Showing posts with label Loropetalum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Loropetalum. Show all posts

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Liriope - so much more than an edger.



When my family first moved to Georgia and began making friends with other families in our new neighborhood, it seemed that every garden had a border or pine island edged in Liriope. Nice, but nothing to brag about. When I, much later, became a gardener, Liriope was not on my list of desired plants - or even a "maybe" list.

Then, a few years ago, I received a Daylily clump that had Liriope so much intertwined with it that it was impossible to separate every tiny root. This caused me to have a few Liriopes that I happily planted in different places in my garden. This clump (above) grows under a Loropetalum, where it attracts all the attention while the shrub above it is, in the middle of the summer, rather ho-hum.

So, welcome to my garden, Liriope!

And, oh, as a sheep in the flock, I always called this plant "LEE-ree-ope", just like everyone else did. It took a course in watersmart gardening for me to discover that its name is pronounced 'luh-RYE-opee". Education is fabulous!

Monday, January 25, 2010

For our Gardens - Must Haves

I am still recovering, in a very good sense, from the Winter Georgia Master Gardeners conference, and want to share some "must haves" with you, for our 2010 gardens. This (above) is an Asiatic Jasmine, called "Snow ' N Summer". Other shrubs that caught my attention were the Camelia 'Crimson Candles', the Camelia 'R.L. Wheeler' and the Loropetalum 'Ever Red'.
There are no Camelias in my garden (I didn't know anything about them when I started my garden and now that I do know a little, I have no space left!), but I do have a Loropetalum in my Western border, between my backyard and my neighbor Angela's, and it's a great shrub.
Those Asiatic Jasmines, meanwhile, are small, compact and very pretty; I might find a space for a few of them this year. :-)