Echinacea sanguinea, sanguine coneflower

We said goodbye to the last hints of spring this past week.  A cold front brought us mornings in the low fifties with a good breeze.  

Such a cool down is short lived at the end of May in east Texas for this week the heat and humidity have returned.  We have begun the earnest transition to summer.  Many of my spring wildflowers are fading, some all out going dormant and others giving their last hurrah as they produce seed.  I have collected and already sown the progeny of Nemastylis geminiflora (prairie celestial), Callirhoe alcaeoides (poppy mallow), and Marshallia caespitosa (Barbara’s buttons) in hopes of having more next year.

As the summer cast of characters become more prevalent, I find that some like Echinacea sanguinea (sanguine coneflower) still straddle both seasons.  They’ve been blooming now for a few weeks, and as we head into June they are still a lovely site to behold.  

A mass of Echinacea sanguinea grows near Diospyros 'Nikita's Gift' in one of the orchard beds.

I had extra plants of sanguine coneflower and I threw some into the front of the kitchen garden as well.

My plethora of plants all came from seed I collected two years ago.  Near our house there’s a decent stretch where they hug the pine forest edge, and the mowers are late enough to allow the heads to ripen. 

From whence my seed came. Echinacea sanguinea can be found along the roadsides in east Texas. This particular section near our house is quite thick with blooms.

I sowed the seed into trays and planted the plugs last spring.  They petered along as basal rosettes, one here and there trying its best to throw up a flower stalk.  But, this year the display has been spectacular.  

At first the color of the rays is a soft rosy white with the end nearest the disk watercolored with red wine and allowed to bleed down the ligulate petal. But, as they mature over several weeks the white shifts into a myriad of pinks

I love watching sanguine coneflower come into bloom. Often, the ray petals will twist and curl.

The butterflies love them, and standing at a distance I can see a swarm of activity above the blooms.  It’s so much fun to stand and watch all the little creatures with names like Wild Indigo Duskywing, Funereal Duskywing, and Red-banded Hairstreak flying back and forth above the coneflowers like kids darting around the school yard.  I also admire how late in the day the light catches the trichomes on the stems.  The plants glow in the sun with their hairy stems.  Some are prone to flopping late in bloom. My solution is to increase the stress by planting more grasses underneath this fall to wane their vigor.

The beds near the house were planted to be able to interact with light at various times of the day throughout the year. Off on the center right the budded stems of a lone Echinacea sanguinea rises and glows with the trichomes (or what we call hairs).

I want more, and I’ll be collecting seed off them again later in the season.  I learned something new year that will aid in my increasing them.  They propagate readily from root cuttings.  When I pulled a tray up that I overwintered, I found it stuck to the soil and requiring a good yank to remove.  The roots left in the ground soon began producing new shoots, and much to my surprise they are coming into bloom now.  

We won’t likely see temperatures in the fifties for another five or six months, but when cooler weather arrives, I’ll move these propagules to a spot where I’ll be able to enjoy them next summer.  

Rhododendron vaseyi at Southern Highlands Reserve

May brings to mind the flowers of pinkshell azaleas for this time of year is when they reach peak bloom in the mountains of North Carolina. Rhododendron vaseyi is one of our beautiful yet lesser known native Rhododendron. This species was first found by George Vasey in 1878 and is native to only a handful of counties in western North Carolina, perhaps owing its success to slight disturbances from time to time. While not extremely rare, it is considered threatened due to climate change and loss of habitat from development. The good news is even with its limited range, it grows great in gardens where the environment suits it well. And, while I do want to give it a go in Texas one day, I do believe it is better suited to climes further north.

Years ago in grad school before I moved to Texas, I learned of this species, and wanted to see it in the wild. While there are scattered plants along the Blue Ridge Parkway, I had heard that a botanic garden in the southern Appalachians named Southern Highlands Reserve housed one of the largest populations in the world. If you’ve never heard of Southern Highlands Reserve, this garden is a biological ark whose mission is to preserve, educate people about, and propagate the incredible diversity of the southern Appalachians. For on these eroded pinnacles grow species unique to the southeast—some rare, some only occurring in a few counties, and some relics of the last ice age. These mountain tops have been called islands in the sky since they house species that can’t go any lower or higher to avoid a warming climate that is creeping up the slopes.

I arrived after driving a winding road through a private development to find the gardens imbued with spring freshness under a clear, bluebird sky. The tour started in the modern meets rustic Chestnut Lodge where we learned that the 120 acre garden was once slated to become 22 lots for development until Robert and Betty Balentine, who live right across the road, stepped in and decided that they would rather preserve nature than see it destroyed. 

Even though this botanic garden is relatively young having opened in 2006, the unique mission and climate of the gardens has already reached international renown.  And, once outside we saw that even though the landscape had been molded by the hands of man, it looked mature for its age since many large trees remained. On the tour early spring flowering plants like Phlox stolonifera (creeping phlox), Trillium catesbaei (Catesby’s trillium), Podophyllum peltatum (mayapple), and Iris cristata (dwarf crested iris) had begun their spring displays, and perennials in the labyrinth were just starting to emerge.

Phlox stolonifera carpets the ground.

Phlox stolonifera softens the edges of this staircase.

A vibrant pink Trillium catesbaei sports wavy leaves and petals.

Podophyllum peltatum umbrellas rise from the forest floor.

Iris cristata provides a nice footing for emerging Osmundastrum cinnamomeum (cinnamon fern) fiddleheads.

Though only a few years old, the hardscape at Southern Highlands Reserve were already imbued with age.

I loved this carpet of moss with various forbs emerging from it.

The wildflower labyrinth is easy to navigate now before it erupts into an herbaceous maze later in the summer.

It is no surprise that the flora grows well here. This site receives around 90 inches of rain a year, which classifies it as a temperate rainforest! I first learned about this ecosystem in the southeast when I visited Highlands, NC several years ago. There's something about hearing the word rainforest that enchants the mind and conveys something other worldly.

We walked down the Vaseyi trail toward Vaseyi pond where as the website says “the largest known natural stand of Rhododendron vaseyi in the world“ is known to occur, and the pinkshells were just popping into bloom. This part of the preserve was designed by renowned garden designer W. Gary Smith, who has a hand for crafting incredible natural areas. The tour guides noted that specimens in the landscape and around the pond were in peak blossom, but under the deciduous forest canopy, buds had barely begun to pop open, a difference which illustrated something the gardeners monitor. Southern Highlands Reserve compares the phenology in wild and cultivated areas to see if any differences are observed, knowledge which is internal to The Biodiversity Project at the garden. It serves as a catalog to document climate change as well as a comparison for areas that are managed versus allowed to remain natural.

Closeup of the pinkshell rhododendron flowers. Note the id characteristics; most blooms have 5 (to 7) anthers and spots on the upper part of the throat.

A much lighter form of Rhododendron vaseyi…

…and a darker pink Rhododendron vaseyi.

Rhododendron vaseyi on the edge of Vaseyi Pond shimmer in the reflection.

Doing an about face from the pond photo above yields this view. Named the Viewsite, this spot provides a spectacular view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Fothergilla (witch-alder) bloom with their bottlebrush inflorescences near the Viewsite.

We then walked up to their propagation area. This neat staircase was modeled to look like a snake.

Of course, studying the gardens is not the only way they conduct research about the Appalachians. The gardens also propagate species like Picea rubens (red spruce) as part of Southern Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative. This conifer is so threatened in the southern part of its range that spruce-fir forests are the second most endangered ecosystem in the US. The population has suffered from logging, fires that decimated plants 100 years ago, air pollution, and a warming, drying climate. Restoration is compounded by the fact that growth is slower at high elevations. These trees serve as a valuable niche for Carolina northern flying squirrels, a federally endangered species that in this part of the world is a relic of the last ice age. These mammals eat truffles that grow at the base of the trees, and eating male red spruce cones provides the squirrels with an oil that suppresses a parasite they catch from their southern flying squirrel counterparts. The garden reported that they are the only facility in the southeast growing these trees for reintroduction. The tour guides shared that the staff is excited to help plant seedlings into damaged ecosystems.

Picea rubens being grown for reintroduction into the surrounding forests.

Thus, preservation of the land at Southern Highlands Reserve has lead to efforts to save species throughout the Appalachians, and the garden's mission becomes a holistic cycle of protecting things that are beautifully and uniquely southern. May we all share this same spirit of saving what we can while we can.

The Peculiar Pedicularis

It is April, and a myriad of greens have replaced the drab browns outside our kitchen window. It’s a color I haven’t seen in abundance in some time, and my mind’s eye begins to sort them. It’s not just plants, either. Even our driveway sports a verdant color this time of the year with the coating of pine pollen.

In the orchard glaucous-green Baptisia alba shoots pierce from the ground. The ancient water oak on the west corner of our property is clothed in a muddy-green from all the catkins hanging from the branches. There’s the fading red-green of the spring beauties as they wrap up their almost four-month floral display to go dormant again until next year. I also spy the moss-green blades of Leucojum aestivum ‘Gravetye Giant’, dotted with with flowers above the tips.

And, there’s the chartreuse Pedicularis canadensis growing under our large white fringetree. Or, at least it appears chartreuse from this distance. Upon closer inspection, the colors separate out. The bloom is a soft yellow that fades white on the lower lip, and the developing buds are light green. But, from here, the colors in wood betony’s blooms blend together to a hue between yellow and green and together brighten the shade underneath the Chionanthus virginicus. The tree’s swelling buds nearly match the color of the flowers beneath.

In growing it I’ve learned just how interesting this little native is. Last year, the clump only had a few blooms. But, this spring it has started to show off. At first there was one, and then two more, and now I count at least 40 inflorescences on this 2 × 2 foot clump that’s taking hold in the shade. I suppose it is following the perennial rule of leaping in the third year. And, other clumps are beginning to appear nearby. It seems happy, as am I.

The first Pedicularis canadensis I ever saw had more red coloring in the flowers. I’ve since learned their colors can be variable in the wild.

It’s as if the flower is caught in mid twirl and making Pedicularis pinwheels.

For me it brings back memories of visiting Greenbriar campground in the Smoky Mountains. Over the roar of the Little Pigeon River, I had my first encounter with Pedicularis. I crouched to look at these curious red-and-yellow flowers growing on a grassy knoll under the shade of the emerging foliage in the forest above. Looking at it from the top, I noticed how all the flowers have a slight bend to the right and appear as mini pinwheel galaxies held above feathery foliage.

My first encounter with Pedicularis here in east Texas was also in a forest. Or, what used to be a forest. I found a large mass of yellow wood betony alongside a clear cut and decided to save some from their recent introduction to full sun exposure. I’ve learned in transplanting these that they don’t move well as single pieces much like a yarrow or mountain mint would.

No, Pedicularis is best moved in sheets of shoots and roots, perhaps because of its leaching tendencies. A peculiar aspect of this plant is that it is a hemiparasite, as are many other members of the Orobanchaceae family. It not only can photosynthesize but also is able to rob surrounding plant roots of water, nutrients, and possibly even sugars.

In an interesting flip of expectations, research has shown that Pedicularis canadensis actually increases the number of species in prairies. One might think a parasite would cause them to dwindle. However, the theory is that because wood betony is a hemiparasite, it checks the growth of more vigorous competitors like Solidago or grasses on a site and thus allows other species to naturally develop.

One last note on its peculiarity. While I much prefer the common name wood betony for the inflorescence’s similarity to Stachys, it also goes by the name Canadian lousewort. Farmers in Europe thought that Pedicularis in meadows would give sheep lice. The Latin pediculus even means louse.

Well, I can attest that I don’t have lice from growing this wonderful native. No, it’s just a great plant to provide another shade of green in the garden.

Bringing Daffodils In

Last Saturday was one of the rare days I actually donned more layers as morning progressed into afternoon.  Shorts were replaced by pants, then long sleeves went on over the t-shirt, and then I put on a rain jack to shield against the blustery wind, which would soon be accompanied by a cold drizzle.  I was hoping for warmer weather over spring break, but alas, it turned off chilly.

Before heading in, I decided to pick a bucket of daffodils. I never know how they’ll take the freezing temperatures, so I wanted to bring in what I could just in case the next morning they were all frozen and laying on the ground. The forecast for the night showed a low of 28°F, but I knew that we would register even colder. (In hindsight, I was right. I woke the next morning to 23°F.)

Daffodils are some of the first flowers to grace the house in bulk in the new year, and we now have several posies sitting in bottles on a rustic metal tray. Over the past few years, I’ve been accumulating types that grow well here.  Some have come from back roads and old homesteads, others from friends and companies who have promised their success in Zone 8B.  

First is the short, soft yellow Narcissus pseudonarcissus I wrote about recently. More have been opening as the month has progressed.   Also present is Narcissus jonquilla, or jonquil named for the thin, rush-like (Juncus) foliage.  The tiny flowers are incredibly fragrant for their size.  Their offspring Narcissus × odorus sits between the two. It is a vigorous hybrid that wouldn’t win any awards for the frequent misformed corona and odd number of petals, but its heterosis is welcome in my garden. My patch of over 1000 bulbs will bloom for weeks, and the thin foliage isn’t too overbearing in the landscape after flowering.

Narcissus pseudonarcissus

Narcissus × odorus

Narcissus jonquilla

I also have a few selections that do well here in east Texas. One is a lovely Narcissus tazetta, likely ‘Grand Primo’, that sports white petals and golden-colored cups that fade to an off-white (banner photo, second from left).  Like the jonquil, the fragrance is intense. As I sit here writing, I keep catching a whiff of Narcissus, and it’s probably a blend of the jonquils and ‘Grand Primo’. Another selection is the double Narcissus incomparabilis var. plenus, which is also known as “Butter and Eggs” for the scrambled white-and-yellow petals. Their scapes are usually not strong enough for the hefty flowers to be held upright, so it’s worth picking them and putting them in a bottle.

I have two cultivars that are fairly easy to find on the market. ‘Carlton’ features large, bright yellow petals and a similar colored corona, and ‘Ceylon’ has an orange cup perched against warm yellow petals.  ‘Carlton’ has a tendency to flop in rain, so I prefer the more stolid ‘Ceylon’.  The orange is a bit of a challenge to pair with companions in late winter, but I’ve realized they will go well under the ‘Flame’ willows I’m propagating.

Narcissus incomparabilis var. plenus

Narcissus ‘Carlton’

Narcissus ‘Ceylon’

I’m glad the cold forced me to bring them inside. I’m always hesitant to pick some because I know the minute the flower leaves the plant, its demise is only a matter of time. But, I forget how much fun it is to bring the outside in and to have little bottles of sunshine on a gray, dreary day.

Returning to Wild Daffodils

The weather has been volatile this week. It’s the start of the battle between the lions and lambs as spring arrives and the sun warms the northern hemisphere.  I enjoyed sitting on the porch Monday evening in shorts until almost 10 pm, and now we are inside feeding the fireplace on this cold, rain-soaked day.

I feel for the plants that emerge early this time of the year. I seem to forget every spring just how tough they are as they thwart the frosts scattered amongst the warm spells. I suppose these early adopters have lived this life for thousands of years, and I underestimate their perseverance each year.

Take Narcissus pseudonarcissus, for example. On frigid mornings the flowers of wild daffodil kiss the ground, but as the day warms they return more upright to greet the sun.  I’m always tempted to pick the solitary blooms for fear of loosing them to the freeze, but they always surprise me with their toughness.

It was one of the first flowers I learned as a child. I would find them massed in pastures where they served as the only remaining evidence of an old homeplace. Near our house they survived in a fence row alongside a creek, planted long ago when bulldozers had cleared the land. They grew through barbed wire, and it amazed me they had survived all that disturbance. I would pick fistfuls and bring them inside to enjoy.

I don’t think I appreciated them in my youth enough.  When planting garden beds, I overlooked their use and moved on to the more flashy hybrids. But, after a few years, the cultivars petered out, and the wild daffodils continued to shine.

A naturalized colony of Narcissus pseudonarcissus grows near an abandoned house in east Texas. How long ago were the first bulbs planted?

In Texas the heat limits our options for spring bulbs much more than my previous haunts north, and I find myself returning to these species types that will grow and bloom here.

Growing them in my garden I’ve been able to get to know them even better than in my youth. I’ll say for years pseudonarcissus always threw me for a loop.  How could it be a false Narcissus?  But, I learned that the epithet refers to it being a false poet’s Narcissus, the smaller cupped form that blooms later.  

I do hate it when the epithet is so bland. Why not name it after the flowers? They are so charming and smell sweet. I love when they emerge and brighten the dingy detritus of the garden beds. The six light yellow petals has a slight twist, and they serve as a nice back drop to the darker yellow corona. And, I find myself admiring the skirt of blue-gray green foliage below the blooms.  I’ve been tucking some in around Eryngium yuccifolium and Rudbeckia maxima to echo their glaucous color.  The later emerging foliage of wild daffodil isn’t seared like many of the flagrant blades of the paperwhite types whose foliage appears in late fall, and the leaves are less conspicuous than many of the modern varieties after flowering. 

For me in Tennessee they lived up to their other common name Lent lily by blooming during that season, but often in Texas they start before Ash Wednesday. There have been years I’ve noted them flowering in the last days of January. However, this winter, they’ve been much later due to our La Niña induced dry spell.  The ones close to the house with no tree root competition have just started flowering good while the plants further back near trees are barely poking through the soil.  

I took advantage of the latter’s delayed emergence this week by digging a few clumps of wild daffodils to divide and replant in the front of my garden patch. I set them a bit higher than they were, and firmed the soil in around them. And, now the rain pitter-patter I hear above the crackling of one of the last fires of winter is settling them in so they can produce flowers for many years to come.

Magnolia 'Susan', Just One of the Girls

Midwinter has arrived, and from the emerging Narcissus to the early slivers of buds swelling on trees, it is good to see more color manifesting in the landscape.  

Over the past month I’ve also spied Magnolia popping out of buds around town, especially the starry blooms of Magnolia stellata.  However, most show some burn as they’ve had a roller coaster ride through temperatures this winter.  They’ve gotten mixed signals from an extremely warm fall followed by a sudden drop to 22°F on January 2. But, my ‘Susan’ has had a decent show of late. The warmth the past few days has coaxed the flowers further into bloom.

As the flowers of ‘Susan’ open, they have a bit of a twist to the petals.

When we bought our house, I counted myself fortunate to have three Magnolia on the property.  There were two large 30-to-40 foot tall Magnolia grandiflora out front, and off in the side yard was a shrubby deciduous Magnolia I couldn’t immediately identify in mid-summer.  

The following late winter when it bloomed, I was rewarded with rich deep pink flowers.  I posted photos online, and Greg Paige and Barry Yinger helped me identify it as ‘Susan’, one of the Little Girl hybrids that came from breeding work at the US National Arboretum (USNA).  Key features that helped them key out this cultivar were the presence of 6 (rarely 7) tepals per bloom, each having a slight twist.

The “girls” were bred to develop selections that would bloom a little later than Magnolia stellata and miss the early frosts that plague many of these early magnolias.  According to Dorothy Callaway in The World of Magnolias, four of the Little Girl hybrids come from the breeding work of USNA horticulturist William Kosar.  In 1956 he fertilized Magnolia lilliflora ‘Nigra’ with pollen from Magnolia stellata ‘Rosea’.  This cross resulted in not only my ‘Susan’, which was named after the director of the arboretum’s daughter, but also ‘Betty’, ‘Jane’, and ‘Pinky’.  The other four girls (‘Ann’, ‘Judy’, ‘Randy’, and ‘Ricki’) were from breeding work done earlier by Dr. Francis deVos.

‘Susan’ is an award-winning plant; Andrew Bunting wrote in The Plant Lover’s Guide to Magnolias that she won the RHS Award of Garden Merit in 1993. This cultivar has a shrubby habit similar to Magnolia stellata. Ours is not much over 10 feet tall and approximately as wide; however, one that I saw at the Scott Arboretum in 2014 was at least 15—20 feet tall and had a much wider spread. I see the benefit of using ‘Susan’ in smaller landscapes.  The plant grows lush in the spring and is enjoyed by not only me, but the blasted white-tailed buck that decided to use a side stem as an antler rub.  It is healing well from that injury.  And, I never irrigate ‘Susan’, and yet she keeps blooming and thriving year after year.

A mature ‘Susan’ Magnolia at The Scott Arboretum in full bloom in mid-April.

Buds emerge fairly dark, almost a black-purple but lighten to a vivid pink when coming into bloom, and there is a gradient of lightening color as one follows a tepal toward the outside of the flower. Acclimated buds survived two nights of 19°F and 20°F last week and have begun to bloom in earnest the past few days celebrating the arrival of midwinter.  Of course the running joke is that it coming into full bloom is a sign that another freeze is upon us.  I’m sure it’s about as accurate as the groundhog seeing its shadow, but coincidentally, we will be in the low 20’s the next few nights with the cold front that moved through yesterday.  

Nevertheless, I still love having magnolias like ‘Susan’ in the landscape for the good years when they liven the bleak midwinter with their brilliant color. For now, I have just one of the girls, but seeing how well ‘Susan’ has done, I can’t wait to add more of them to our garden. 

Our ‘Susan’ has a ways to grow before it reaches the size of the one at The Scott Arboretum, but I enjoy its show each spring.

The Winter Foliage of Parlin's Pussytoes

We had a hard freeze while we were traveling for the holidays.  The weather station at the airport registered 22F on January 2.  Collards, mustards, kales, even winter weeds like chickweed I found blistered upon our return.  Normally, these plants can survive low temperatures, but they had not acclimated because for weeks we were in the 60’s or 70’s each day.  Even Christmas eve was 80F. 

But, this week feels like winter.  There’s a persistent chill in the morning air that hasn’t been there that I feel now.  The growing season has ended, though some late season perennials were waiting forever for their closing call. And, in their absence, I see so much I didn’t see before.

Verdant basal growth becomes apparent through the remaining tattered brown stalks and duff as I walk through the garden.  Many perennial species have foliage that hugs the ground during winter that then shoots forth an inflorescence.  They are not dormant.  No, they are bidding their time, accumulating what little sunlight they can muster for when the days warm and they can rise from the ground.  

There’s the web-like foliage of Viola pedata gearing up for flowering.  I even saw a lone bloom on one the other day.  I’m surprised how large the foliage of Delphinium carolinianum already is.  It seems to have thrived with the warmth, but winter did nip the new growth a bit.  Even Callirhoe alcaeoides has emerged from dormancy and is readying its green palms for the coming spring.

One plant that I’ve become quite fond of for its winter basal foliage is Antennaria parlinii.  At first I was curious if Parlin’s pussytoes would knit together to cover the ground well since my transplants seemed patchy. But, now in its third year, the silver foliage has grown into a circular patch that is three feet wide.  The foliage is robust and has a thick feel as many polyploid plants do. It has six sets of chromosomes, likely from outcrossing with other species over the eons.  As the plant creeps out slowly via stolons that begin to emerge at this time of the year, I find it helpful to throw some fine mulch down on the edges and brush it in between the foliage to further discourage weeds ahead of the advancing front.  It seems to thrive as it grows and spreads out through the light organic matter.  

The winter foliage of Antennaria parlinii grows around a lone, tattered Carex glaucodea in the top left. It may not look much to some, but with the dearth of plants in winter, I welcome the green groundcover. If you look closely you see threads of Nothoscordum bivalve emerging and even an early Trillium!

I can’t let you get away without seeing the sweet, dainty flowers of Antennaria parlinii. These will rise in a few months with the arrival of spring.

With all this winter basal foliage, I can see spring even though it is officially two months away. The flower show of Claytonia virginica is crescendoing, and the last of my Narcissus to emerge are pushing up foliage.  I hear the American Robins sing again in the mornings, their sweet song.  It won’t be long now.