Balloon shaped buds opening to white bells in mid-summer to early fall.
Size: 24" x 12" Care: Full sun to part shade in moist well-drained soil. Heat and drought tolerant. Deadhead for rebloom. Native: Eastern Asia Wildlife Value: attracts hummingbirds, bees & butterflies 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. Cultivated in China for hundreds of years where it is called Jie-geng. Chinese used the root boiled to cure a chill in the stomach. Mentioned in Man’yoshu, a Japanese anthology of poems written in the 8th century. German botanist Johann Gmelin (1709-1755) collected P. grandiflorus in Siberia in 1754. Gmelin’s Siberian mission, sponsored by Catherine the Great, took 10 years and nearly killed him. Gmelin introduced it to European garden cultivation by 1782. Robert Fortune found the white form in a nursery near Shanghai and sent it to England in 1845.
Limonium minutum Dwarf statice Z 5-9
All summer long, droves of lavender blossoms above a mini pillow of spoon-shaped, glossy foliage.
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.
Pulsatilla vulgaris var. rubra syn. Anemone pulsatilla var. rubra Pasqueflower
Wine-red petals of bell-shape with yellow centers flowers in early spring. Fun, furry foliage
Wine-red petals of bell-shape with yellow centers flowers in early spring. Fun, furry foliage and Medusa-like seed heads.
Size: 12-20” x 4-8” Care: sun in well-drained to moist well-drained soil Native: Europe Wildlife Value: Deer resistant, early pollen source for bees.
Called Pasqueflower because it blooms at Easter time. Variety rubra considered a separate species, not a variety, by Caspar Bauhin in Theatri botanici, 1671. Illustrated in Gerard’s Herball, 1636.