Coneflower Crazy!
With its oldie-but-goodie status long established since the early 1700s upon classification, Echinacea purpurea really needs no introduction. Instead, we’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
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All-American Asimina triloba
We’re giddy with excitement about our containerized pawpaw patch that’s full of mature, fruit-bearing-aged trees looking for their forever homes. These mature specimens are loaded with the odd-looking bronze-purple flowers that are, apparently, being actively pollinated when our backs are turned. Night-pollinating beetles and daytime flies, most likely, are the culprit for the tandem emergence of the tiny, fingerlike baby fruits that likely give this native tree several of its other common names: dog banana, Indian banana, and false-banana, to name a few. The immature fruits do, in fact, resemble tiny bananas, while the mature fruits have a texturally similar pulp that could be likened to the soft innards of an overly ripened banana. Exotic looking, large, edible fruits grow in clusters of 4-5, and are an important nutrient-and-fat-dense food source for various mammals such as squirrels, black bears, raccoons, and opossums. Or, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to harvest some of the fruits for yourself to enjoy in baked goods, ice cream, and even summery mixed cocktails.
Something for Everyone
This week, we’re highlighting something for everyone to suit a variety of site conditions. We have woodland groundcover, Sedum ternatum, sunshine-loving native shrub, Hypericum x ‘Blue Velvet’, and the unique but underutilized meadow perennial, Eryngium yuccifolium. Each of these natives play critical ecological roles in the landscape, from providing crucial nectar sources for pollinators, to soil stabilization, and everything in between.
Fern Facts
It’s native fern week! It’s been a while since we’ve explored some of the diverse and fascinating fern species that we have in abundance here at the Nursery, so this week we’re paying homage to these prehistoric plants and their often unseen and underappreciated attributes. Through a brief journey into the physiological, ecological, cultural and historical uses of these North American native ferns, we hope to leave you loving them as much as we do!
Earth Day
Just in time for Earth Day, we’ve approached that time of the season again where lots o’ crops are working on flushing themselves out, some of them inviting the gaze of admirers with the first colorful blooms of the season. It’s almost unfair and impossible to pinpoint simply one of the many lovely early Spring-flowering perennials that we offer here at Pleasant Run, so this week, we’re going to highlight several native selections that are in full spectacle and catching our eye. Without further ado, we bring you Geranium maculatum, Tiarella cordifolia ‘Brandywine’, and Aquilegia canadensis ‘Little Lanterns’.
Mesmerizing Mertensia
This week, we’re enthusiastically promoting our crop of Mertensia virginica, which, as you read this, is slowly peaking its pink-and-periwinkle blooms above its velvety blue-green foliage. If you’ve been sleeping on this lovely little early spring-blooming perennial, now’s the time to familiarize yourself with it.
Yearning for Yellowroot
The emergence of the snowdrops and daffodils suggest rebirth and renewal as we step into the 2023 growing season. Meanwhile, cool-temperature-loving crops are waking from their slumber beneath their protective plastic domes. Of these early risers, Xanthorhiza simplicissima takes the subtle approach, blending into the fallen brown debris of last year’s growth and allowing only the most curious to seek out its hidden secrets. This week, we’re celebrating the ethnobotanical and ecological sides of Xanthorhiza simplicissima, known commonly as yellowroot, a highly underutilized native woodland shrub that has a lengthy and storied past.