Cardinal Guard a/k/a Firespike

If you like hummingbirds and have a shady yard, you’ll love cardinal guard, also known as firespike (Odontonema cuspidatum). Its beautiful, crimson red flowers will brighten your shady nooks in late summer and fall – just in time to provide plenty of nectar for the hummers as they’re bulking up for their trip across the Gulf to their winter range in Central America and Mexico. With enough water, cardinal guard will grow in the sun, but we recommend it for shady landscapes. In its native Mexico and Panama, cardinal guard is evergreen and blooms all year. Here in Tallahassee, it is an herbaceous perennial. It dies to the ground each winter but sprouts again reliably in the spring. Plant it in good fertile soil. It grows in clumps, spreading by root suckers. The stems grow to four to five feet in height. The foliage is a beautiful, dark glossy green.

Cardinal guard is easy to grow and mostly pest free. You may occasionally find mealybugs or leaf hoppers on them; but personally, I’ve never seen them infested to the point I would recommend any treatment. Let the birds and beneficial insects take care of this one for you.

At Native Nurseries, we typically stock cardinal guard in 1- and 3-gallon pots. Currently we have both. As always, give us a call to check availability before making a special trip (although we’re always happy to see you). Sorry . . . we do not ship plants.

NOTE – As you would expect, we here at Native Nurseries encourage you to use native plants in your yard and garden. When planted in locations that meet their requirements, they are well adapted to our climate and soils and have long established ecological relationships with the animals that share their habitats. We also carry some non-natives (such as cardinal guard) that are non-invasive, easy to maintain and serve a purpose.

Lemongrass

My favorite herb (this week) is easy to grow lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus). It shines in the garden in these hot, hot humid hazy summer days. It looks great, smells great and tastes great - what more do you need? Lemongrass is a clumping grass, so it won't spread and overrun your garden. It gets 3 feet tall by 2 feet wide, doesn't need constant water and is very showy as a landscape plant as well. Plant it in full sun and well-drained soil. It’s a fairly hardy perennial here in Tallahassee if you mulch it well in the winter.

I use lemongrass in salad dressing, teas and Thai recipes. It’s also used in homemade insect repellants, and you can add it to bath water for a refreshing, lemony soak. Be careful when you cut it for use though. The leaf margins are very sharp and will give you a nasty cut.

Be careful also to be sure you purchase real lemongrass. There’s a pseudo lemongrass on the market which doesn't have much scent or flavor. Our source at Native Nurseries is O'Tooles Herb Farm in Madison with the original stock coming from Julie Neal in Thomasville. It is the real thing!

How to make lemongrass tea:

An easy way to enjoy lemongrass in tea is to simply add it (I use the blade and stalk) to your steeping tea. It’s delicious – or try a recipe such as this one:

Collect approximately 4 stalks of lemongrass for each quart of tea you plan to make. Boil some water. Remove the green grass-like part of the stalks. You will use only the whitest part for your tea. Use a tenderizer or hammer to gently smash the stalks on a cutting board. Pour the water over the lemongrass and steep for five minutes. Your lemongrass tea can be served hot or cold or sweetened or not. Adding some sliced, peeled fresh ginger to the water while your tea is steeping makes for a tasty variation.

Cut-leaf Rudbeckia

Native to North America, cut-leaf rudbeckia (Rudbeckia laciniata) is thriving in my perennial garden. Further north it’s an herbaceous perennial, but here in Tallahassee it is usually evergreen. This edible wildflower, most often found in flood plains and moist soil, shoots up rapidly in spring. The new foliage can be used as a salad green or steamed. This time of year it is 4 to 5’ tall with robust, glossy green foliage and flower buds showing. It won’t be long until it blooms profusely with beautiful, yellow-green coneflowers.

Give cut-leaf rudbeckia full to partial sun and regular waterings – it is not drought tolerant. It’s a great perennial to divide and share with friends, and it holds up well as a cut flower.  It’s a good one to add to your butterfly garden – quite pretty alongside red pentas.

My co-worker, Mary at the nursery, likes it even when it’s not blooming because its knee-high basal foliage is very attractive. She cuts the flower stems out at the base once it’s done blooming so it won’t reseed. Cut-leaf rudbeckia does spread, but I do not consider it to be overly aggressive.

At Native Nurseries, we typically stock Rudbeckia laciniata (cut-leaf rudbeckia) in quarts and 1-gallon pots. Currently we have quarts only. As always, give us a call to check availability before making a special trip (although we’re always happy to see you). Sorry . . . we do not ship plants.