Mulberry Woods Native Plant Nursery Newsletter
October 2010
Volume 1, Number 1.
Clematis virginiana and Dry Humor
Gentle Readers: Twenty eight consecutive days without rain, one half inch of precip. in the last fifty. Last significant rainfall: August. It helps that gardeners and growers of plants are optimistic by nature. Either that, or just plain deluded.
However, when the old gardening cliche "laughs at drought" comes to mind, I can think only of one plant (other than cacti): the native vine Clematis virginiana. I don't believe that it actually enjoys drought, but it doesn't seem to be particularly bothered by it, either. Even in the middle of this, the third drought year out of the past four, the vine has bloomed and made seed like it was just another normal year. And that is without receiving one drop of supplementary water.
Clematis virginiana grows natively all over the Eastern US and into adjacent Canada. It has been called a "rampant grower" and various other hurtful names by snooty garden writers, as if near perfect adaptation to its environment presents a problem. But these days, anything that grows and blooms without help deserves one of my two favorite pet names: low maintenance, or better yet, no maintenance. In our experience the plant grows slowly for a year or two, then shoots up like a rocket to about twenty feet, covering everything it can grab onto. (Hint: Don't plant anything on your house that will eat it.)
But Clematis virginiana is not at all an eater of houses. After the flush of youth is over, the plant begins to die back and settles down into a much more sedate middle age--somewhat like yours truly. Here it may in fact require some maintenance: you need to clip off all of its old dead parts, if you want it to be nice and tidy. Of course planted along an out of the way fence or wall, or rambling among the shrubs, no one is likely to even notice it--except when it absolutely buries itself with white blooms toward the end of August, just when everything else is dried up and otherwise shriveled to bits. One of our vines bloomed right through the drought and heat wave of August 2007, without any water whatsoever. Surely a performance deserving of an award.
And we have Clematis virginiana in stock! These are all decent size plants, and the one gallon plants should grow and bloom like crazy next summer. Four and one-half inch pots are $5.95, and one gallon plants are $9.95, with shipping of course added to both. The gallon sizes, alas, may need pruning to fit into a box, as some of the vines are approaching the four feet long mark. Our order form can be printed from the website, and you can see pictures of the plant in bloom.
Production Notes
And speaking of drought tolerant, an enterprising University researcher "broke the code" on germination of the spectacular yellow flowering Southwestern desert columbine species Aquilegia chrysantha. We followed the instructions and can report that, wow, does it ever work. We have gone from having a few of these plants to sell, to by next year having a couple of hundred. That is, if they survive the chipmunks and the swamp rabbits.
Aquilegia chrysantha grows well here at the nursery, even competing with the native red columbine for Garden Domination. It forms a thick tap root like Silene stellata and other sandy soil plants--our biggest six year old stock plant has a crown over an inch across. And besides being awe inspiring in bloom, it also self sows modestly. Perennial plant gardeners may recognize this plant as one of the parents of the McKanna's Giant hybrids.
Incredibly Strange but Disturbingly True Garden Stories
And now time for the first installment of a regular feature, some odd gardening stories from around the world. If you have read this far, you probably have some more time to waste on the internets.
To find the story, go to the Mulberry Woods website, go to the "Visit" page (the link is at the bottom of the home page), and click on the words "garden gnomes." And maybe put those GPS things on all of your favorite gnomes.
The Fine Print
All newsletters will also be posted and archived on our blog for those who wish to add a public comment. Anyone irritated, annoyed, or in any way flummoxed by this newsletter should email me, Jeff Cupp, and be forever removed from this mailing list.
