Monthly Archives: October 2018

Anisodontea capensis ‘El Rayo’: A Closer Look at Jimi’s Beautiful Obsession and the Growing Conditions in South Africa

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This is from the catalog of Andre Brian a nursery in France as once again this particular variety is not very common in the trade here.

Another Choice Plant From Jimi Blake’s NPA Seattle Study Weekend Presentation

‘El Rayo’, in english is, ‘Lightning’!  One should expect something pretty spectacular, flashy even, with this plant…or not.  ‘El Rayo’ in Portland is a taqueria!…in Portland, ME that is.  I would hope that the name of either doesn’t over sell their product!  Does anybody know? About the tacos I mean?  Gardeners should always be wary of cultivar names.  While they serve as identifiers of a particular, and allegedly unique form or clone, and sometimes as a helpful and memorable descriptor, they can too often tread across the line into misleading hyperbole!  Names are often assigned to a plant that have been in the trade for some time under other names.  These ‘new’ and unique names are then ‘trademarked’, legally protected, as the nursery heavily markets the plant.  The gardening public then comes to recognize and associate this protected name with the plant and begin to ask for it by that name.  Unlicensed growers cannot supply the plant by that name and so some nursery producers carve out a larger share of the market.   After experience we may come to recognize these marketing ploys…or not.  Oft times a little celebration or indulgence is called for. Continue reading →

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A Closer Look at Jimi’s Beautiful Obsession, A Review of Chosen Plants From his Presentation, Part 3 Asteraceae

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CeIn this installment of Jimi’s plants, I decided to look at a group of his favorites from the Aster family, one of the largest plant families, in terms of number of species, in the world and the most recently evolved…bear in mind that ‘recent’ in evolutionary terms can still be millions of years ago.  All of us are familiar with the classic aster or sunflower form of inflorescence that occurs on many, but far from all, of these species.  We’ve all grown many of these in our gardens and recognize many species as local and regional natives.  As ‘common’ as many of us may view this family to be, it contains a great many species with both beautiful and unique characteristics for use in our gardens.

A note here (Mar. ’20) on one of Celmesia spp. neighbors, the Aciphylla spp.  Since writing this post I’ve met a few gardeners who’ve grown a couple different species of Aciphylla, another mostly heat intolerant genus endemic to New Zealand.  Some of these are found in sub-alpine areas alongside the Celmesias. These too do relatively well in the maritime environments of Victoria, BC down in to the Kitsap Peninsula area of Washington state.  This enviable plant community from the Southern New Zealand mountains are largely intolerant of temps over 90ºF, but if a cooler micro-climate is available….I recently came across this blog posting on genus Aciphylla.

Inulanthera dregeana (calva subsumed)

IInula magnifica which grows to 6’+.

Continue reading →