Director's Autumn Plant Walk, Yew Dell Botanical Gardens

Eryngium planum, Sea Holly
Source: Missouri Botanical Garden website

On Wednesday of this week (October 13, 2011), I drove over to Yew Dell Botanical Gardens at Crestwood, Kentucky, a little northeast of Louisville, for an autumn plant walk with the Gardens' executive director, Dr. Paul Cappiello, whose plant walks and programs I have been attending for several years now both at Yew Dell and at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, where he was Bernheim's horticulture director prior to becoming the founding executive director at Yew Dell in 2002.

It was a really nice early fall evening for the hour-and-a-half plant walk; the weather was great, and the walk ended with a spectacular sunset. Only three of us were there for the program (myself and two delightful ladies, who were much more knowledgeable about plants than I am), but that just meant that we had more time to ask Paul questions -- and we did. I enjoyed the walk very much.

Here are the names of a few of the many plants that we looked at (I took some notes on ones that were of particular interest to me), with comments and links to pictures of them here on the Web (to be added as time permits):
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• Aster 'Lady in Bloom' -- I may have this name wrong; Googling yields 'Lady in Black."
• Muhlenbergia 'Flamingo'
• Dwarf Solidago 'Golden Fleece'
• Eryngium, Sea Holly -- This plant struck my fancy on an earlier visit to Yew Dell, and I was glad to have the opportunity to ask Paul about it; it's a beauty -- compact, totally pale blue with a bloom that looks like that of a thistle. I definitely want to grow this charmer.
• Cyclamen coum and Cyclamen hederifolium -- I asked Paul how these would do as companion plants to my miniature hostas (he thought well) and may try them in one of my beds; they have differing blooming periods so there would be some color among the hostas for many months. The Shadracks discuss C. coum in their The Book of Little Hostas (2010), at page 177,  noting "They need to be in drier shade, which is usually easy to provide."
• Hosta 'Pineapple Upsidedown Cake' -- I have this medium-leaved hosta in my home garden, having purchased it at the auction at the 2011 Fall Hosta Forum last month. My specimen is very straggly and with very pale leaves, because it gets too much sun, I suspect; Yew Dell's plants were much more compact and colorful. Next year I will relocate my plant's pot and see how it does for me with less sun.
• Hosta 'Garden Treasure' -- Paul indicated that this hosta cultivar was a very good performer at Yew Dell this season; when I mentioned this at our Hostas of Kentuckiana meeting for October several members echoed his enthusiasm for it. Next year I want to try it out in a deck pot to see how it does for me.
• Rohdea japonica, sacred lily -- This plant was a Theodore Klein Plant Award winner in 2006 and is a favorite of my friend, Cornelia Holland, president of the Middle Tennessee Hosta Society.
• Angelonia angustifolia 'Wedgewood Blue' -- There was a good-sized bed of this plant that was in full bloom; it was still quite a sight this late in our growing season -- heat and drought tolerant.
• Buddleia 'Purple Wave'
• Salvia 'Black and Blue'
• Aster laevis 'Bluebird'
• Solidago shortii, Short's goldenrod -- one of the rarest plants in the world.