There's quite a buzz about the exotic yet drought-tolerant plants being produced and sold by Laine McLaughlin and Duane Heier. The little "Steamboat Island Nursery" tag seems to garnish the pot of nearly every cool plant I find these days. But Steamboat's offerings are no overnight wonder. McLaughlin started the nursery more than a decade ago in this remotely beautiful spot on a skinny finger of land jutting into Puget Sound.
I was told that this blue-green plant would need some protection over the winter. But I haven't yet gotten to the point where I'm willing to baby any of my plants. It's still "love it or leave it" in my yard.
Here's that poisonous ricin plant that I love.
Banana is gorgeous but has no place in a lazy Northwesterner's garden.
This thorny little guy, a Rosa sericea pteracantha, was featured in the newspaper article.
It gets big.
I love Salvia.
I bought some of this weird donkeytail sedum for our rock wall. It meets all the prerequisites for that space: rosy-colored, sun loving, drought tolerant.
Our final haul. A bunch of sedum, a few unicorn plants, a couple of dwarf strawberry trees, a smoke tree, and a eucalyptus, which we'll plant where a quince used to be.
It's euphorbia myrsinites, the donkey tail euphorbia. :P
ReplyDeleteAnd the blue-green plant is melianthus major; did you smell the leaves? They smell just like peanut butter and it is wierd.
In zone 8 it doesn't need protection, as long as drainage is ok and it isn't exposed, I've heard.
That's right! It's euphorbia, not sedum.
ReplyDeleteAnd I did smell the leaves, and they did smell like peanut butter, and it was weird!
I would consider *some* protection for the Melianthus...maybe next to your house? They get kinda ratty looking tho'... you might not want it next to your house.
ReplyDeleteThat Rosa looks like it would make a formidable barrier planting!
Another euphorbia that is nicer than e. mysinities is e. rigida--it looks just like myrsinites but is 'rigid' and upright. It looks tidier, methinks. Cistus carries it, next time you are in OR.
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