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.
Campanula portenschlagiana Dalmatian bellflower Z 4-8
Purple, upfacing bells for months in mid to late summer
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
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.
Amsonia hubrichtii Thread leaf amsonia Z 5-8
Blue spring flowers, feathery green summer foliage and golden fall color
An erect, clump-forming plant that is primarily grown for its blue spring flowers, feathery green summer foliage and golden fall color. Powdery blue, 1/2″ star-like flowers appear in late spring atop stems rising to 3′ tall.
Size: 2-3’ x 2-3’ Care: full sun to part shade in well-drained soil Native: Ouachita Mountains in central Arkansas.
First recorded in the 1770s as A. angustifolia, but later named Hubricht’s Amsonia, after Leslie Hubricht, an American biologist who re-discovered it in the 1940s.