A Rare Plant Specialty Nurseryin Port Townsend Washington
Sue Milliken & Kelly Dodson, proprietors
Welcome to our online store and hope you
find many of the rare plants offered as fun as we do. We’ve been collecting, growing and learning
about plants all our lives and the excitement has simply grown with time and we
look forward to sharing our phytomaniacal obsession with you. There are worse things to be afflicted with
than gardening.
We have many more plants available here at the nursery that are not listed on our online store. Many are too large or don't ship easily or are in small quantities or we just haven't managed to get them up on the website. If we just didn't need to sleep, we could get more done. The nursery is not open all the time so check our hours and open days.
We propagate and grow most of our plants ourselves which allows us to grow many more impractical species than we should. Many times people shy away from a rare plant thinking it is hard to grow, but more often, it is difficulty of propagation or simply not fitting into a standard nursery routine that makes a plant rare in commerce. Of course, not all of our plants are uncommon - that would be leaving out way too many good ones!
You can start shopping now using the categories on the left, or read our Ordering Instructions first.
We will be adding new plants frequently so do check back. Please note that some of these will be newly potted divisions from this fall and winter and will not be showing much or any root development for early spring shipping but they will grow roots and be good plants.
We continue to enjoy the response from our customers - thank you! Here are a few of the comments we have received:
“Got my
order(s) today. My plants arrived beautifully packed,
healthy, and surprisingly large. Thank you Far Reaches Farm!” – B.
H. North Carolina
“I received my plants this morning and what fine ones they
were!Thank you, too, for the bonus
Iris. I will certainly sing your praises among the plant groups I
belong to and, rest assured, I will be ordering from you again.” – RH – Colorado
“Thank you, thank
you for your beautifully wrapped plants that made their way to Montana bursting with
vibrance and energy!” – LS – Montana
“This is my second order
with you. Your plants in my first order were large, healthy and very well
packed. I greatly appreciate doing business with you, and look forward to
more in the future. I understand you recently started offering plants
online mail order, it is great to have you as a resource for these beautiful
and rare plants. Keep up the great work, and know that you have a very
pleased and happy customer.” AO - Florida
“I received my plant order yesterday. I just want to say I
am so excited by the wonderful condition of the plants and the excellent
shipping conditions you provided! You did a wonderful job of
packing. The plants are in beautiful condition and are so healthy.
I also want to thank you for the bonus plant! I didn’t expect that so it was a
wonderful surprise. I will certainly recommend your mail order
services.”KD -- Washington
“you have sent me the finest mail-order plant material I
have ever received. Am spreading the word among all the Connecticut gardeners I know.” RK - Connecticut
4" Pot Alternate-leaved Golden Saxifrage. Love it when customers share interesting plants with us which is how we came by this little goody. This is pretty much circumarboreal in the northern hemisphere where it is often found in rock outcrops in moist areas. Nice rounded evergreen leaves and umbels of yellow flowers in spring. This is going to work nicely as a small scale groundcover in a moist lightly shaded spot. It grows in some pretty northern cold areas with a distinctly continental climate so good and hardy.
Large Band Pot Second generation plants from our collection from a grassy bank above a stream in Tibetan Yunnan where it was growing in moist rich topsoil at around 10000'. This is a choice herbaceous member of the Barberry Family with rich darkly mottled new growth and broad sharply lobed palmate leaves up to a foot across with a crystalline pink chalice of a flower giving way to large red fruits in fall. Gorgeous moist shade plant to 3' tall although we've seen this same collection at a friend's garden pushing 4' tall. We didn't recognize our own plant and they do that to everything - we kinda hate them. Hardy to Zone 5 and best of all - it's easy. These are very nice plants that may not bloom this year but surely the following.
Quart Pot Merry Bells. One of our favorite of the Midwest and Eastern woodland wildflowers. Rich gold pendant flowers dangling like earrings on a woman of some serious substance. Combines beautifully with upper crust plants such as Cardiocrinums and Arisaemas yet hangs comfortably with box store Hostas. These are divisions from our stock plants.
Quart Pot In the Solanaceae or 'Tater Family, this deciduous perennial gets many stems that start blooming almost upon emergence in early spring with thimble-shaped chocolate flowers that are yellowish on the inside. Very cool. This likes part sun and is broader than tall at 2' x 3'. It has a nice little overlap with some of the black flowered Hellebores as it is really coming into its own as they are starting to tail off so there is a clever couple of weeks at least.
Quart Pot This is a treasure among Pokers. A small statured species with big time bloom from South Africa introduced to the NW by one of the finest small nurseries in the country, Hedgerows Nursery in OR who have now retired and we are diminished as a result. David and Susie grew exceptional plants nearly perfectly and their level of excellence is what we gauge ourselves against. Of course David cheated with that damned English accent. Back to the plant under discussion -this Kniphofia doesn't know the word quit and after a main heavy spring bloom keeps throwing up flowers spikes sporadically throughout the season given ample water and food. This was a rare plant in just a few localities near Durban in South Africa and is now thought to be extirpated in the wild. Not as hardy as some, this benefits from a good mulch if temps drop into the teens in which case it is happy as a clam.
Quart Pot Pendant clusters of yellow bells makes this a refined and classy plant for the shade garden. Makes nice clumps and effortlessly combines with so many shade-loving plants. This Korean and Japanese native is very hardy and a good doer increasingly pleasantly fast. Some Disporum are runners but this stays obediently where you plant it. It is one of the few yellow-flowered species in the genus and for us has proven to be one of the easiest in the garden.
Quart Pot Our thanks to one of horticulture's good guys, Jim Fox for bringing us a plant of this lovely Aster from one of his trips to the UK. We'll have to go with him some time to learn how to balance plant shopping and carousing but now that we think on it, all of us regard plant shopping as carousing..........we can't be getting old - no, we're just wiser. After all, that Aster will still be there in the morning. This was named for Princess Sturdza's garden at Le Vasterival in France and that should be recommendation enough. Neither pink nor lavender but firmly positioned in that descriptive Bermuda Triangle of the in-between which allows it to mingle effortlessly with a broad palette of colors. A vigorous grower to 5' with deep royal plum colored stems and flowers for weeks in September. When shipped in the fall, we'll need to cut this plant back.
:Large Band Pot An interesting hybrid selection of this New Zealand Iris relative. Evergreen (except for hard winters) olive green foliage provides a grand setting for the numerous stems of small bright white flowers. This makes a clump pretty quickly and is great texture in the garden. This has been consistent a performer in our border garden for years and the worst winters fry the leaves which we cut back in spring and then the new growth appears and it blooms very happily and we can't remember we had a bad winter. When we have mild winters it looks great and we don't have to do anything. We mulch the crown of ours when we have an arctic express barreling down upon us just to be on the safe side.
