A remarkable arborescent species endemic to the Sierra de la Laguna of Baja California where this grew on a shaded ridge in mixed oak-pine forest at 5800'. This can get over 20' tall with a 10' inflorescence with yellowish to white flowers but that height might be for your child's child's child's child to enjoy - it will take a while!

This Spoon Yucca comes from a seed collection in Grant County, New Mexico at 6800'.  This is a full sun, drought tolerant impressive piece of work when it is mature.  The flower spike can reach 10'-15' with thousands of packed creamy florets arising from the center of the well-armored rosette of narrow, bluish, toothed leaves.

Riverine Tea Tree.  This uncommon to cultivation Tasmania endemic is often found along stream banks in its native setting so can take moister conditions than some other species.  White flowers on an evergreen shrub with good flaking bark and getting to 8'-10'.  Deer proof as well.

Incredibly exciting rare ornamental Araliad from Taiwan where it can reach 30 feet tall.  Don't be scared by that as it will likely not attain those dimensions in your garden at least while you are the gardener!  Broadly orbicular leaves with 3-5 shallow lobes on stout branches makes this a riveting centerpiece.  These are seed-grown and best in mild gardens.

European Wild Ginger. Rounded, heart-shaped most excellent evergreen leaves (evergreen in mild winters or our Z8 garden) hug the ground close and dense, hiding the small flowers and their lack of ornament We have a slightly paler leaf clone that is most apparently pale when planted next to this clone.

Alpine Water Fern. Found at higher elevations in Australia's New South Wales and Tasmania growing in grasslands, moist rock crevices and sphagnum bogs. A stalwart fern and go-to evergreen low groundcover because it looks great despite your prolonged attention lapses from Netflix binge-watching.

A remarkable Manzanita native to the southern Mendocino Coast which features unusually large rounded leaves for a groundcover type.  Makes a dense cover mounding to 24"-30" tall and 8' + across with white flowers and bird attractant small fruit.  The leaves seem verging on succulent giving this a uniquely appealing look.

Pretty cool and needless to say, rare rhizomatous evergreen perennial taxonomically wandering among genera from Tupistra to Campylandra to currently Rohdea which we have written in pencil. This has proven nicely hardy here in the PNW making a statement with elegant narrow green leaves with a muted amber central stripe. Flowers curiously interesting.

Glossy green evergreen leaves on a small 4'-5' shrub in the wild, growing on a bright, mostly shaded slope in close company with its understory compatriots Mahonia, Metapanax, Lilium, Disporum, Lysionotus, and a host of ferns.  Single red fruit resting 1/3 of the way up on the leaf midrib.  Flowers small but curious.

Evergreen shrub to small tree with gorgeous exfoliating cinnamon colored bark, white fragrant flowers and edible blue-black fruit. A selection we imported via Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy from the UK that was propagated from plants which survived the prolonged Big Freeze of December 2010. A portion of the proceeds goes to support the mission of Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.

Our collection from Guangxi on a mountain area little explored by Westerners.  This Mondo Grass had leaves to 2' long and fairly lax.  Flower stems just 3" tall with surprisingly nice mauve flowers that give way to typical shiny Ophiopogon fruit in the fall.  Excellent textural evergreen for shade with a bonus of good flowers.

Evergreen alpine Aussie growing in the same habitat as Snow Gums.  This has billowy gray-green foliage and 1" white flowers borne on last year's wood.  With age the bark exfoliates and reveals a very shiny trunk which adds to the allure.  Sun, good drainage, dryish and phooey to the deer.

F2 plants from the original wild collection of this rare species. This is a very handsome thing with superb glossy textured leaves and showy displays of red fruit. Just looking at it, we thought - bummer, can't possibly be hardy but heard from one of the collectors that it handled zero Fahrenheit so woohoo!  We later saw for ourselves the reason why as we climbed on Mt Fansipan, "The Roof of Indochina' and saw this growing near the summit.  A portion of the proceeds goes to support the mission of Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.

Alpine Bush Mint.  This high elevation Aussie handled our 2010-11 Winter of Horror with scarcely a whimper.  Dense shrublet with rounded packed leaves minty when crushed and white flowers with red-yellow-purple in the throat from spring and sporadically until fall.  Excellent plant.

A shrub very rare in this country (we might be the first to introduce this) and one we are pretty excited about. This has some pretty good cold tolerance and will be an evergreen shrub to 2' high and wider. White flowers like a Leptospermum but long anthers so looks like a small bottlebrush. Good drainage, Zone 8-9 and might be worth trying in warmer parts of zone 7.

A hybrid seedling selection between Eucryphia glutinosa and E. cordifolia that showed up at Mount Usher Gardens in Ireland thanks to some discerning work done by the local pollinators.  The deciduous E. glutinosa brings good hardiness and the E. cordifolia adds excellent flower and evergreen foliage.  Uncommon in the trade.  Tall narrow habit.

A monotypic member of the Columelliaceae family from Chile. Now that we have our botanical parameters firmly in place, we find ourselves exactly where we started. As Obama would say, "Let me be perfectly clear. This is not a Holly." Evergreen and best in a mild garden with tubular red-orange flowers.

This accidental bee cross between Phyllodoce breweri and Kalmiopsis leachiana arose in Mike and Polly Stone's Scottish garden, Askival.  Evergreen small leaves on a low rounded shrublet to 16" and a bit wider.  Copious bright mauve-pink flowers can cover the foliage in early summer making this a star in our rock garden.

Gold Thread.  This is a rare native to WA but more common in BC and AK.  Great evergreen groundcover for moist shade with glossy parsley leaves and golden thin rhizomes hence the common name.  Dye plant and most likely medicinal.  This spreads well in loose moist soil.

Myrtle Beech.  This evergreen Tasmanian tree is infrequently seen in cultivation in North America.  Our friend Steve Hootman's seed collection of this species will help put right any wrong in that arena.  Small leaves adorn the branches - great for bonsai.  Gets to be a large tree especially in warm temperate rain forest settings

One of the great Mahonia species or Berberis as they are now known.  We saw this growing on Wawushan in Sichuan where it exhibited it's characteristic waxy white underleaf.  Loose sprays of pinky-orange flowers in the fall followed by nice fruit.  Easy and a connoisseurs foliage plant.

One of the great evergreen hardy fern species from our collection in Hubei in this wondrous narrow valley cleaved by a stream.  Wondrous because of the flora which included Acer griseum among a host of choice species.  Tough fern which looks good pretty much all the time with very few exceptions.

A free-flowering, lower carpeting form of this choice species that is ideal in the rock garden and one we acquired from our friends at Rumbling Bridge Nursery in Scotland.  This Croatian native has a tidy personna, showy mauve-pink flowers and small leaves coloring well in winter.  When we say carpeting, it's more of a place mat.

An evergreen Lily-of-the-Valley relative, this is our collection from Yunnan, China from our 1997 trip.  This is distinctly different than the Reineckia carnea of Japan as well as other collections from China yet DNA by Aaron Floden puts it right in the species.  Scented pink flowers at the base of the leaves.

Or Pyrrosia porosa var. porosa depending on how you view monomorphic indument. This Felt Fern is widely distributed in China and Taiwan with 6" strappy leaves soft as the ears on our friends new kittens, Oliver and Stanley.   This would be found as an epiphyte in trees or shaded rock outcrops or cliffs that are moist.

Hardy species in the Gesneriaceae or African Violet family from Greece and Bulgaria where it favors shaded rocky outcrops.  Our old mama plants fill a 3 gallon pot with a packed dome of evergreen leafy rosettes that give rise to 4"-5" stems with flowers of pale lavender faces and dark corolla base.

This is a hardier and somewhat smaller-leaved form of the Chilean Guava that was recently introduced by Paul Barney from Pucon, Chile and which Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy brought into the US from the UK.  An excellent evergreen ornamental small shrub to 5' or 6' with scented white flowers and deep burnished red fruit in the fall which were said to be Queen Victoria's favorite fruit.  We expect this to handle at least a half zone colder.

A newer hybrid (Daphne cf. sureil x D. bholua 'Peter Smithers') from breeder nonpareil Robin White, this is perhaps the first introduction to the US.  A vigorous selection that is expected to reach 9' tall and perhaps 6' across, this has pink-backed white flowers from January to April that are intensely fragrant

Seed-grown from the clone 'Soft Caress' which is good parentage to say the least.  This will be similar and expressing to varying degrees the qualities of its parent which are good non-spiny foliage with upright yellow candles of flowers on a narrowly vertical evergreen shrub.  It will be good and also a unique one of a kind.

Named for the great English gardener, this evergreen flowering currant has pendulous fragrant creamy-white flowers in late winter-early spring. This is a very uncommon selection which is more compact than typical for the species and will give your garden chutzpah. Appreciates not having to bear winter winds and can take some dry shade.