Greens and golds

We are all tired of the extreme cold and cleaning snow by now and dreaming of greens and other colors. When selecting a few spring pictures for a short garden walk to enjoy bright, warm colors I stumbled upon the cheerful flowers of Chrysogonum virginianum Norman Singer’s form.

Chrysogonum virginianum Norman Singer form

It is a good occasion to spread the joy about Chrysogonum virginianum (green and gold, goldenstar), particularly about the Norman Singer form, which was named after a North American Rock Garden Society founding member (nowadays remarketed as Chrysogonum virginianum ‘Superstar’).
You can read an excellent plant portrait on the Ontario Rock Garden Society website, by Robert Pavlis, from whom I also received a division few years ago:
https://onrockgarden.com/index.php/plant-of-the-month?view=article&id=88:chrysogonum-virginianum-norman-singer&catid=22

I have nothing much to add to the plant portrait, except for the fact of being indeed an excellent low-growing, mat forming plant that every garden should have! You won’t know until you try it.

Almost evergreen, with large, bright yellow flowers (reblooming sometimes), Chrysogonum virginianum Norman Singer form is one of the best edging/groundcovering species for a sunny to part-shade location. Mat forming doesn’t have a bad connotation in this case, because the rhizomes are short and it grows very compact. I even had a division growing in a full shade location for a while, just that it didn’t flower so well.
Join the ORG&HP Society and participate in the Spring plant sale, maybe you’ll get lucky and find a division for yourself!

Degenia velebitica

A question on everyone’s mind is how will some of our plants fare through this low temperatures period? Most will be OK, it is not the first time it’s been so cold in this region (after all we are zone 5).

More damaging than the cold are the winter rain periods of which we got quite a few in December; so I worry more about some of the rockery plants, like the young Degenia velebitica shown here, which require excellent drainage and ideally would spend the whole winter under snow. We’ll have to wait for spring to see the results.