Campanula incurva - plant portrait

One of my favorite new plants this year was Campanula incurva.- - a rock garden bellflower with large blooms, almost as big as Canterbury bells (Campanula medium), but flowering on very short stalks and all the bloms facing up, so they look good from a distance or seen close-by.

Campanula incurva

NARGS

The acronym NARGS stands for the North American Rock Garden Society. This year the General Annual Meeting of the Society is in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The meetings include among other things visits to some of the best local gardens. Here are three beautiful gardens I visited today with the group.

More Stonecrops

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As I said in my previous post, stonecrops are difficult to identify because the taxonomy keeps changing, and many are very similar.  Another difficulty in identifying them from their appearance is that whether they grow in full sun and in some shade, or whether you are in spring or in mid-summer, they can look very different and change colour entirely as you can see from these two views of the same plant.

(Sedum) Phedimus spurius

Mostly Moss and Sedum

You would not expect mosses that like moist and shady conditions, and xeriscape plants that have the opposite requirements, would grow well together. They do, however, in our  Hobbit Garden.

It is called the Hobbit Garden because it is made up of small plants, and they are all growing on top of a stone wall that is only about two feet tall. Both the plants and the setting are diminutive. I wrote a post about it last year, but Hobbit Garden is more settled this year and worth revisiting.

Part of the Hobbit Garden

Pavement Gardening - edge of the path

Here is yet another series of rock garden plants I grow among the stones on the garden paths. However these are some of the ones I grow only on the edges of the paths, because they cannot be stepped on.

The first one is a variety of Iberis sempervirens. Normally the flowers are white. However, in this variety, they start white, but as they age, they slowly turn pink. It is a low variety whose name I do not know as I grew it from a cutting I was given at Larkwhistle Garden many years ago. It probably would prefer more sun than the 4-5 hours that it gets, but it seems to manage well.

Perennial candytuft

London Pride and other saxifrages

When I think of rockfoils, the genus Saxifraga, I think of the small plants, either the encrusted varieties or of the mossy saxifrages, but not of the relatively big London Pride. Yet, London Pride (Saxifraga × urbium) is the saxifrage that grows best for us. Ours is a variegated variety (Saxifraga×urbium 'Aureopunctata'). It has been growing beautifully here for many years.

Variegated London Pride at the base of a low retaining wall

Reluctant invaders

My favourite nursery is Grange Hollow, a business run by a mother and daughter team. Not only do they have nice plants, but they are very friendly and always have time to answer questions and give advice. The nursery setting, an old farmstead, is beautiful. Two summers ago I was looking at Blue Star Creeper (Isotoma fluviatilis) growing on the nursery property. They had it for sale, but they warned me it might be invasive. As you know, most nurseries will never tell you that a plant is invasive. They will sell you goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) as a low maintenance ground cover, without telling you that you will probably never be able to get rid of it or that it is likely to take over your whole garden in a matter of weeks.

Blue Star Creeper

Pavement Gardening 3

Last Spring I did 2 posts about plants that grow between the limestone rocks that pave the paths in the garden. These are mostly rock garden plants or some slightly bigger plants used to edge the paths. The following are new rock garden plants that are blooming for the first time this year, or that were not included last year.  The first one is perhaps the prettiest, the Mount Atlas daisy (Anacyclus pyrethrum). The inside of the petals is white but the back is red. I grew it from seed and it is supposed to be hardy to zone 6 but seems quite happy in this zone 5 garden. Apparently it is not long-lived but self seeds.

Mount Atlas daisy

Plant Portrait - Oxalis adenophylla

Most of the wood sorrels (Oxalis) are not very hardy. This is one of the few that can survive very cold winters unprotected (hardiness zone 5). It hugs the soil, reaching about 12 cm (4 in) high. Given the size of the plant, the purplish pink, funnel-shape flowers with dark veins are relatively large at 2.5cm (1 in).  The crumply leaves are grey-green, divided in many segments arranged finger-fashion. The common name, silver shamrock, refers to the colour of the foliage. Both the flower and the leaves fold up at night or in overcast weather and are said to "go to sleep".

Small but Packing a Punch

Mazus reptans

Creeping mazus is the most successful mat-forming carpeter in our garden. It grows between rocks, and in the spring it is covered with mauve-lilac snapdragon-like flowers with a yellow-spotted lower lip. It is a very tough little plant that does not require any maintenance whatsoever or any work from the gardener other than to plant it.