Purple, upfacing bells for months in mid to late summer
Size: 4-6” x 20” Care: full sun-part shade in moist well-drained soil Native: Northern Yugoslavia Awards: England’s Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit. Top rated for ornamental traits and landscape performance by the Chicago Botanic Garden & Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden Great Plant Pick.
Campanula is Latin meaning “little bell.” In 1629 Parkinson described campanulas as “cherished for the beautie of their flowers.” This species named for one of its discoverers, Franz Edler von Portenschlag-Ledermayer (1772-1822). 1st described inSystema Vegetabilium 5: 93 in 1819. Listed in Sanders’ Flower Garden in 1913.
Buxus microphylla var. koreana syn. B. sinensis var. insularis
Size: 24” x 30” Care: Light to Part shade in well drained, alkaline soil. Do not crowd with other plants, roots prefer no competition. Fertilize regularly for dramatic growth. Prune in early spring. Unlike English boxwood this can be pruned back hard. One of a few shade tolerant evergreens and deer resistant too. Also the most hardy Boxwood.
Introduced from Asia to American and European gardens around 1900 by Ernest Henry “Chinese” Wilson (1876-1930) who scoured Asia for plants.
Platycodon grandiflorus albus Balloon flower Z 4-9
Balloon shaped buds opening to white bells in mid to late summer
Size: 24" x 12" Care: Full sun to part shade in moist well-drained to well-drained soil. Native: Eastern Asia Awards: England's Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit.
Platycodon is Greek from platys meaning “broad” and kodon meaning “bell”, referring to the shape of the flower. Planthunter Robert Fortune found the white form in a nursery near Shanghai and sent it to England in 1845.
Stachys minima syn. Stachys spathulata Dwarf betony Z 5-9
Emerging from a rosette of charming crinkly leaves, spikes of pink-purple trumpets bloom generously from June – July.
Emerging from a rosette of charming crinkly leaves, spikes of pink-purple trumpets bloom generously from June – July.
Size: 2-6” x 15-18” Care: sun to part shade in well-drained to moist well-drained soil Native: South Africa Wildlife Value: Walnut tolerant, deer resistant, hummingbird plant
Stachys is an old Greek word meaning “spike.” This species collected from the wild before 1834.