Isn’t June great? I’ve decided to hang out with June for as long as possible, so bear with me for yet another post on what’s possibly my favorite month.
Looking at other June gardens is a great way to find unfamiliar but promising plants. It’s also massively instructive to observe familiar plants in growing conditions different from those at home. I popped in briefly at the Wonder Garden last week and found some stellar performances by plants in June that are doing absolutely nothing in my garden yet. The heat and berms with freer drainage make all the difference for plants like eryngiums and berkheya here at the coast. My struggling berkheya was moved this spring for some breathing room on an open edge. It is alive, but feast your eyes on what a happy berkheya looks like in bud, leaf, flower and stem.
The flowering shoots on my Eryngium paniculatum are just now swelling, whereas in Manzanita it’s in full-on flower. It’s a little confusing to find this eryngo occasionally described as a towering giant. Flowering to 3 feet is what I’ve observed, both at home (eventually) and at the Wonder Garden. There might be some confusion afoot with the tall Eryngium eburneum, but I’m not sure who’s got it right. Adding to the confusion, sometimes the names are treated as synonyms. Could they be the same plant, with height variations due to seed strain and geographic location of seed collection? I just brought home Eryngium eburneum from Cistus Nursery (along with Euphorbia ceratocarpa!) so in time I may be able to compare for myself.
Also newsworthy at the Wonder Garden, the heirloom Dianthus ‘Chomley Farran’ has finally hit its stride after malingering for years. Exquisite as a cut flower, it flops about a bit in the garden. A survivor of the 18th and 19th century craze for “bizarre” carnations, it’s a living embodiment of the changing tastes and fascinating idiosyncrasies that occasionally erupt throughout horticultural history.
At home Gladiolus ‘Ruby’ began opening the last couple days. Here’s a bulb that’s done some traveling. Ordered from a grower in the UK in 2014, it’s been speared and disturbed since that time, a casualty of the zone 10 garden’s frequent upheavals and changes in direction. This April I noticed bulb foliage nosing up in a path. The shape of the leaf indicated either the inferior strain of Byzantine gladiolus that proliferates in the garden or the choice ‘Ruby.’ Having already stepped on the emerging foliage repeatedly, I dug up the pathway bulbs and brought them north for a chance to reveal their true identity. These are what are in bloom now. Looking at the photos in the link provided, it’s pretty clear where this bulb is happiest.
And that’s the last post in June, promise. More soon, AGO.
Lovely things popping up. I love ‘Ruby’ and have tried it here a couple of times but stills searching for the right location. A couple of local rock gardeners have had success so that’s the next spot to try. What a beautiful dianthus too. Will look for this one. Always fun to compare a plant’s progress between two sites. Provides some clues as to why one in the garden might not be doing as well as another.
That’s a lovely garden to have so close to your home in Oregon. That Berkheya purpurea grabs my attention every time I see it. Do you think there’s any chance it’d grow here in SoCal?
@Elaine, fortunately ‘Ruby’ is available in the U.S. now. Interesting about success with it in rock gardens, I’d love to see that. Maybe I’ll try it in a trough.
@Kris, I did grow berkheya in SoCal so it’s worth a try. Here’s a post from 2018 with a photo: https://agrowingobsession.com/?p=85766
The Wonder Garden is inspiring every time I visit it. My Berkheya are reseeding and happy in Astoria, in part because of the wet spring and early summer so far. I am too stingy with water and am chastened every time I see my same plants at the WG!
@Jane, reseeding?! I bet your Astoria garden was loving this rain the past week.
Yes! I love this garden I’ve only seen photos of here on your blog. The photo of the border with the boulder & it’s soft up slope is fantastic. I started my Berkheya purp from seed, so I’m even further behind. I guess Towering is based on the (height) of the eyes of the beholder haha? Your own garden is lush and full of beauty!
@Tracy, that eucalyptus, one of the rare hardier kinds, is controversial among the volunteers and some would prefer it was gone! Weird about the eryngo height discrepancy, because it’s a matter of 5 feet of difference, which matters when making a garden selection, and the flowering shoots and flower architecture are different too. Good luck with your berkheya!