjoy the show!

  2. Bye bye, Benthamidia and Swida, and hello, again Cornus! Recent research from The American Journal of Botany has shown that the dogwoods likely comprise one genus instead of needing to be split up into multiple genera.

  3. Northwind Perennial Farm shared a video of Austin Eischeid sharing thoughts about a shade garden he designed. He gave good advice about covering the ground with Carex (sedge) and other groundcover species and what species work for shade. Be sure to check out the description section for book recommendations, too.

  4. The Chelsea Flower Show just wrapped up, and you can view the gardens and awards on the RHS’s website. Sarah Price’s Nurture Landscapes Garden was one of my favorites from the photos colleagues posted.

  5. This week at Ephemera Farm, we’ve been enjoying the sky-blue flowers of Delphinium carolinianum (Carolina larkspur). It’s a great ruderal to add to your plantings.

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

#162 27 May 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. I write about our recent trek back to Arkansas this month to see wildflowers in the diamond state this week. For some plants, they were my first encounters in the wild!

  2. I was asked a question this week about apples in Alaska, and honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever considered plants that are hardy to Zone 2! I found a helpful link on recommended varieties in case someone is looking for some hardier cultivars.

  3. Margaret Roach interviewed Piet Oudolf in the NY Times on his new book Piet Oudolf at Work. I have used a new feature to gift the article to you readers, so I hope it is not behind a paywall for you.

  4. I found an incredible 90+ page document this week from the Xerces Society on Native Thistles: A Conservation Practitioner’s Guide. While I realize that thistles are a spiny subject, they are great native plants for insects, and this document details everything from ecology to propagation. If you want to learn more about this groups of plants, I hope this’ll be a useful thistle guide!

  5. A friend gave me a sprig of an Aristolochia tomentosa (Dutchman’s pipe) this week, and I planted it by our fence here at Ephemera Farm. I’m most excited about welcoming pipevine swallowtail larvae (and more swallowtails!) to the garden. My friend Josh Coceano wrote about them a few years ago on The Scott Arboretum’s blog.

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

#161 20 May 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. This week, I share some photos of the spring color we’ve been enjoying here at Ephemera Farm.

  2. In Rebecca McMackin’s recent newsletter, she shared garden designs on Wild Ones website. There’s plantings and plant lists for cities all across the country.

  3. I learned a new word recently, endocormic. It was used in this fascinating article in Arnoldia to describe roots that grow in the inside trunk of a tree where decomposed matter can be found.

  4. I found a treasure trove of a thesis this week—Adaptations of Southeastern Piedmont Prairie Species: New Paradigms for Designing and Planting in the Context of Public Spaces. Authored by James Ryals, it’s a great synthesis and application of naturalistic planting design for the southeast, and there’s wonderful appendices at the end for everything from species habitat requirements to plant form to color and plant function.

  5. This week in the garden, I learned to be careful pruning figs. I unknowingly got sap on my arm, and the next day, the quarter-sized spot became red and swollen due to phytophotodermatitis. According to this site, other species that can cause phytophotodermatitis on skin contact include dill, fennel, parsley, parsnip, celery, limes, lemon, mustard, and buttercup. And, from previous experience, I’ll add rue in there, too. I’m fine, but it is a good lesson to share with readers!

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

#160 13 May 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. For this month’s episode of The Plantastic Podcast I speak with Ann Amato, a propagation expert from the Pacific Northwest. We had an engaging conversation about how she found her way into horticulture, how plants were a solace during an illness, how she was bequeathed the title Seedstress, and more. If you enjoy starting your own seeds or want to know more about the process, you’ll really get a lot from this episode.

  2. A tree in Chile could rival the bristlecone pine Methuselah for the oldest tree in the world. A large specimen of Fitzroya cupressoides (Patagonian cypress) is believed to be over 5,000 years old!

  3. If you need a good laugh, check out this Apple Rankings website. The descriptions on ‘Red Delicious’ and ‘Arkansas Black’ are a hoot.

  4. I stumbled upon this Arkansas Milkweeds presentation by Theo Witsell looking for native southern species. It’s a nice overview of many Asclepias that grow well for us in the south and eastern US, and the presentation features plants that Monarchs favor as they return south.

  5. This week at Ephemera Farm, we’ve worked on staking our tomatoes using the basket weave system. It’s a simple approach using stakes and twine to keep the plants vertical.

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

#159 29 April 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. This week, I share about my struggles and final success of growing Streptanthus maculatus (clasping jewelflower).

  2. I’m thrilled to see that James Golden is resurrecting his blog the View from Federal Twist. He posted a slew of photos from the garden in a recent post.

  3. I went on a deep dive looking for information about the southern bumblebee and found this beautifully illustrated and information rich guide Bee Basics: An Introduction to Our Native Bees.

  4. One year ago today, Thomas Rainer and I travelled to Arkansas in search of Amsonia hubrichtii (Arkansas bluestar) in the wild. You can read a recap of our adventures in part 1 and part 2.

  5. This week at Ephemera Farm, we’re rearing Monarch larvae in a cage! Last year, we had issues with the protozoa OE or Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, and I found this presentation helpful to make sure that we keep our cage as clean as possible.

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

#158 22 April 2023

Good day, gardeners, and happy Earth Day weekend! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. This week has been a doozy wrapping up the semester, so plant•ed is a bit shorter this week. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. The NY Times had a great piece on nurturing nature, and they turned to Rebecca McMackin for some practical, easy-to-implement advice.

  2. Tim Boland, director of the Polly Hill Arboretum, wrote an ode to oaks about how they have enriched his life and all the life they 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

#157 15 April 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. Arnoglossum plantagineum (prairie Indian plantain) is a wonderful primary plant to use in spring planting for fast impact. Read on to learn more about this stylish native perennial.

  2. I’m fascinated by coppicing and how species like Corylus (hazel) are used to generate straight stems. Here’s a thread from a gentleman I follow on Twitter talking about his process.

  3. Colorado State University shared the results of a three-year perennial trial this week, and nine cultivars were top-rated.

  4. We were honored to have Pam Penick of Austin, TX visit Ephemera Farm this week. She writes a regular blog on gardening in the southwest.

  5. This week, we’ve been seeing Ruby-throated Hummingbirds on a more regular basis. We’ve had our feeders out for a bit now and delight in seeing them flit around the flowers. Here’s a handy map for tracking their migration, and the US Forest Service shared some species to plant to help to attract them.

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

#156 08 April 2023

Good day, gardeners, and Happy Easter weekend! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. This month, I interview public garden rockstar Greg Paige on The Plantastic Podcast. He has a storied life in horticulture having worked at seven different botanic gardens, including his current job as Director of Horticulture at the JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, NC. We talk about all kinds of goodies on this episode from the impact of books on his life, lessons learned working at so many different institutions, systems and processes he uses to be a better horticulturist, and more. Enjoy the show!

  2. Allen Bush waxed about the wonder of daffodils in a recent post on GardenRant.

  3. I enjoyed reading this piece on Country Roads that celebrates the lives of Malcolm Vidrine and Charles Allen and their efforts to restore and share the history of cajun prairies in the deep south.

  4. Here’s an update on the release of Spathius galinae wasps to counter emerald ash borer. There’s evidence that the wasps are starting to reproduce and spread in nature while having no impact on native insects.

  5. This week, some colleagues and I went botanizing to see the flora that inhabits a barren and a bog in east Texas. I wrote about such a trip a few years ago on the blog. These habitats are special because they help me better understand how to use plants in the landscape, and since the sites are at both extremes of hydric and xeric, they demonstrate the resiliency of plants.

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

#155 01 April 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. This week, I write about spotting a lavender haze of Glandularia canadensis (rose vervain) on a nearby hillside and the joy that this spring perennial brings me.

  2. Izel Plants featured a great post on the wonderful Amsonia hubrichtii (Arkansas bluestar). I appreciate the plant•ed shout out where they shared my trip last spring searching for Amsonia hubrichtii in Arkansas (part 1 and part 2).

  3. Ben Probert asked the question on GardenRant are ornamental plants just for the rich? I don’t believe so, but seems like some people may think that.

  4. Thanks to Dr. Andy Pulte for sharing this article about Sybil Gorby who has saved tomato seed off the same heirloom plant since 1965! (Note, you may have to create an account to read it.)

  5. This week in the garden, I was delighted to learn that Viola pedata (bird’s foot violet) can be propagated by root cuttings! I happened upon this discovery when I accidently uprooted what I thought was a seedling, but it had a long root attached to it. Armadillos had disturbed this area last spring, and the damaged roots had produced new shoots. While this knowledge isn’t new to the world of horticulture, it was a fun discovery for me!

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

#154 25 March 2023

Good day, gardeners! I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and well. My apologies for it being a few days late. This past week has been crazy as we hosted 3,600 high school students on Monday for FFA contests on campus, and last week and this weekend my time was spent prepping and setting up.

But, on to regularly scheduled plant awesomeness! Here’s some knowledge and inspiration I wanted to share with you.

  1. This week, I reflect on the freeze warning we experienced last weekend, and I provide some tips to help you weather cold weather.

  2. Michael Dosmann and Elizabeth Thomas wrote in Arnoldia about their collections of the recently named Hypericum swinkianum (Swink’s St. John’s wort). I need to add the sentence, “What happens when you give them some horticulture?” to my vernacular.

  3. Researchers in HortScience published the results of a trial of 26 yellow-flowered Magnolia cultivars where they evaluated plants for growth habit and powdery mildew. There’s also a nice table that shows each cultivar’s parentage.

  4. I found myself enchanted this week by these wildflower photos of southern Transylvania in Romania.

  5. This week in the garden, Polystichum acrostichoides (Christmas ferns), Osmundastrum cinnamomeum (cinnamon ferns), and Osmunda regalis (royal ferns) are unfurling their fronds. If you want to propagate more, this guide from Bill Cullina provides some nice details for taking them from spores to mature plants.

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