Now this lovely specimen is residing in our garden, with still only one stem after a year, but alive and well. I had a few bad moments as it emerged green this spring, but as the season progressed, the variegation brightened, first to gold and green, and now, in early summer it has more white streaking, much like it was when I first saw it. 

 

Everywhere we go, we look. It is a hunt and one never knows what one will find. Consider the case of the variegated Vancouveria hexandra . When I found this one in a nearby woodland, it had one stem with a few leaflets with strange white and grayish markings. Thinking it was probably one of those frustratingly fleeting, here-one-year-gone-the-next variegates, I did not get too excited about it,  but one never knows, so I brought it home and stuck it in the rear corner of one of our greenhouses, in the section reserved for ‘oddball plants to watch’. This year it has many stems with leaflets of the oddest distinctly separated green, gray, and white patches, somewhat distorting the leaf shape because of the different growth rates of each section, but quite strong and healthy, and strangely attractive. Now that it is planted in the garden it is starting to clump up and I expect that it be running around shortly.  The three similar forms we found in the redwood forest this summer look like they may be good also. We will see, but they are very small, and may not hold the second year. 

 

Of course, the hunt need not take one to far away places. The variegated bull thistle came from the field behind our house, and now it has a prime spot in the garden, fitting right in with it’s  lovely spiny foliage of green and bright gold. It has a place of honor in our variegated weed section, near the Plantago major ‘Variegata’, the gold streaked dandelion, and the white mottled clover. So we just let them laugh when they come, these unenlightened garden visitors, and we smile to ourselves, because we know things they do not.  

 

And the gold streaked Paeonia mlokosewitschii is quite nice too, but was hardly any hunt at all.  All we did was look down in the flat of seedlings, and there it was.  

 

Now I am looking for a variegated Smilacina stellata, a lovely plant in it’s own right that forms a dense groundcover when happy. Any variegated form will do. I expect to turn a corner of a trail one day or to be scrambling through some obscure woodland underbrush, and come upon the perfect variegated patch, rivaling the lovely Disporum sessile ‘Variegata’ in effect and vigor. It could happen. But finding these gems is a rare occurrence and always comes as a surprise.  It is a hunt, an unknown, and that makes it all the more exciting when it happens.

 

Now I am looking for a variegated Smilacina stellata, a lovely plant in it’s own right that forms a dense groundcover when happy. Any variegated form will do. I expect to turn a corner of a trail one day or to be scrambling through some obscure woodland underbrush, and come upon the perfect variegated patch, rivaling the lovely Disporum sessile ‘Variegata’ in effect and vigor. It could happen. But finding these gems is a rare occurrence and always comes as a surprise.  It is a hunt, an unknown, and that makes it all the more exciting when it happens.

 

So next week we are off to the woods again, or maybe to the mountains, to see what we can find.  A streaked Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanum) perhaps, or a gold splashed Devil’s Club (Oplopanax horridum), or any Carex that grows by the hundreds of thousands in any marshy spot along the way.  We know they are out there, and the hunt is on.

STALKING THE WILD VARIEGATION

I didn’t see it immediately.  In fact I passed it right over as I concentrated instead on the Spiraea betulifolia growing on the gravely hillside along the mountain path that hot sunny morning last summer.  I admit I completely missed it, until my sister-in-law so casually remarks, “Oh, look, a variegated one”.  What!?  So nonchalant was she, she could have had no idea that the green, white, and gold streaked Smilacina racemosa that she was referring to would subsequently elicit such a reaction from me. Yes, I was excited,  (and admittedly a little disappointed that I did not see it first).  The Smilacina had only one stem, about 2’ tall, but it was perfect - strongly and irregularly streaked with green, white, and gold, much like a hosta that has not yet settled into it’s final variegation.

Collector's Nursery,16804 NE102nd Ave, Battle Ground, WA 98604, 360-574-3832 / dianar@collectorsnursery.com