Spring did make it, despite a gruesome winter and cold, cold March. My garden is full of surprises, or is it I forgot how April can be, something fresh everyday? Today is smilacina, epimedium and amsonia, three of my favorite things. These are perennials that waste no time wishing it was warmer, or wetter, they take it like it is, winners in every sense when it comes to tough perennials.
Amsonia is a relatively new perennial, at least in the last ten years. A native with little in the way of hybridization, why was it so long in coming? I have three species with Amsonia tabernaemontana 'Blue Ice' flowering now, the shortest, the bluest and certainly one of the very best. It's parentage is a mystery, originally found in a batch of A. tabernaemontana at White Flower Farm in Connecticut. Sources feel that it's a hybrid with A. montana, DNA results are forthcoming, or so it says on the internet. The flowers are a nice shade of blue, which is all good and fine, but the real attraction is the foliage in fall as it turns from yellow to a tawny gold. Grow them in full sun or partial. The shadier the more they might fall over.
I once spent time collecting smilacina. Not all have survived, but those that have are abundant, spreading by rhizomes, they make their own colony. The first to produce buds is Smilacina racemosa, also known as False Solomon's Seal. The buds hang down at the end of leafy stalks, ultimately stretching out, held on a horizontal stem. Today the flower buds avoid the rain, held below a canopy of green leaves. Confusion has surrounded them as to what plant family they belong. Once considered a relative of polygonatum (hence the False Solomon's Seal), then related to lily of the valley or convallaria, recently placed in the asparagus family, even said to taste like it when young shoots are steamed (do not try this at home). Occasionally listed as maianthemum instead, perhaps we need a DNA test here as well. This particular species is abundant in the Shenandoah National Park, filling up the ground under tree canopies. Grow them in shade, a native that gives several seasons of interest with red berries in fall.
Lastly I have the lovely epimedium flowering, a plant I could never tire of. What other plant can grow in the roots of a maple, flower in great profusion and produce beautiful leaves that are semi-evergreen? One of my most delicate beauties is Epimedium x versicolor 'Versicolor' with it's yellow and pink flowers. A hybrid between E. grandiflorum and E. pinnatum ssp. colchicum originally created at the Ghent Botanic Garden in Belgium.
I have mentioned the epimediums several times in other blog posts and would just like to add that when buying them in the nurseries, they are generally not a plant you snap up in their containers. Slow to establish, they are a bit sparse in a pot. But don't let that stop you, buy one of every type, for the shade garden it's a must!