Thursday, April 11, 2013

So about finding that second Pineapple Guava…

Yesterday I mentioned it was the chance discovery of a nice little specimen Acca Sellowiana at The Gardener’s Choice that pushed me to go for it and do away with our established Pieris japonica. It wasn’t just the Pineapple Guava that caught my eye that day. For instance I’m still kind of obsessing about this Ligularia 'Osiris Cafe Noir'…

I have a springtime love affair with Eremurus ‘Cleopatra’ every year.

In my experience this is the way to plant them, when they’ve already emerged and have a nice bunch of foliage.

I’ve planted 5 or 6 tubers (corms?) and nothing ever happened.

This was the first time I recall seeing Euphorbia c. ‘Portuguese Velvet’ for sale in a nursery. Of course since then I’ve seen a couple.

Its leaves really do feel like velvet.

This was a new one too, and wow! So bright…Golden Zebra Daylily.

So when I went inside to pay for the Acca Sellowiana, that’s when things got really interesting! Because I saw this…

A Schefflera taiwaniana with HUGE leaves.

It’s not like you see one of these everyday (this is only the 4th time I’ve seen one for sale) and this one, with the big leaves, I’d never seen before. Do you suppose I bought it? Damn right!

And I managed to fit two 5-gallon shrubs in my car no problem!

Are you wondering just how much bigger those leaves are? Here’s a comparison to the plant I moved a few weeks ago

New one…

Old one…

Why the difference in a plant with the same name? I was reminded of a slide from a talk given by Dan Hinkley. The photo illustrated the extreme variance in the plants growing at Monrovia, all were grown from seed he'd collected. From this batch they selected the plants to grow on to sell. So it stands to reason they probably released the others for sale and that's why the ones on the market thus far show so much variation. At least that’s my theory. I do have one other Schefflera taiwaniana, this one from Cistus Nursery. It has dark petioles…making it different too.

So that’s the story of how I came to have 3 Schefflera taiwaniana, all different, all loved.

All material © 2009-2013 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

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