Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Margaret and the doomed 'Yuletide'


Lest I get too far ahead of myself, here's Margaret Moseley with the unlucky Camellia sasanqua 'Yuletide'.  This photo was taken by Erica Glasener, host of A Gardener's Diary on HGTV and a renowned garden writer and author of several books. 

 Margaret has been a guru for us all.  Once, an editor at the Atlanta Journal & Constitution told me I wrote about Margaret too much.  The reason I kept writing about her was because she had so many wonderful plants in her garden.  She is a wizard at creating interesting combinations, like planting copper iris next to her rusty bird feeder, or placing a dark maroon hellebore next to a mauve colored daphne.  
One of my favorite compositions is a purple jackmanii clematis growing up through the deep maroon foliage of a smoke tree.  

Margaret has kept up with the latest introductions (i.e., the moment the new pink 'Annabelle' hydrangea,'Invincibelle Spirit', came out, she made arrangements to obtain it).  She also has some plants like Camellia japonica 'Governor Mouton' that are old varieties and thus hard to find in the trade.

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