This variegated version of mountain thistle (Acanthus montanus ‘Frieling’s Sensation’, Zones 7-11) was dicovered by Ohio nursery Glasshouse Works in the early 1980s, and it’s just as attention-grabbing today as it surely was then. It’s spiny leaves are mottled and splashed with white and steal the show in any container planting, as well as in the ground. It’s a one-man show in this planter at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in Brooklyn, New York. Mountain thistles are native to western Africa and prefer full sun or partial shade and fertile, moist, well-drained soil.

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