Welcome to Work part two Jungle Fever Exotics Nursery.

Jungle Fever is  one of my favorite nurseries, small but always has interesting plants!  Every great once in a while, I get to keep the shop open when Jerry, the owner needs a day off.  Hooray, I get to play in a nursery full of plants!  (Previous visits here.)

I like to go directly to the inside area to see if the Ceiba speciosa made it through another winter.  This is an amazing tree, do a web search and you'll find some amazing images.  Luckily, the tree made it through and is leafing out!

 Aloe and barrel cactus with a crown. 

 Agave lophantha 'Quadricolor' with a pup.  Mine is doing the same thing.  How cute is that? 

Darlene, Jerry's wife, died last Decemer.  I've featured some of her large mosaics in previous posts but she loved making small pieces.  It was comforting to still see these traces of her here and there around the nursery.

I'm totally in lust with this bamboo, whose name I've forgotten.  It may not look all that special now

But look at what it becomes. The green striping on the culms is very consistently alternating. I'd love to replace my timber bamboo grove with this beauty.

Jerry has lots of bamboos like another favorite of mine, Phyllostachys vivas aureocaulis.

Geranium 'Persian Queen' has brilliant flowers that are doubly wonderful emerging from golden and chartreuse foliage.

 New to me.  Interesting. 

  Puya coerulea var. coerulea

 Echium pininata, one of which came home with me. 

This Schefflera delavayi has some incised leaves, some smooth ones.  

Every garden should have at least one Stachys hidalgo.  The leaves smell wonderful, even stronger when brushed or bruised.  Some think it smells like 7Up.  It also has nice apricot blooms most of the summer as well. Not a horribly long lived perennial, it was time for a new one in my garden.

Solanum purpurea is delightfully dangerous and fairly fast growing in the ground.  Not fun to weed around. 

Lots of interesting fuchsias.  F. 'Golden Gypsy has great foliage color and beautiful blooms. 

Speaking of beautiful blooms, F. 'Blackie' is pretty gorgeous!

Cerinthe major purpurascens has dreamy foliage and nice flowers. It's an annual but reseeds politely so you usually need to only buy it once.

Hellebore 'Snow Fever' looked especially pretty to me.

I remember when Jungle Fever was one of the few places where you could get gunnera.  Now just about every nursery carries this groovy plant.

This Kalopanax must be about 16 years old now. 

Bear grass was tempting  but it stayed at the nursery. 

New growth on the Callistemons.

Freemontodendron is a bright and cheerful bloomer!

There are always palms in this jungle!

Citrumelo and Yuzu, two citrus trees that are hardy here.  I went with the Yuzu, having room for only one. 

 Aponogeton distachyus blooms are gorgeous!

Potato vine in bloom.

 Lewisia, a wonderful native plant.

 Even the weeds here are lovely to look at!

Hooray, my Mitraria coccinea made it through the winter!

Heucherella 'Sweet Tea' almost makes me love it. 

This would look great in your shade garden!

Since I was there and there wasn't a lot to do, I peeked back into the private area and saw this very unusual Agave parryi truncata variegata (guessing as there was no tag.)

I still haven't caught Jerry to ask him if he would consider selling  this beauty.

Trying to remain calm.  

I love spending time here as a customer or worker.  

Busy Weekend - Glass Flowers

I've worked seven days a week for the last few so for the next couple of posts, I'm taking you to work with me. First, on Saturday, we're off to Mandarin Stained Glass where I teach some evening and weekend classes.  Today though, I'm just keeping the retail shop open while the owner, Florence, is in Italy.  Yes, it's true, Florence is in Italy in more ways than one!

I love glass.  The material itself is beautiful.  For instance these full antique (hand blown) pieces by Fremont Glass in Seattle.

Or these from Kokomo

So much beautiful glass, so little time.  

The trick is to cut beautiful pieces like this utilizing the movement and character of the glass to create something equally beautiful.

Florence's "Nature's Promise" is an excellent example of using the grain, texture, and movement of glass. There is no paint used in this piece. (Sorry for the bad photographs, left my camera at home.) All of the details like the stamens of the crocus were streaks in the glass which was cut in such a way as to create them.  

This magnolia panel with it's dark background is stunning.  the trees in the top are from outside of the store.  The flowers are acotully pinker in life than they appear here.

 Holy hibiscus, that's cool.

Nice example of an older English panel incorporating some painting.  Pigments, silver nitrate, etc. are applied to individual glass pieces and fired to about 1400 degrees F. and become a permanent part of the pieces of glass which are then leaded into the panel.

Fragment created as a sample of  proposed materials for larger sidelights. 

American Victorian panel.  Jewels, bevels, the kitchen sink - the Americans at the time were willing to put just about anything into a glass panel.

Older piece.

Masterfully done grape panel by Dale Howard. 

Hope you enjoyed coming to work with me and seeing a handful of the wonders there.  On Sunday, after my morning job I worked at Jungle Fever Exotics Nursery which always has cool plants!