Hosta

Hosta (Hosta) can be a beautiful addition to your garden if you don’t have it already. Hostas are herbaceous perennial plants that are native to China, Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East. They produce attractive clumps of leaves each summer which are topped with blooms that are either white or lavender. But a word of warning. The Hosta is a plant that I’ll avoid. The fact that the plants are not native is one strike against them. I find a need to encourage fauna that are attracted to native plants. But the big factor that negates any chance these plants have — they are like candy to deer. Rabbits, slugs and snails also eat the leaves and roots. Rhizomes are eaten by voles but deer are really something that I don’t want to encourage. Without a doubt.

Blackberry Lily Revisited

Wow! She’s about to go into second grade. But even as a toddler, she’s always wanted to help me scatter the Blackberry Lily (Iris domestica) seeds.

Those seeds reveal why this plant has its name. But the name is a bit misleading since Blackberry Lily is not actually a lily at all but a species of iris. And a word of caution, those seeds contain toxins. Beautiful, but don’t eat!

Thomas Jefferson was smart to bring this plant with its striking flowers to his gardens at Monticello. It’s native to eastern Russia, China and Japan.

A well behaved resident not only of Monticello’s gardens, but also my gardens. The plant grows from rhizomes and the seeds that we enjoy scattering together, but it’s not at all aggressive in its growth.

Wild Peach

Now blooming in the woods, a native to China.

It’s believed that Hernando de Soto brought the first Peach Trees (Prunus persica) to North America in 1539.

Now innumerable cultivars of those trees populate orchards. Thank goodness for those orchards. Peaches make summer so wonderful. And a tossed seed will eventually result in a random tree adding a spark of sweet pink to the woods.