By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine
When Steve Bender, AKA the Grumpy Gardener, challenged 10 garden writers to each blog about their six favorite plants at the same time, I think we were all instantly frozen with the same degree of analysis paralysis.
Six favorite perennials might be possible, or six favorite trees, or six favorite veggies—but six favorites from the whole plant kingdom? Whew. It’s a bit of a stretch. But here’s my list, along with some choice also-rans.
1. Peonies. The new intersectional hybrids are fabulous for color, long bloom season, elegance of foliage, and longevity, so I’ll put them at the top of my list. And they’re coming down in price. A few years ago, they were as much as $500 per plant. Now they’re well below $100. Go for one like ‘Bartzella’, paired here with orange Welsh poppies (Meconopsis cambrica). More from the Sunset Plant Finder
2. Moth orchids (Phalaenopsis). Their exquisitely patterned and colored blooms hold for weeks or months, and plants do fine for me in an east window with little care beyond fertilizing and watering. You can get a good one for $15, and even if you eventually kill it, you will have had months of pleasure for little money. If moth orchids are passé for you, try ‘Sharry Baby’ Oncidium (not pictured). It is loaded with lovely, tiny blooms that smell like chocolate.
3. Winter daphne (Daphne odora). I love broadleafed evergreens, especially when their cut flowers bring room-filling fragrance to the table. The one by my front door (pictured above) is the yellow-variegated D. o. ‘Aureo-Marginata’. The all-green version loses fewer leaves at spring bloom time; when mine commits daphnicide, which they all seem to do sooner or later, I think I’ll replace it with its green cousin.
4. Japanese snowdrop tree (Styrax japonicus) becomes a frothy-white mound of late spring bloom, just after most other flowering trees have called it quits. Korean dogwood (Cornus kousa) is another worthy late white bloomer with elegant, layered structure and large individual flowers.
5. Angel’s trumpet (Brugmansia cubensis ‘Charles Grimaldi’ is the one I like best) is a tender perennial that’s well worth the extra effort it takes to overwinter it. Its huge, hanging orange trumpet flowers cover it for most of summer and fall, filling the night air with unexpectedly sweet fragrance.
When frost burns its top in November, I take its containers into an unheated garage for the winter. In spring (yesterday, in fact) I take them back out onto the deck for another season of pleasure.
6. ‘Thalia’ daffodils have been in my gardens for decades because they push all the right buttons with me. By now you know I have a weakness for white blooms and fragrance, and 'Thalia' brings both of these to the spring garden with multiple white blooms per flower stalk. Best of all, they come back year after year.
More favorites to come
Tomorrow, read about Sharon Cohoon’s six favorites. She gardens in Southern California (I’m in the Pacific Northwest). Also check out the other blogs that Steve Bender pulled into this project (including his, which is one of the best):
Defining Your Home Garden by Freda Cameron in Chapel Hill, NC
Digging by Pam Penick in Austin, TX
Diggin' It by Judy Lowe, Boston, MA
Fairegarden by Frances in TN
Gardening With Confidence by Helen Yoest in Raleigh, NC
Hoe & Shovel by Meems in central FL
Jim Long’s Garden by Jim Long in Blue Eye, MO
Sweet Home and Garden by Carolyn Choi in Chicago, IL
The Grumpy Gardener by Steve Bender in Hoover, AL
