Butterflies and Angels, and Everything Nice

“Well, Grandma always called it a Jumping Jehoshaphat Willy Wally Wamalooma.”  But then, Granny always was pretty imaginative. 

I’ve talked to a whole lot of people about a whole lot of plants, and the resistance to using botanical names of plants never ceases to amaze me- and amuse me.  My favorites were always the ‘Butterfly’ plants.  There are a dozen different variants on the butterfly theme, from weeds to bushes to vines to ‘Swirling Butterflies’.  Selling plants is, in part, a job of translation. 



Asclepias curassavica

 

What’s usually called ‘Butterfly Weed’ is an Asclepias.  Asclepias curassavica is a three to four foot perennial with orangey-red sepals and yellow petals.  The ‘Butterfly’ part of the name comes from the Monarch butterflies that will swarm the plant as they migrate through.  Apparently, Asclepias nectar is pretty sweet and highly addictive. 




Monarch Butterfly on Asclepias, or 'Butterfly Weed', or 'Milkweed', or...



Asclepias also gets called ‘Milkweed’ because of the milky, sticky sap that for many people is an irritant to their skin.  In fact, it’s theorized that the nectar eaten by the Monarch butterflies makes their bodies very bitter, and once a bird tries to eat one, they won’t want another.  That, in turn, inspires copycat butterflies like the Viceroy, which take advantage of the hard work of the Monarch.  They’re the opportunists of the butterfly world. 

Monarch Butterfly



 

Viceroy Butterfly- riding the coat tails of the Monarch

And then there's the Butterfly Bush.  The ‘Butterfly Bush’ I’m familiar with is Buddleia davidii.  It comes in pink, purple, magenta, white, lilac, and probably a dozen more I’ve just never seen.  This plant also makes a flower that drives butterflies a little bit crazy.  Maybe they have sweet tasting flowers, or maybe butterflies just aren’t that picky.

'Nanho Purple' Butterfly Bush driving a butterfly crazy

‘Butterfly Bush’ has eight to fourteen inch bloom clusters of tiny little flowers that can get so big that they make the branch droop.  The bush easily gets five to seven feet tall, and if you deadhead, it will bloom all summer and bring you a lot of butterflies to watch.  ‘Butterfly Bush’ is one of those bloomers that can grab you and drag you across the yard with its fragrance.  Up close, the scent is nearly a sensory overload.  Nerd note: apparently the name most often used is Buddleia, but the actual, correct name is Buddleja.  But to me that "j" just seems wrong.

A plant that doesn’t necessarily have a wonderful scent nor attract butterflies is a rose sometimes called ‘Butterfly Rose’.  This rose is usually sold now as ‘Mutabilis’, but at one time was sold as ‘Tipo Ideale’. 

The name in this case has nothing to do with attracting butterflies.  Instead the blooms, as they change (or mutate) from orange to yellow to pink, look to some people like a bunch of butterflies that have landed on the shrub. Mutabilis is an absolutely awesome rose that blooms heavily in spring and fall and sporadically throughout the summer.  In addition to the butterfly-like flowers, it just makes a great landscape shrub. 

It’s one thing to think of butterflies when you see an especially beautiful flower.  But what about when a flower is just so big, and blooms so enthusiastically that no terrestrial comparison will do?  In that case, you gotta get celestial.  Call it something grandiose, something that verges on the religious.  Something like ‘Angel’s Trumpet’.  The problem is that ‘Angel’s Trumpet’ is such a great name that it’s hard to contain it to just one plant.  There are at least two that commonly get assigned that Heavenly handle.  To be fair, they are similar, and the differences have more to do with their habit than the flowers themselves. 



Datura wrightii



Datura wrightii is being seen more and more as one landscaper after another is seduced by its big, billowy bloom.  And honestly, it’s hard not to be seduced.  Datura flowers open at night, so when the sun comes up they already look like they’ve been hard at work, and they wither by mid-morning.  Datura also sports golf-ball sized, spiny seedpods that are nearly as interesting as the flowers or its nocturnal nature. 

Datura seedpod

So to tally up the attributes of Datura so far, you’ve got a “trumpet” of a flower, you’ve got a plant that gets up to some sort of hijinks at night, and you’ve got a little sea urchin seedpod.  Aside from all of that, Datura is a far-out plant.  There are whole religions built around Datura.  Is that because it’s reminiscent of angelic instruments.  Is it because of the wild flowers?  Maybe partly, but also because it can get you high.  Or kill you. Datura is poisonous, and both shamans and severely misguided teenagers have used it to see visions, or smell colors, or something.  I’ve been told, however, that Datura is poisonous enough that a person’s body will initially reject it.  Apparently, you have to really work at it to ingest Datura.  I didn’t ask my source of this information how he happened to know this.  I just said “Cool, man,” and quickly finished my beer. 

Another ‘Angel’s Trumpet’ is Brugmansia.  Brugmansias, or Brugs as they’re called in gardening forums, also have large trumpet-shaped flowers.  Whereas Datura gets four to five feet tall and wide, Brugmansias just don’t seem to stop growing until they freeze to the ground.  They can easily get seven to nine feet tall.  The flowers on Brugmansia hang down, unlike Datura blooms, so when the bush gets that tall, it’s possible to walk under them and look up into their throats.  And you can see the blooms all day because they won’t close or wither in the morning.  Brugmansia flowers come in yellow, peach, white, salmon, dark peach, dark yellow, and really, really bright white.  There are also a whole slew of double flowering versions.  What there aren’t are any blue or bright red flowering Brugmansias. 



Brugmansia: The other 'Angel's Trumpet'

 There are differing opinions as to whether Brugmansia is poisonous or not, but does it matter?  When it comes to ‘Angel’s Trumpet’: one’s definitely poisonous, the other is probably best left alone anyway.  Again I refer to my cardinal rule: don’t eat your landscape

So the whole troop of ‘butterfly’ plants, the ‘Angel’s Trumpets’, and the ‘Glittery, Sparkly Fairy Wings and Happy Dreams’ plants got their names because they attract butterflies (or angels) or because they look like butterflies or bugles.  And then there are the plants that people name as a way of wistful thinking.  Or clever advertising.  Hence, Lucky Bamboo.

"Lucky (not)Bamboo" 

I’m not going to dispute the lucky part.  Someone once gave me one of these plants and I just don’t have it in me to throw a plant away.  But it never gave me any good luck, as far as I could tell.  But I will dispute the Bamboo part.  It’s not.  It’s Dracaena. 

"Corn Plant"

You know those seven foot tall ‘Corn Plants’ you see in the corners of doctors’ offices?  That’s Dracaena.  It makes a great houseplant, but I’m unclear as to how it gets infused with good luck. 

What’s in a name?  The difference between good luck and not, I guess.  It’s tempting to try to correct anybody who tells you what their granny used to call such and such plant, and maybe it’s even the responsible thing to do.  I don't know.  But when somebody asks you “Is that what Pappy always called a Wizamaroo Tree?”, one option is to just nod and say, “Yep, that’s the one.”  And sell them a Lucky Bamboo.



Kind of Blue

It’s spring time, and looking out across the nursery I can see frothy waves of fresh green, spiced with yellow, orange and red flowers.  Apparently Robin Williams once said “Spring is nature’s way of saying “Let’s Party!”.”  As the new leaves popping out from their dark parent branches gently assault my eyeballs, I totally get what Robin Williams was saying.  Walking through the greenhouses here, it’s easy to get sort of blasé about all the flowers: sure, that’s a nice yellow; okay, that’s a pretty vibrant red, mmm hmm.  And then there’s something like Bicolor Sage.  It has a pow all its own, but in a good way.  And it’s something of a relief after all the fireworks of the reds and yellows, and even pure whites.  Here are some of the best blues for your garden to soothe your senses, maybe while listening to some John Lee Hooker. 

 Oops!  Wait, wait, wait.  I told myself I wasn’t going to do that.  I wasn’t going to do some kind of cheesy “blue flowers/blues music” type of thing.  So here they are, with no distractions: the straight-forward blues.



Bicolor Sage



Bicolor Sage is a low-growing sage with electric blue flowers set against dark bronze foliage.  Either full sun or part shade will keep this salvia blooming throughout the warm season.

The blue blooms of Bicolor Sage are vivid and cool even when no longer on the plant. 

Bicolor Sage blooms on a Datura leaf





Plumbago is a low, mounding shrub with light, clear blue flowers.   

Plumbago auriculata

 Here in Austin it usually stays between one foot and three feet tall.  I’ve heard stories about Plumbago becoming large, six-foot shrubs in San Antonio.

Salvia transylvanica

This salvia gets up to 30 inches tall and 18 inches wide.  It produces light blue flowers as soon as it warms up in the spring, and it will re-bloom if cut back after the first flush.

          

Mealy Blue Sage

Salvia farinacea is one of those workhorses of the garden.  It just keeps going and going.  It needs at least part sun to bloom, but once it does start to bloom, it’s spectacular.  ‘Mealy Blue Sage’ is fairly drought-tolerant. 



Blue Eyed Grass



Syrinchium angustifolium is a short plant that shines up at you in the spring.  It only gets about 10 inches tall, so it would work well in the front of a bed, or even as a border. 

Starry Eyes

Nierembergia gracilis is another low growing perennial that blooms all summer.  It’s drought tolerant to the point of being easily over-watered. 



Shrubby Purple Skullcap



           

Scutellaria wrightii only gets 10 to 12 inches tall by 18 inches wide.  It pretty well covers itself in purple-blue blooms all spring and summer, which stand out against the light grey foliage.  Very drought tolerant, this plant is a good candidate for a xeriscape bed.  Or even a zeroscape bed. 

            



Gregg's Mistflower

This is cocaine for butterflies.  Eupatorium greggii grows quickly up to 24 inches and blooms its crazy head off all summer.  It sports medium sized, pincushion flowers that you may not even see in the spring because they’ll be covered in butterflies. 

          

Po' Lightnin'

Here, with absolutely no reference to ‘the blues’ or ‘feeling blue’, nor any relevance to this blog entry at all, is a picture of a statue of Sam ‘Po Lightnin’ Hopkins, who just happens to have been one of the best blues musicians in Texas. 

Ha.

Nerd!

Keanu Reeves looks like an Asian man, and then he looks like a teenage girl, and then he looks like an older, balding guy in coveralls.  Wearing some kind of outfit that constantly changes the way he appears, he stands in front of a group of civic-minded businessmen and tells them about the dangers of  “substance D”. 

Last night I started to watch A Scanner Darkly, which features a cartoon version of Keanu as a cop in a drug addicted, futuristic society in which nearly everyone is addicted to “substance D”. 

The drug, Keanu claims, comes from a plant he identifies as Clerodendron ugandens, which sounds remarkably like a plant called Clerodendron ugandense, which I have planted by my kitchen door.  I guess I just didn’t realize it was such a dangerous plant.  Then Keanu shows his audience a picture of “Clerodendron ugandens”, and the picture he shows is actually of Plumbago auriculata.  Plumbago is also a pretty flower, but it’s no Clerodendron.  I spent the next 20 minutes thinking about Clerodendron and wondering what else he was going to mis-identify throughout the movie.  And this is the problem with being a plant-nerd.



The dangerous and apparently addictive Clerodendron ugandense



Plumbago auriculata

I am a plant-nerd.  I have been for years.  Moreover, I love being a plant-nerd.  I like being around other plant-nerds.  I like the language (all those obscure Latin names and lanceolate thises and alternate or opposite thatses).  I love how plant-nerds remember places and times by what was either leafing out or blooming.  But there’s a drawback to this hyper-awareness of plants.  The process of plant identification can get in the way of, for example, watching a movie.  And, be warned, it can get annoying to non-plant-nerds.

About fifteen years ago I lived with three other guys while we all went to school.  At some point, a copy of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition showed up, which I guess is not that unusual in a house full of college-age guys.  I remember one of my roommates flipping through it one day and making some comment like “Gee, look at this young woman.  She looks like she comes from a nice family, and she’s probably a great cook as well.”  Granted, my memory of the comment may be a bit fuzzy.  In any case, he turned the magazine my way, and there was this woman in a bikini with a hibiscus behind her.  Fifteen years later, I have no idea is she was a brunette or a blonde.  I don’t remember what the bikini looked like.  I do remember wondering if that was a ‘Lord Baltimore’ hibiscus behind her.  Plant nerdness strikes again.

This is an advertisement for a Crinum called 'Elizabeth Traub'.  Trust me, there's a flower in the picture.

My wife and I decided to watch the original ‘Star Trek’ series.  For over a year we watched Captain Kirk smirk his way across the universe with Spock and Bones.  Whenever they found themselves on Albyron-6 or some such thing, and if it was supposed to be a tropical planet, I was always amazed at the foliage they had to hack through.  Apparently there are a lot of Philodendrons and Pampas Grass in space.  And if it's a really alien planet, the Philodendrons are painted silver.  Consequently, I missed some of the plot lines, though that doesn’t really matter with Star Trek.  Here’s the plot to three-fourths of the Star Trek episodes: the Captain and crew encounter some kind of weird, alien life-form- Spock says “logically”-  Captain Kirk seduces any female alien that looks even remotely human- the entire ship allllllmost either blows up or dissipates into pure energy- Captain Kirk gets a far-off look in his eye and comments that by learning about the aliens, they actually learned about themselves.  Throw in a few Ficus trees, and you’ve got a show. 

The Captain contemplates a dangerous Philodendron.

Pretty much wherever my wife and I go on vacation, we wind up in a plant nursery somewhere, looking past that seasonal annuals or the tomatoes for that plant that we just can’t find around Austin.  This has led to us once carrying a nearly thirty-gallon tree back to Elgin from Medina.  Or holding our luggage in our laps because the back seat was full of perennials.  Or nearly causing a wreck because we’re trying to identify a rose on a fence as we zip past at 70 miles per hour.  Or keeping plastic baggies in our pockets whenever we go on a walk because you just never know when a few errant seeds might happen to fall off a really interesting plant. 

So this is the dark side of plant nerdiness.  Go ahead, put some marigolds in your front bed, or some petunias in a pot.  Those are just gateway plants.  Soon enough you’ll be planning your weekends around whatever is coming into bloom.  Now you’re a plant-nerd. 

Enjoy!

Go, go, go!

No time for a blog this week!

We have trees going to Dallas, Frog Fruit going to San Antonio, Blackfoot Daisies going to Rockport.....

Here comes the San Antonio run.

Walking down the driveway gets bit dicey this time of the year.  You're apt to get splatted on the front of a delivery truck.

...and there it goes. 

Spring Break '11!!

Groundcovers

I’ll start out by saying something that I know will elicit boos and hisses from some sectors: I like St. Augustine grass.  And like the governor of New Jersey, I said it… and I did not vaporize.  I think turf grass has its place, just a very specific, very defined place.  BUT, for those places where turf just isn’t going to work, whether because you want to reduce water usage, or just want something more interesting than a solid green mat, groundcovers are the way to go.  There’s a whole world of ‘em.  And now I’ll say something to make greenskeepers cringe: as much as I like St. Augustine in some places, I generally like groundcovers better. 

Sod has its place

The stuff we all know- Asian Jasmine, Dwarf Mondo Grass, Boston Ivy- are all valuable plants, but just about everything that can be said about those plants has been said, so I’m not going to try to add to it.  Instead, I’ll give you a few ideas of groundcovers that you’re not likely to see, for example, around a college dormitory or a shopping mall parking lot.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that… 

Like anything else in the plant world, groundcovers run the gamut of colors, textures, and sheer, unabated voracity.  There are dainty, ground-hugging species that might surprise you with their tenacity, and there are big, bulky, don’t-stand-still-or-it’ll-swallow-you plants that can be managed with a weed eater. 



Wedelia trilobata



Wedelia is one that walks a fine line.  Wedelia will behave itself to a certain extent, but before you know it, it’s crept over the sidewalk and is dodging in and out of traffic.  With little, bright yellow flowers set off by the dark green, rough textured foliage throughout the warm season, Wedelia is pretty enough that you’ll keep it once you have it.  But as you’re hacking it back in mid-July, you’ll wonder if it was a good idea after all.  It was, it was.  Wedelia is equally happy in full, hot sun or part shade.  It needs plenty of room, but doesn’t need a whole lot of water or attention.  Wedelia will only get six to eight inches tall, but seems endless in its reach.  The tendrils will root wherever they touch the ground, and continue growing from there.  Let it freeze in the winter, cut back the dead vines in the early spring, and get out of the way. 

Sweet Potato Vine 'Marguerite'

Sweet Potato Vine is NOT an ingredient for a Thanksgiving pie.  The name comes from the yam-like tuber that the plant makes underground, given time.  There are three main varieties that you see used in landscapes.  There’s the chartreuse-colored one that’s called ‘Marguerite’ or ‘Margarita’ or ‘Margarite’, and there are two that are so dark purple that they’re almost black: ‘Blackie’ and ‘Ace of Spades’.  ‘Blackie’ has leaves that are deeply lobed, giving it a softer, more airy look.  ‘Ace of Spades’ has more rounded, fuller leaves.  All three grow like mad.  Sweet Potato Vine can take a little bit of shade, but they’re happier in full sun.  They need a bit more water than some other vines, and tend to wilt a little on summer afternoons.  Just give them a little drink, and they perk right back up.  These get ten to twelve inches tall, and can probably reach fifteen or twenty feet.  There are other colors as well, though they’re not as common.



Ceratostigma plumbaginoides



Leadwort looks like a much darker blue, groundcover form of Plumbago.  It’s much more easily controlled than the previous two plants.  Sun or part shade is fine for Leadwort, and it’s pretty drought-tolerant.  It can reach three to five feet. 



Polygonum capitatum



Okay, so, a weed by any other name, right?  Right?  Knotweed is Polygonum capitatum, and Polygonums are hated in some places, and maybe justifiably so.  But Knotweed makes a pretty cool little groundcover in areas where they can really stretch out and fill in all the little nooks and crannies.  Knotweed can take sun or shade, it doesn’t care too much.  The more sun it gets, the darker red the leaves will be.  It makes cute little round, pink blooms that look like little candies.  BUT, (say it with me everybody) DON’T EAT YOUR LANDSCAPE!

Creeping Jenny

Lysimachia, or Creeping Jenny, is a ground-hugging, small-leaved groundcover.  The leaves are a pale yellow, which look good in large areas, or creeping in and around rocks and hanging over the edge of a raised planter.  Creeping Jenny isn’t quite as drought-tolerant as some of the others, and appreciates an occasional watering.  It can take full sun, but will grow faster and won’t wilt as easily with a little afternoon shade.  Lysimachia only gets about a half-inch tall, but with time can cover a three-foot area.



Dichondra argentea



Silver Ponyfoot has little fuzzy, silver leaves that can shimmer somewhat in the sun.  It spreads very quickly and needs very little supplemental water.  It makes a great  groundcover and looks good under Texas Star Hibiscus or red roses like Martha Gonzales. 



Aptenia cordifolia



There are several succulents that will spread out under larger plants or just fill in a space and put on a show all by themselves.  Baby Sun Rose (Aptenia cordifolia) needs very little water, blooms all summer, and the leaves seem to shine in the bright sunlight.  It comes in red, pink, or yellow.  Mexican Sedum (Sedum acre) is covered with bright yellow flowers in the spring, and displays bright green, tiny leaves the rest of the year.  Both of these succulents will quickly spread to fill in a three to five foot area if you let them. 

variegated 'Purple Heart'

Okay, I said I wouldn’t mention the same ‘ol, same ‘ol.  But there is one that I have to bring up: Purple Heart.  Think Purple Heart is boring?  Think it’s overused?  Your grandma had that in her garden?  Maybe, but Grandma didn’t have the variegated version.  It’s just like Purple Heart, but with a pink streak on each leaf.  Unless your Granny is one of those bungee-jumping, purple-haired grannies.  And God bless her if she is. 

A Tale of Two Roses

There’s a picture I first saw probably eighteen years ago, and it has stuck in my memory ever since.  After some internet searching, I found the picture again and tacked it to the wall here at the nursery, where it stayed for about a month, which seems to be the time limit for any picture to stay tacked up there.  Martha Gonzales stands next to ‘Martha Gonzales’.  Martha looks straight at the camera from behind large glasses, her arms straight down at her sides.  ‘Martha’ reaches a couple of branches out from its otherwise compact form.  Martha is wearing a light blue, quilted housecoat and scuffed, serious-looking black shoes.  ‘Martha’ is nestled at the corner of a small house, the small leaves showing up against the weathered white siding.  This is Martha Gonzales, an elderly woman standing in front of her house in Navasota, Texas, and ‘Martha Gonzales’, a tough-as-nails little red China rose.  This is no nonsense.  This is getting stuff done, never mind drought or freeze, or fancy shoes, or regularly applied compost, or newly painted siding. 

Martha Gonzales

Pam Puryear and Joe Woodward were out ‘rose rustling’ in the early eighties and saw the dark red blooms of a sturdy looking, small rosebush, as well as the roses ‘Old Blush’ and ‘Mrs. Dudley Cross’.  The homeowner, Mrs. Gonzales, gave them permission to take cuttings, and over the next year, the merits of  the small red rose became obvious.  When Pam went back a year later, it looked like the house was vacant, the rose was gone, and she assumed Martha Gonzales had passed away.  That was the end of the story for nearly fifteen years, until 1999.  That was when Pam Puryear and the other ‘rose rustlers’ found out, through the granddaughter of Martha Gonzales, that the woman in the picture, the woman who originally gave them the cutting of their hardy little red China rose, was still alive!  She passed away a year later, knowing just how famous that little rose had become.  ‘Martha Gonzales’, found by chance in a yard in Navasota, is now a landscape staple and can be found in yards throughout the South.  This is the kind of history you get with Antique roses. 



'Martha Gonzales'



‘Martha Gonzales’ is listed as being introduced in 1984.  By way of comparison, another rose introduced in 1984 is ‘Dolly Parton’.  ‘Dolly Parton’ was named after Dolly Parton because she’s… Dolly Parton.  That’s the story.  That’s it.  There's nothing more to it.  Well, she did sing a song with Kenny Rogers.  So, there is that. 

Dolly Parton

That’s the beauty of Antique roses.  That, and, you know, their beauty.  Antiques make great landscape elements.  Most of them are full, vigorous shrubs that happen to bloom repeatedly without pruning, fertilizing, or fuss.  But aside from that, they have a back-story.  China roses, for example, have histories that go back at least to the early eighteenth century, when British explorers “found” them in Chinese gardens.  The fact is, Chinese gardeners had been growing those roses for centuries before the explorers showed up.  In fact, there are references to Chinese gardeners growing roses as early as the eleventh century B.C.  But it was nice of them to let the British think they had discovered them, wasn’t it? 

The long history of Antique roses isn’t necessarily just wrapped up in dry stories about international trade and guys with really impressive sideburns sneaking roses out of China.  

Ambrose Burnside and his intimidating chops

These long-lived roses lend themselves to involvement in personal stories, too.  There are stories about people like Pam Puryear, driving past little, overgrown houses in Texas and scanning the yard for roses.  There are stories about roses that were found, lost, and then found again.  There’s my story of how I met my wife at the Antique Rose Emporium.  There are stories about roses surviving the floods of hurricane Katrina.  There’s the story of a woman with a neglected rose, whose picture wound up on a nursery wall thirty years later. 

I went to work for the Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham when I was sixteen, and I’ve had Antique roses around me since then.  Even during my nomadic years, when I lived in various apartments, I always had a couple of Antique roses in pots on the patio.  When my wife and I bought an old farmhouse to fix up, one of the first things we did was plant a ‘Cramoisi Superieur’ rose in the front yard, a rose that she grew from a cutting.  

'Cramoisi Superieur'

I’m sure there are other plants that have this kind of legacy, these kinds of stories, but I’ve just never felt the need to carry, for example, a pansy around with me from one apartment to the next. 

Watch out for the Ice-Sloths

Here are a few pictures of the ice at the nursery from last week.  They seem to divide themselves into two categories.  There are the documentation type of “here’s ice all over our plants” pictures, like these:

And there are the photos that look like they’re from Zorgoth the Ice Planet. 

They don’t really look like anything familiar at all, but it’s nearly impossible to resist taking close-up pictures of the otherworldly ice formations. 

Not only plants froze; our soccer field took a hit, too.

We went a little bit crazy with the picture taking, so there’s a whole file full of ice pictures.  I’ll save those until August, though, when they’ll look even stranger.  As a final note, we cheated when we took our ice pictures.  We left all of our faucets on to keep them from freezing solid, so the water they sprayed out nearly instantly froze when it hit the plants or the ground.  It was cold here, and there was ice from frozen rain, but not nearly as much as these photos would indicate.  They're just nifty pictures.