April 17, 2021

Why do I keep this gardening website when I neglect it so badly!? Hahahaha!

A lot has changed in the 3 years since I updated this thing. My gesneriad obsession has intensified. My iris obsession has waned. My opuntia & agave obsessions have skyrocketed. And outside I have removed my 40ft x 12ft pond after almost 20 years since originally installing it.

My happiest news is that I registered & introduced my first plant of any kind! It's a ×Smithicodonia that I named 'Clara The Storyteller'. And it's now being grown by friends across Canada and the United States. It's a gesneriad of course, with chartreuse leaves veined red, and yellow-throated pink-rimmed red-speckled flowers. It's quite unlike anything else anyone has done before! I'm super pleased with it.

More introductions are likely on the way as I've come up with some stunning Sinningia hybrids. I also have a wild-collected Opuntia that is so distinctive that I think it's worth naming and sharing. My jaw dropped literally the first time I saw it bloom in 2020.

Sinningia is the genus that I'm the most excited about working with right now. I am having uncanny luck growing & blooming species considered difficult by others. This gives me hybiridizing opportunities other growers lack. I even have a new-to-science species and I'm probably only the 2nd person in all of North America to get it to bloom. I mean, how cool is that?!?

You can view that special treat here Sinningia sp. 'Coromandel'.

July 2, 2018

I was chatting with a friend about an exciting new hybrid of two rarely grown species. In my excitement I exclaimed it gave me a floragasm. Haha! And later realized that was a perfect word to name my blog after!

I have not participated in any major botanizing trips since Newfoundland last year but I have enjoyed countless local adventures in southwestern Ohio and northeastern Kentucky where I've encountered rare orchids and other exciting treasures.

Veggies are emphatically back in the garden this year: beans, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, okra, carrots, corn, eggplant, and onions. Many of them are heirloom varieties from 50 to 150 years ago. I can't wait to harvest them!

Indoors my gesneriad adventures are turning out some new hybrids the world has never seen before. Perhaps I'll begin naming and introducing some of them soon. That's been a dream of mine for such a long time now.

March 10, 2017

This is my twentieth year of gardening!

The whole gesneriad thing has really become an obsession. Raising so many from seed led me to expand my growing area and buy some LED lights, and I could not be happier. They are amazing! And it's obvious the plants prefer them to fluorescent tube fixtures. My blooms have increased noticeably in just 3 months.

I've had some more botanizing adventures as well. Fourteen months ago I got to visit Australia and one of my favorite parts of the trip was hiking a rainforest mountain in southern Queensland where we found some lovely Passiflora. I very nearly accepted an invitation to explore the jungles of northeastern Ecuador on a gesneriad expedition, but I couldn't quite get my ducks in a row. My next opportunity is a hike across Newfoundland with several famous professional botanists to see native orchids, irises, sub-arctic, and sub-alpine endemics.

Dahlias are back in my collection for the first time in almost 20 years. My affinity is for the tall, single-flowered forms because they are butterfly & bee magnets. My entire garden is intended for wildlife first, then my enjoyment is secondary. So in that respect single-flowered forms are superior to double-flowered, without question, regardless of the genus, every time. But do you know how hard it is to find big, tall, single-flowered dahlias these days?!

Continue reading more about me, below...

November 25, 2014

Hello!

My name is Dennis. I live and garden in southwestern Ohio just north of Cincinnati, in USDA Zone 6. My collection is mostly native wildflowers outdoors with gesneriads and hoyas indoors.

I really enjoy hiking, photography, and plant collecting. I've never collected anything rare, but I really can't resist collecting seeds of common things that I haven't grown before. The most exotic location I've botanized was the Peleponnesus in Greece, but most of my adventures have been here in southwestern Ohio.

I don't grow or sell things commercially but I make frequent trades with friends in the USA. International trades have become too difficult with the changes in import and export laws. Anyway, it never hurts to ask for a trade! The worst I can do is say no.

For more than 15 years I've been actively hybridizing Iris species. Lately I'm trying crazy SPEC-X things like bearded with non-bearded species. The results have been encouraging! In the last couple of years I've been hybridizing gesneriads. With the Genus Sinningia I'm trying to create a super fuzzy hybrid from species like S. bullata, S. hirsuta, S. leucotricha, and others. I'm also trying to create Primulina hybrids with P. tamiana. I also enjoy trying new intergeneric crosses with South American rhizomatous gesneriads like Diastema, Phinaea, Niphaea, and Smithiantha.

I haven't introduced any of my creations into the market yet, but I sure hope to some day. It's just surprisingly difficult to develop something unique enough to be worthy of naming and registering and distributing.

Thanks for stopping by!

Photos from my garden (left to right): Standard Dwarf Bearded Iris 'Anne Lowe', Catalpa bignonioides, Asclepias tuberosa, Caulophyllum thalictroides fruits