Plant Delights

Time to share some pictures of a garden worth showcasing!  If you aren't familiar with it, Tony Avent's Plant Delights is an amazing nursery that is located near Raleigh, famed for its extensive catalog of unusual plants.  Now, as I've heard my gardening hero, Felder Rushing, say before, "he's proud of his plants," so I always have to hold on tight to my pocketbook when I visit.  But quality comes with a price, and he has a lot worth paying well for.  In addition to his huge plant collection, Tony's established some incredibly beautiful display gardens.  I took many photos, but I wanted to focus my post on this sunken pond garden, which was my absolute favorite.  I love the collection of elephant ears and hibiscus and iris.

These two below shots were not found in the sunken garden, but I just loved the look of the crinum lillies against the coneflowers. Maybe its because I have a two year old girl, but I loved that pink overload!

And this beauty, has made me really, really, really want a cast iron plant like this in my yard.  Now, do I have enough shade to pull it off, that's the real question.  I just adore this look though.  Gotta at least try it.  This particular variety is called 'Snow Cap' and boy do I want to get one.  I wasn't that impressed when I saw it originally on their website, but in person, its just gorgeous. 

The best part of the trip was finding the plant I saw in display gardens ages ago and finally buying it.  This gorgeous Iris, Joie de Vivre is sitting in a pot of water right now, and I'm going to plant it along my back fence.  It stays pretty soggy there even during the summer, and I'm hoping that it lives up to its claims of 5 foot wide clumps in 3 years in rich, moist soil.  We'll see!