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.
Helleborus niger Christmas rose, Black hellebore Z 5-8 POISON
Outfacing, white, waxy cup-shaped flowers resembling single roses in late winter, evergreen leaves.
Outfacing, white, waxy cup-shaped flowers resembling single roses in late winter, evergreen leaves.
Size: 12-20” x 12” Care: part shade in moist well-drained soil Native: rocky places in Europe Awards: Received Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit.
The name Helleborus is Greek from hellein meaning “to kill” and bora meaning “food” referring to the plant’s poisonous qualities if placed in food. This species is ancient – known as long ago as 300 BC in Greece where it “purged and cured the mad or melancholicke daughters of Praetus with the roots thereof.” (Parkinson, 1629) Grown in the Eichstätt Garden, the garden of Johann Konrad von Gemmingen, prince bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria, c. 1600. In Middle Ages petals thrown on floor to drive out evil and ward off power of witches. English herbalist John Gerard (1545-1612) strangely recommended it for curing poisoned animals. Sorcerers made themselves invisible by tossing the powdered plant in the air.
Limonium minutum Dwarf statice Z 5-9
All summer long, droves of lavender blossoms above a mini pillow of spoon-shaped, glossy foliage.
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.” This species named for one of its discoverers, Franz Edler von Portenschlag-Ledermayer (1772-1822). 1st described in Systema Vegetabilium 5: 93 in 1819