You're Never too Smart to Learn

I learned something this morning at the Garden Rant blog.  That there is an even better blog at The Garden Professors!  I may never make it back outside.  Anyway, it seems that each post on The Garden Professors is a short lesson suitable for Advanced Master Gardener Training.  The Friday Puzzlers are always great, and even though it is only Wednesday, I have one to share.

In the photo above you see a planting of Chamaecyparis pisifera probably 'Mops', well established for over ten years, healthy and yes, they are all the same species planted at the same time.  I think there are six plants total.  No trick photography, just a nice picture taken on a January day in Indiana.  As you can see there is a great deal of variation in the coloring.  They are supposed to be bright yellow as exhibited in the plant on the left.  So what is going on here?

You can post your thoughts and I will let you know if you are correct.

In the meantime, I would like to report that the learning continued at the Porter County Master Gardener Show in Valparaiso, IN this past weekend.  It was fantastic as usual.  Kudos to the Lake County MGs who also helped.  We always take a large group to this show because they have such great presenters including Connor Shaw of Possibility Place Nursery, Galen Gates from the Chicago Botanic Garden, Rich Eyre of Foxwillow Pines Nursery, Kunso Kim and Donna Smith from The Morton Arboretum, garden writer Jean Starr and several local MGs who lead programs as well.  The vendors are fantastic, too particularly Gene and  JoAn Bush of Munchkin Gardens, and I hear the food is good, but I never get away from the presentation room long enough to find out.  All this for $7, what a deal!  Gee I said that last year, too.