Kow choi, Allium tuberosum, or Garlic chives

Julie, Nancy, and I dug and replanted about 1/3 of the planting at the entrance to China Valley. It was part of our ongoing effort to add groundcovers to China Valley. I've never heard of Garlic chives being used as a groundcover but what the heck! It's very enthusiastic, spreading both by rhizome and seed. We try to weed whip the heads when the flowers brown and before the seeds set. I'd rather it would creep than jump. We removed about 8 square feet of plants and spread them over an area four or five times that size. It will be a lovely drift of white next summer. Betty brought in potato salad with Garlic chives; we must be on the same wavelength.

View from C-3 across the path to C-5....pretty nice

Not a view that anyone really sees much. I was on my hands and knees weeding out Mulberry weed and Smartweed. This area is notorious for both of those weeds but the pre-emergent herbicide we put down this spring worked well for the six months they were supposed to. I'm seeing a bit of germination now but an hour or so of weeding took care of them. The Bloodgrass and Iris are apparent. The chartreuse conifer is a selections of Glytostrobon pensilis and the pink flowers in the mid-ground are wild collected Anemone hupehensis.

Now it's Viburnum japonicum var. boninsimense

 Still a nice viburnum. This one is on Korean Hill and was hit hard by the snows of yesteryear. It resprouted nicely. Many of our plants from the warmer climes don't do snow load very well which is too bad because they do handle our increasingly hot summers well.

That's not a plucked gosling wearing his baseball cap backward.... it's a magnolia fruit

Not only does it produce trick fruits, it flowers in August.

Euscaphis japonica

Fruit is happening on the Korean Sweetheart trees. I planted them there on Korean Hill just over twenty years ago. For the longest time I thought they were shrubs . They just kept on growing though. They're a nice size for a tree in a smallish garden. They've got flowers in the spring, these cool fruits at the end of summer, and great fall color. I always like to consider how plants look like with their leaves off. This one is quite nice, say a 7.9 where 10 would be a Japanese maple and 3, maybe a suckering magnolia.

The Tropicals are loving this summer