Every once in awhile, a specific plant will have an absolutely wonderful year.\u00a0 This usually happens the year after you give it up for dead but are too lazy or preoccupied to dig it up and hurl it onto the compost pile.\u00a0 My tradescantia were not in any danger of that fate, but up until this year they limited themselves to holding up various corners of the garden in a quiet, unobtrusive way.\u00a0 The flowers always made me smile, but my usual dealings with them were limited to cutting back spent stems to stimulate rebloom.\u00a0 In my father\u2019s words, the tradescantia were \u201cneat but not gaudy\u201d–good enough to earn places in the landscape, but not special enough to brag about to friends.<\/p>\n
Now everything is different.\u00a0 Last spring I noticed several clumps of tradescantia that I didn\u2019t remember buying or planting.\u00a0 On top of that, some of them bloomed in colors, including light blue and white, which I certainly would have remembered.\u00a0 The clumps seemed to be advantageously placed too, as if positioned \u00a0in specific spots for logical reasons.\u00a0 Each clump was large, healthy and covered with impressive numbers of sizeable blooms.\u00a0 The whole phenomenon made me wonder if the ghost of John Tradescant had hovered over my garden and spread his namesakes around with a generous hand.<\/p>\n
That would mean, of course, that Tradescant has been hanging around in the ether since his death in 1638.\u00a0 Given that his life revolved around the collecting, tending and distribution of plants, his apparent largess in my garden would not be surprising.<\/p>\n
The impressively bearded Tradescant was born about 1570, during the reign of England\u2019s Queen Elizabeth I.\u00a0 His life spanned the reigns of several monarchs, ending in the time of Charles I, whom he served as gardener.\u00a0 Tradescant spent his career working for several important nobles and left England many times to collect plants and other curiosities in places including Russia, Algeria and the Low Countries of Europe.\u00a0 He also invested in scientific expeditions to the New World, including the one that resulted in the introduction of Tradescantia virginiana, which was named in his honor.\u00a0 He was responsible for introducing a host of other new plants, including the tulip tree, gladiolus, horse chestnut and lilac.<\/p>\n
Towards the end of his life, Tradescant leased property at Lambeth in London on the south bank of the Thames, to showcase his horticultural and non-horticultural treasures.\u00a0 This \u201cArk\u201d became a popular museum.\u00a0 After Tradescant\u2019s death, it was maintained and augmented by his son and fellow horticulturist, John Tradescant, the Younger. The collection of curiosities eventually became the foundation of Oxford\u2019s Ashmolean Museum.\u00a0 The Lambeth property, which contains the cemetery where the Tradescants are buried, is now the home of the Garden Museum.<\/p>\n
So, one way or another, I have John Tradescant, the Elder, to thank for this year\u2019s bumper crop of tradescantia.\u00a0 They have done so well that I just divided two large clumps and spread them around to other semi-shaded places where the plants should flourish.<\/p>\n
Tradescantia x andersoniana are the garden hybrids bred from Tradescantia virginiana and other tradescantia species.\u00a0 They sometimes go by the common name \u201cspiderwort,\u201d and grow between twelve and eighteen inches tall, with long, grass-like leaves that sheathe the stems. The flowers are roughly triangular, each composed of three pointed petals, in shades of blue, blue-purple, pink or white.\u00a0 At least one cultivar, the blue-flowered \u2018Sweet Kate\u2019 features bright, yellow-green foliage.\u00a0 A happy plant will bear many flowers over several weeks in mid-spring to early summer.\u00a0 If you are good about lopping off spent flowers and stems, the plants will rebloom again in the fall.\u00a0 Mine are doing so right now in late September.<\/p>\n
Given their size, tradescantia are also good subjects for pot culture, but I would plant them in plastic pots that could be removed from larger, decorative containers when the plants are not blooming. In-ground or container-grown, spiderworts need plenty of regular moisture, especially if they are grown in full sun.<\/p>\n
I have no idea what caused my spiderwort bonanza, but it is better not to question these small garden miracles.\u00a0 Since the clumps are now large enough to crowd neighboring plants, the only question is where to place the divisions.\u00a0 This is not a bad problem to have.\u00a0 In fact, I think the whole thing probably provokes smiles from John Tradescant\u2014wherever he is.<\/p>\n
Many nurseries carry varieties of tradescantia.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t find any near you, try Niche Gardens, 1111 Dawson Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516 ; (919) 967-0078; www.nichegardens.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Free catalog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every once in awhile, a specific plant will have an absolutely wonderful year.\u00a0 This usually happens the year after you give it up for dead but are too lazy or preoccupied to dig it up and hurl it onto the compost pile.\u00a0 My tradescantia were not in any danger of that fate, but up until … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2],"tags":[238,417,345,416,415],"class_list":["post-630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","tag-garden-history","tag-john-tradescant","tag-shade-gardening","tag-spiderwort","tag-tradescantia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":631,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions\/631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}