Size: 3” x 24” Care: sun in well-drained soil Native: Europe & Western Asia Size: groundcover, rock garden, herb, fragrant foliage, thyme lawn
Thymus from the Greek word for “odor” due to the plant’s fragrance. Ancient Greeks made incense with thyme. This species since at least 1753. Acc’d to Parkinson in 1640 this remedied hysterics in women. Wm. Robinson wrote,”nothing can be more charming than a sunny bank covered with” Thymus serpyllum. LH Bailey extolled it as “prized as an evergreen edging and as cover for rockwork and waste places …The leaves are sometimes used for seasoning.”
Size: 4” x 4” Care: sun in well-drained to moist well-drained soil Native: Alps & Pyrenees Mountains
Grown in gardens for thousands of years. Sempervivum means “live forever.” Romans planted Hens and chicks on their roofs to ward off lightning. As a succulent it holds water and is probably more difficult to catch fire. “This practice was preserved for historians when Charlemagne (720-814), first Holy Roman Emperor and unifier of a large part of northern Europe, ordered that all villagers within his crown lands plant houseleeks on their roofs, presumably as a safety measure. He decreed: Et ille hortulanus habeat super domum suam Iovis barbam. (And the gardener shall have house-leeks growing on his house. Capitulare de villis, about 795, LXX.)”
Amsonia hubrichtii Thread leaf amsonia, Arkansas amsonia Z 5-8
Powder-blue flowers of terminal clusters in early summer; feathery, thin,”threadleaf” foliage turns caution-sign yellow in fall.
Powder-blue flowers of terminal clusters in early summer; feathery, thin,”threadleaf” foliage turns caution-sign yellow in fall.
Size: 2-3’ x 2-3’ Care: sun to part shade in moist well-drained soil Native: Central-So, US Wildlife Value: attracts butterflies & bees Awards: Plant of Merit, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Gold Medal
Collected in 1940 in Yell County Arkansas along a stream 3 miles west of Birta.
Size: 36” x 12” Care: Sun, well-drained soil Native: Southern Europe
Both the Latin and common names are related to flax. Linaria comes from “linum” which is Greek for “flax” and toadflax includes the word “flax.” The leaves of Linaria purpurea resemble flax leaves. According to 17th century English herbalist, John Parkinson, the plant “causes one to make water.” Grown by English plantsman and explorer, Tradescant the Elder, 1634.