Quiet Treasures
Report From PIA – May 18
There are some plants that make me hum the Popular song from Wicked… perfectly wonderful plants that need Endless Summer’s PR agency, or a roommate like Glinda to say “I’ve decided to make you my new project.”
Chrysogonum virginianum, for example. I planted it in my rain garden, and can’t figure out why this perennial isn’t better known. It grows thickly so it chokes out weeds, and tolerates a wide range of growing conditions. Most sources say that it needs well drained soil, but how well drained could my clay-based rain garden be?
This low growing, native plant is semi-evergreen and covered with cheerful, yellow flowers in the late spring. Chrysogonum is as cheerful and as understated as its common name: green and gold.
It’s easy for us to be seduced by the new, new thing. When something is all over the media, it’s bound to capture our attention, which is fine, but we need to remember not to overlook quiet treasures.
What a sweet plant...
that makes such a good ground cover for the rain garden.
May 18th, 2010 at 8:12 PM
How very true. There are so many “quiet treasures” as you call them that do need to become someone’s project, to be given a little more PR. This looks like a good one.
June 12th, 2010 at 5:00 PM
[...] household name if he or she had a good marketer. In a previous post I wrote about plants that were quiet treasures, and this was on my mind again today when I spoke about Hydrangeas at Highfield Hall in [...]