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Grape Hyacinth Latin: Muscari armeniacum |
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Written by Gerald Klingaman, ret. Extension Horticulturist U of A
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Sunday, 07 March 2010 00:00 |
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| Grape hyacinth is one of the little bulbs best appreciated in big masses. |
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Gardens are often a kind of controlled chaos. Some gardeners are completely comfortable with the chaos theory of gardening while others reject it; insisting on discipline and order. The former group considers plants like grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) a choice springtime bulb while the latter group thinks of it as a noxious weed.
Grape hyacinths are one of the "minor bulbs" of the bulb trade; so called because they are small in stature, and their sales volume is minute compared to tulips and narcissus. They grow from thumb-sized elongated bulbs that produce offsets freely. In the fall, fleshy, 10-inch long grass-like leaves emerge from the ground and splay out across the ground. If the winter is hard, the foliage will suffer considerably by the time blooms appear in mid spring. By late spring, foliage will disappear.
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Last Updated on Sunday, 07 March 2010 10:38 |
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Yellow Rose of Texas Latin: Kerria japonica |
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Written by Gerald Klingaman, ret. Extension Horticulturist U of A
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Sunday, 07 March 2010 00:00 |
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| Bergenia is one of the plants we wish was well suited in southern gardens, but it struggles with our heat and humidity. |
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Since Dolly made her debut cloning has been much in the news. While cloning is far from the norm in the animal kingdom, it is commonplace amongst plants.
One plant in my garden, Kerria japonica, is a clone that has been handed from gardener to gardener for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. My plant is identical to, and a direct descendant of, the one an unnamed Chinese mandarin first collected from the wild for his own garden in far off China.
Kerria, is sometimes called the "Yellow Rose of Texas," though it is neither a rose nor from Texas. It’s a monotypic species native to China belonging to the rose family and most closely associated with brambles and spireas. It grows as a 6-foot tall deciduous, crown-forming shrub with slender erect-growing bright green branches.
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Last Updated on Sunday, 07 March 2010 10:27 |
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