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From the Associate Curator
Sneak Preview into the 44th Annual Spring Plant Sale
This year has had an adequate supply of rainfall so now is a great time to add plants to your garden. Gardens always seem to be in need of a little renovation. We at the nursery have had success propagating some choice offerings for this year's plant sales. In the shrub department we have a good supply of various Luculia species. Luculias are almost unknown outside the Bay Area as they take only light frost and don't like really hot weather. They are well worth trying when available because of their exquiste fragrance. They bloom in September through November and are like a giant hydrangea, only they are evergreen. The shrub department also has numerous Banksias grown from seed from our Australian garden. These small trees have very unususal and showy flowers and are drought tolerant. They are related to the proteas of South Africa which we will also have available. In our native section we have a good supply of three different shade plants that are hard to find. These include our dainty Anemone deltoidea with white flowers in the spring, and the vanilla leaf Achlys triphylla with large triangular leaves and spikes of white fragrant flowers in the spring. Both are summer deciduous. The third is Coptis lanciniata, an evergreen in the Berberis family which is a great groundcover because the leaves are like a thick leathery maidenhair fern. All three of these plants need full shade and are perfect for the north side of a building in a small urban garden. Our perennial department will have a lot of Meconopsis betonicifolia for sale this season. This blue Himalayan poppy has about the bluest flower known and is hard to come by. As usual we will have the blue Corydalis 'China blue' which does so well in San Francisco. Our tree department had good germination of Dawn redwood seeds two years ago so we will have many for sale this year in gallon containers. Our fern department has a large number of pots of an unusual maidenhair fern from China, Adiantum venustum, which is rhizomatous and makes a 6 inch tall evergreen groundcover. They also will have a nice selection of dry growing ferns. The Botanical Garden volunteers work very hard to produce these unusual offerings and all are propagated fron scratch here at our nursery. We feel honored to offer these plants to the general public at our 44th Annual Spring Plant Sale, May 7th, from 10am – 2pm, though members get first pick at our Friday night Members-Only Preview Sale on May 6th. Don Mahoney
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Curator Don Mahoney
