What's in Bloom
Bloom Highlights
Aesculus × carnea ‘Fort McNair’
Pawpaw
Aesculus × carnea is an artificial hybrid of Aesculus hippocastranum and A. pavia. Both parental species typically grow in the dappled shade of deciduous forests and woodlands of hillsides and stream banks. This hybrid grows as a single-stemmed tree with a dense, rounded to pyramidal growth habit. Stems emerge green before turning copper with conspicuous lenticels and mature to produce dark brownish-grey bark that fissures into rounded plates with age. Branches bear palmately compound, dark green leaves in opposite pairs. The leaflets are oblanceolate with undulating serrated margins and covered in coppery hairs. Leaf axils and terminal shoots produce long, erect panicles of showy, funnel-shaped flowers that are yellow, pink, and red. Each flower has five fused sepals, five petals of unequal lengths and size, and up to eight stamens of unequal lengths matching the length of the corresponding petal, all around three fused pistils. Flowers give way to prickly fruit pods with one to three shiny, dark brown seeds. This cultivar is noted for its resistance to leaf blotch, dark green foliage, and reddish-pink flowers with yellow throats. The genus name is derived from a Latin word for “edible acorn” though the fruits and seeds are poisonous. The hybrid epithet comes from Latin meaning “flesh colored.”
Amsonia tabernaemontana
Eastern Bluestar
This plant is native to the United States from Kansas and Texas in the west through the southeast and southern Great Lakes to New York and Massachusetts in the northeast. It is found in forests, open woodlands, floodplains, and along stream banks. It grows as a clump-forming herbaceous perennial. Stems emerge light green and smooth and grow erect with little branching. The stems bear lanceolate to ovate leaves in an alternate arrangement. In the autumn, these leaves turn golden yellow. The stems terminate in a panicle of showy, star-shaped, blue flowers. The flowers have five fused sepals, a salverform corolla of five-pointed petals with five stamens fused to the inside of the floral tube and two pistils. In autumn, long, showy bean-like fruit pods develop and turn yellow. The genus name honors the English physician John Amson who was an amateur botanist in colonial Virginia. The specific epithet was named to honor German physician, botanist, and herbalist Jacob Theodor von Bergzabern who Latinized his name to Jacobus Theodorus Tabernaemontanus in his works.
Calycanthus × raulstonii ‘Hartlage Wine’
Hartlage Wine Carolina Allspice
This plant is an artificial hybrid of Calycanthus floridus and Sinocalycanthus chinensis. In their respective native ranges, they inhabit similar habitats of dappled shade in mountainous open woodlands. This hybrid grows as a multistemmed shrub with an erect to rounded growing habit. The aromatic stems emerge green before quickly turning light brown and produce greyish-brown bark with maturity. Branches bear leaves oppositely. The green, glossy, leathery leaves are elliptical to ovate with serrate margins and hairs on their undersides. In autumn, the leaves turn yellow. Leaf axils produce large, solitary, fragrant, cup-shaped, burgundy red flowers. Each flower has seven to 20 leathery, spirally arranged tepals, and 10 to 30 stamens all around many fleshy pistils. This cultivar is noted for its wine-colored flowers. The genus name comes from the Greek words kalyx and anthos meaning calyx and flower respectively, since the flower is made up of tepals. The hybrid epithet was named to honor James Charles Raulston, Ph.D., who founded the JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, North Carolina, and helped develop this hybrid.
Iris cristata
Crested Iris
This plant’s native range spans Arkansas in the west through Kentucky and Tennessee to southern Appalachia in the east, where it is found in on rocky wooded slopes and ravines, on bluffs, and along stream banks. It grows as a rhizomatous geophyte forming colonies of erect herbaceous growth. Stout stems produce a uniplanar fan of sword-shaped leaves that clasp over the next younger leaf with margins basally fused. The stem continues to grow and pushes through the center of the foliar fan to terminate in a solitary, showy, bluish-purple flower. Each flower has three lower/outer tepals called falls that are highly decorated with basal patches of yellow surrounded by a patch of white outlined with a darker shade of purple and an upper/inner whorl of tepals, called standards, that alternate with the outer tepals. These tepals are less decorated. Three stamens stand sandwiched between the outer tepals and frilled style and stigmatic arms. The genus name comes from the Ancient Greek goddess of the rainbow of the same name in reference to the genus’s wide range of floral colors. The specific epithet is the Latin word meaning “with tasseled tips.”
Lamium galeobdolon ‘Herman’s Pride’
Yellow Archangel
Lamium galeobdolon is native to most of Europe from Spain and Ireland in the west to central Russia in the east, dipping southward through the Caucasus Mountains and into Iran, where it is found in dappled shade of woodlands, thickets, and along shaded stream banks. It grows as an herbaceous perennial with a creeping habit. The stems are square with white hair and emerge erect but tip over and trail along the ground as they grow and branch. Stems oppositely bear pubescent, fragrant, oblong to cordate leaves with serrate margins in pairs. Leaf axils produce whorls of four to eight yellow, bilabiate flowers marked with orange-brown markings and covered in fine, white hairs. Each flower has a tubular calyx of toothed sepals, and a tubular corolla of five fused petals with the upper two forming a hood and the lower three petals lobed and spreading. This cultivar is noted for its distinct silvery interveinal variegation and compact, clump-forming growth habit. The genus name is derived from the Greek word laimos meaning “throat,” referring to the throated appearance of the flowers. The specific epithet either comes from the Latin words galeo meaning “helmeted” and dolon meaning “fly sting” or “pike” (possibly in reference to the shape of the upper petal), or the Greek words galéē meaning “weasel” and bdólos meaning “foul smelling” in reference to the scent of the leaves.
Spiraea × vanhouttei ‘Renaissance’
Renaissance Vanhoutte Spirea
This plant is an artificial hybrid of Spiraea cantoniensis and S. trilobata. Both parental species are native to eastern Asia and are found growing in temperate forests, thickets, and along sunny stream banks and ravines. This hybrid grows as a deciduous, multistemmed shrub with a broad, mounding, arching habit. Slender stems mainly grow directly from the base, gracefully arching out with some branching before cascading toward the ground. The older shoots produce coppery brown bark. Branches bear leaves alternately. The blue-green leaves are obovate to rhomboidal with three lobes and irregularly serrated margins on the distal half of the leaves. Leaf axils and shoot termini produce umbellate clusters of white, showy flowers. Each flower has five sepals, five round, overlapping petals with an apical cleft, and many inward arching stamens all around many central pistils. This cultivar is noted for its fountain-like appearance, disease resistance, and orangey-red foliar color. The genus name is derived from the Greek word speira meaning “coil” or “wreath,” as flowering branches had historically been used to make wreaths. The hybrid epithet was named in honor of Belgian horticulturist and nurseryman, Louis Benoît Van Houtte.
Dimorphotheca ecklonis ‘Serenity™ Pink Magic Balserpima’
African Daisy
African daisies are tolerant of spring’s cold temperatures. The color of ‘Pink Magic’ changes as the flowers fully open. These deer-resistant plants grow 10 to 14 inches tall. Use them in cool-season containers and garden beds.
Calibrachoa ‘Conga™ Purple Star Balcongplar’
Calibrachoa
An abundance of bright blooms covers these well-branched, trailing plants. Great for containers, hanging baskets, and window boxes. Plants grow 6 to 10 inches tall and spread to 10 inches wide. Tolerates cool weather all spring. Blooms into summer.
Viola cornuta ‘Sorbet® XP Yellow Pink Jump Up’
Horned Violet
Early-blooming, free-flowering plants that remain compact all season long; frost tolerant and low maintenance. Great color for early spring or autumn in garden beds, containers, and hanging baskets. Grows to 6 to 8 inches tall and wide.