Youngia japonica March 2023 A single sunflower is actually made of many thousands of small flowers, forming a composite that is arranged to attract pollinators. Sunflowers are in the plant family Asteraceae, the largest flowering plant family, with about 24,000 different species. Like sunflowers, other plants in this family have composite floral heads composed of many tiny flowers with their …
Early Blooms
The Garden Awakens February 2023 Right now you will find splashes of yellow blooms throughout Boxerwood: the flowers of Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas), a member of the dogwood family native to Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Primarily grown as an ornamental in the U.S., its cherry-like fruits are edible, although extremely tart. In its native range, the fruit in its …
The Gift of Good Rain
Yes, we’re crowing about it! We’d be hard pressed to find better gifts, or gifts more generously given, than those that come from the Earth. At Boxerwood we are always striving to be good stewards of these gifts.
Garden Gratitude: Japanese Maples
Autumn at Boxerwood always waters seeds of gratitude for Japanese maples. I am grateful to Dr. Munger (who started Boxerwood) and to KB (who has been planting and tending here for 40 years) for planting many of them. I am grateful to the natural laws and the mysteries that have allowed new maples to grow up wild and unsupervised. I …
Boxerwood Goes Solar
A long-term dream is now a reality: Boxerwood has just installed an 11.05 kW solar array, which will supply all of our electricity needs for the Lodge.
Slowing the Flow
Boxerwood endures mini-floods when it rains hard, sending sediment into our waterways and the Bay. New slow-the-flow measures are working! With the help of the Rockbridge Area Master Gardeners, we recently planted about two dozen new trees at a new catchment site and around the other catchment basins also. They bring benefits to Boxerwood, and all the way downstream.
katsura
Katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) is a tree now listed as endangered in its native range, due to habitat loss, although it is a rather popular landscape tree in many parts of the world. In Asia, katsura grows together with dawn redwood (also planted at Boxerwood), and like dawn redwood, katsura trees once grew in North America and can be found in the fossil record.
Atlas cedar
Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica) is native to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria, yet it also thrives here at Boxerwood. Also of note, ancient Egyptians used oils extracted from Atlas cedar wood for embalming, cosmetics, and incense. It is closely related to the Cedars of Lebanon of biblical fame.
Bottlebrush for pollinators
Bottlebrush buckeye is not common in American gardens, but it is a very popular ornamental plant in Great Britain (and was even awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit). In the wild, it grows in the shady forest understory.
A Native Tree Comes Home
This week, a story about dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), a species that vanished from this part of the world, was found growing in a secluded valley on the other side of the earth millions of years later, and now flourishes right here at Boxerwood.
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