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Geography Lessons in the GardenA good mixed perennial garden can be a trip around the world – or at least across a continent or two. Today’s tour involves a plant whose name sounds deceptively like a land it did NOT come from. Nepeta kubanica Neptune (‘Bokratune’ PP29556)Is that a funky way to spell Cuba, land of cigars and Castro? Nyet! The specific epithet refers to “big-leaf catmint’s” ancestral home on the Kuban Peninsula in Southern Russia, on the Black Sea. This particular beauty was bred

Purple is such a striking hue, Rome once decreed that only the emperor could wear it. But it’s also one of Nature’s favorite colors. She bestowed it lavishly upon numerous genera in the plant kingdom and even some in the animal (think birds and fish).Verbena ‘Homestead Purple’ straddles the annual/perennial line: Technically it’s a perennial, but it’s tender enough that in northern climes, it’s used as an annual and replaced each year.Whichever way works in your zone, it’s a worthy addition to t

We grow so much Pennisetum xadvena 'Rubrum' – bench after bench, whole greenhouses full of it – that we sometimes wonder where it all goes. And then we take a drive, anywhere in North America, and there it is!‘Rubrum’ is so well-known it barely needs an introduction. It’s that red-leaved annual grass you see everywhere you go: In big containers on Main Street, waving its burgundy blades and matching foxtail flowers in landscapes public and private, surrounding flagpoles, flanking entra