Garden of Plant-ly Delights

I love visiting Plant Delights Nursery, just south of Raleigh, NC, even though my Visa account doesn't care for it at all. Based on Tony Avent's catalog rants about planting "drifts of one" and lack of planning "on paper", you'd expect to find a sort of "plant zoo", and you wouldn't be disappointed. However, as the garden has grown (I've been attending the infrequent open days off and on for the last ten years or so), it's clear that there IS a method to his madness. I usually take tons of close up pictures, mostly to aid in plant identification and to formulate future wish lists, but this time I decided to photograph broad vistas. This can be a little depressing upon returning home to our quarter acre (PDN now encompasses more than 20), and it's a test of my photography skills (or maybe my camera), but it's good for me to remember that even a consummate plant collector does think about design occasionally. Because it was a hot day, I deposited three friends at a movie theater in Raleigh; sadly, summer movies don't tend to be as long as the January Oscar contenders, so my time at Juniper Level Botanic Garden was limited.

I have to apologize that I'm not displaying much creativity in my blog posts lately, but this is taking up prime gardening time, and the summer is beginning to dwindle already!

Above is a spectacular allee of Golden Dawn Redwoods (cv."Ogon", I think?) which flanks a walk just above the relatively new sunken garden (below), built for utilitarian purposes, but functioning artistically as well.

Another planting designed for waste water management is the original bog, which demonstrates sarracenias in their natural habitat, supported, but not overrun, by sedges and other plants. I spend a lot of time weeding among the pitchers of mine, but the symbiotic benefits of leaving a few companions is very much apparent here.

Along the walkway in front of the Avent's house is this mix of tropical and temperate perennials; love the purple phlox growing with the Hymenocallis and Colocasias.

A canna which has been on my "wish list" - a selection of C. iridflora called "Ehemanni". PDN doesn't list it, but I have recently found a couple of sources, so I may have to break down and get one (where is it going?)

I didn't do a great job of showing scale in this picture, but the Agave in the center is easily as large as a Volkswagon Bug.

Sabals and Hedychium in the tropical garden...

I'm not particularly a "maple person" - I like them, but haven't really gotten into growing more than the one I have. This one, however, is incredible.

Lots of humor in this garden, as one would expect from reading the PDN catalog.

This is an enormous clump of Hemiboea subcapitata, a hardy gesneriad which I grow as well, though my clump is nowhere near the size of this.

Crinum test beds and some of the production hoop houses at the rear of the retail area.

Name this plant! Every summer I enjoy seeing it, am confounded by trying to identify it (not everything here is labeled), and forget to ask anybody what it is. My best guess so far is that it's a Schima (wallachii perhaps?), a member of the camellia (tea) family allied to the Gordonias, Franklinias, and Stewartias. Anybody know if that's correct, or of a possible source? PDN has never listed it for sale, and neither does anybody else, from what I can tell (which makes me want one even more...go figure). [Note added 7/17 - According to the folks at PDN, it's Schima argentea.]

This picture speaks to me on so many levels - it might ultimately be the best use for a computer keyboard (inorganic mulch?) The internet has brought me so much information; opened doors to communicating with other gardners, writers, and experts; made available plants I never could have purchased before; and enabled me to chronicle my hobby in ways I never imagined. It has also eaten up hours and hours which I could have spent weeding, pruning, and improving the health and lives of the "inmates" in my own garden. I suspect I'm not alone in feeling this way!