Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Barrenworts Deserve More Attention!

If you have a shady garden, you should have barrenworts (Epimedium sp.). Barrenworts are also called bishop's hat, fairy wings or horny goat weed if you prefer. Above is Epimedium x rubrum in full bloom right now. Epimediums are frequently touted based on their durability in many soil types and limited sunlight exposures. However, their spring blooms are beautiful and frequently overlooked. Granted, the blooms are small and tend to arch downwards, but they are truly exquisite and an "attribute of consideration" when selecting them. Barrenworts have clean, durable foliage that will rarely see insect or disease problems. Epimediums can be mass planted as a groundcover or utilized as a specimen. There are some neat images scattered thru this posting of some of ours in bloom. To the left is the longleaf fairy wings (Epimedium stellulatum) that will have darkening leaves as the flowers finish. Below is the lovely 'Purple Prince' (Epimedium grandiflorum) in bloom.





Despite looming rain this afternoon, we've had another nice productive day. At the end of the day yesterday, we had a delivery of trees and about 50 or so shrubs to help replace those that died as a result of our flooding damage last spring. Jim W. is out planting these new yews and boxwoods in the Japanese garden and did a nice job raking out recently rototilled beds. Larry has been draining and cleaning our sunken garden pool in preparation for our newly refurbished brass fountain being reinstalled tomorrow afternoon. We hope to have all our water features operational by this weekend. Jenny has been working on making new labels and keeping up with our recent initiative to replace and relabel all garden areas as needed. Janice had a presentation this morning and is now out digging up more daylies, labeling and will be applying Sluggo around our hostas to prevent impending slug damage. Kay, Barb and Heidi all did a nice job weeding in the woodland walk area and continue to focus on garlic mustard, Siberian elm seedlings and other "unpleasantries". Dave and Mary H. worked in their space as did Ron and Bev W. We recruited a new assigned gardener (Peg K.) to take care of the English cottage garden and Bill, Dr. Gredler and Dr. Yahr have all been here to help in various capacities. Bob went home sick but the image to the left shows him digging daylilies late last week. Nice shot of another barrenwort (Epimedium grandiflorum 'Tama No Gempe'). These Epimedium photos are all from ground level!

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