Maidenhair Spleenwort.  I love common names.  I must dig out our 15th century Herbal and read up on how to properly decoct this sweet little fern for afflicting humors of the spleen.  Or I can just grow it in a gritty well-drained shaded rock garden and enjoy its evergreen delicacy.

Frosted Jade Ajuga.  Hard to believe that this is an Ajuga but it is true.  This choice selection has fantastic foliage and very good dark cobalt flowers.  Not a spreader - this makes a clump with 16" tall stems.  Challenges all of your comfy notions about Ajuga but in a good way.  Great in our shade garden.

A no-fuss restrained yet refined evergreen Cardamine which is nearly faultless.  We haven't found a fault yet but most overachievers are hiding something deep under that charm and industry.  Rest assured, this will never go postal in your garden.  Dark green dense leaves set off  flowers of of purest white in early summer.

Rare plant found only in limited areas in central Honshu, Japan where it likes the forest fringes in the subalpine areas and is known as hiiragi-sou or holly tree-leafed weed.  Hiiragi-sou sounds better than the translation.  This selection has dark blue flowers and is a deciduous clumper to 16" tall - very nice!

Staggeringly impressive recent introduction of this Solomon Seal species from - wait for it -  Vietnam.  This is similar to our favorite Polygonatum huanum (formerly as kingianum) but is just more of everything that is good.  Large red flowers snug the whorled leaves on stems which this year in the garden reached 15' tall and which remain green for us until temps drop below 20F.

We received this as the Pioneer Mountain form of Erythronium revolutum and indeed, there is revolutum in them as well as californicum.  These are obviously natural hybrids which do occur and perusing "Erythroniums in Cultivation" by Ian Young, these fit his description nicely especially with the parallel, narrow filaments.

A very good form of the species collected by Dan Hinkley in China.  All parts - leaves, scape or flower stem, flowers - larger than typically found in the species.  Fresh grass green leaves are marked in silver and the flower stems bears a snowstorm of simple white flowers This will thrive in the moist shade garden but prefers light to bright shade.

If you have the spot for this plant then there is no reason to not to grow this unless you simply don't do red because this is a smoldering fountain of saturated pigmentation celebrating the red spectrum.  Red foliage and bright red flowers on 3'-4' stems in late summer.  Moist and rich.

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 pandemic Netflix binge-watching.

These hardy orchids seed around the nursery which is a very good thing as we have never got one to come up from seed we have intentionally planted. This will be pink to purple but sometimes a white one sneaks in. This is basically a bulb that goes summer dormant but appreciates ample moisture when growing.  Likely some species like fuchsii may also be an option here in this Lucky Dip.

A bushy hardy Fuchsia with arching branches and largish leaves which is good because they are one of the good things about this selection being richly colored in red if grown in ample sun.  The flowers are no slouch either and they have to bring it to keep up with the leaves and that they do with a red exterior and a double purple interior corolla.  Winter mulch.

We received this extraordinary selection from and equally extraordinary plantsman, David Mason of the vaunted former Hedgerows Nursery.  Few members of the genus approach this for impact which is only heightened by flowering before other large-flowered forms.   The emerging spring growth is enclosed in soft salmon sheaths and the hot damn lavender-pink flowers stand proud before the leaves develop.

A Steve Hootman collection from China of this quite unique creeping Honeysuckle.  This is a Kinnikinnik or Arctostaphylos uva-ursi alternative making a mat of small rounded green leaves turning rich purple/red/bronze tones in winter.  Small light yellow Honeysuckle flowers are sprinkled throughout.  Very cool.

Long my favorite Bergenia with large upright broad paddles of leaves which turn the  best maroon in the winter of any in the genus.  Oh sure, the dark pink flowers are good in spring but this plant is one of the few reasons I look forward to winter.  Galanthus for contrast - oh my.

This has grown into one of our favorite small deciduous shrubs which we grow near our bog garden.  Collected in China on the Sino-British Expedition to Cangshan in 1981 which was one of the first western botanic expeditions to China in modern times.  Copious rosy-pink flowers on a 4'-6' tall shrub.  Zone 6 at least.

Seed-grown plants of a rare form of a rare lily rarely available from one rare plant grower in the UK.  We are eschewing subliminal suggestions and going right to the heavy hammer of repetitive rarity.  This form came about in cultivation from seed-raised plants in the UK and when mature is twice as tall as the typical species.  Nice soft pink flowers.

Awesome rare lily known only from NE India where Frank Kingdon-Ward first collected it in either Manipur or Nagaland and named it after his wife whose maiden name was Macklin.  Pale pink flowers in late spring and early summer are a lovely thing indeed on this smaller collector's lily.  Frank's wife must have been an exquisite creature.

An interesting Asian Lysimachia which we have not yet identified.  These genus is widespread and varied in Asia with over 170 species and varieties in China alone.  It is so much easier to key out monotypic genera where there is but a single species.  This is from lower elevations and we have not trialed it outside yet but looks frost sensitive.

Yellow Jacob's Ladder. A nice unexpected departure from the usual blue flowers of Polemonium as these are yellow with lacquered tomato. This little flowering powerhouse hails from the Southwest and northern Mexico and can put all it has to give into the many flowers so save seed and you can let it self-sow.

This really would benefit from the heraldry of trumpets when it blooms since royalty does enjoy the pomp of lavish circumstance.  But the flowers are such a nice fuchsia purplish pink with a red throat that the trumpets and all the trappings are implied.  And with the same good mottled leaves.

This is indeed the king.  One of our most coveted plants, this is an especially fine form from our friend Philip MacDougall.  This beauty can reach 12' tall with subtle hooks on the leaf tips to help it hang onto neighboring plants.  The best thing is the ORANGE flowers in abundance in the leaf axils.  Swoon City.

A less commonly encountered species which calls the Rhodopi and Pirin Mts of Bulgaria home.  This lavender-blue flowers finely fringed in very narrow petals on a flower that is more widely open than related species.  Small rounded evergreen leaves are a pleasure all year but it’s the flowers that makes your toes tingle in spring.

Lavender flowered version of the typically blue-flowered European species. Thanks to our friend and Hepatica guru John Massey of Ashwood Nurseries for sharing seed. We have flowered these plants and they are indeed lavender! Perfect in the woodland garden, very hardy and with impeccable provenance.

We got this from Maggie at Western Hills some years ago as an Alstroemeria x Bomarea hybrid called 'Fred Meyer'.   Thanks to Martin Grantham at UC Davis, we finally have the correct name.   This is a rare and surprisingly hardy species from Brazil which does great outside for us.  Pink corolla tube with green petals and yellow throat.  Not aggressive.

Mint Bush.  Brought to the UK from Australia by Jeffrey Irons and sent to us from a friend in Holland.  A Welsh nuseryman describes it as "a cracking plant tolerant of heavy frost and sells on sight".  We love the genus with the aromatic deer proof evergreen foiage and in this case, white flowers tinged lavender.

This is likely a hybrid and we guessed with longifolia but who knows?  Hybridity just means extra vigor and a better garden plant with fabulous big silver-crusted long leaves in showy rosettes supporting tall sprays of white flowers. Bright shade to morning sun is ideal. Easy.

Uncommon species which has proven durable in containers and in the garden where it handled the 12F nasty winter of 2016-17 with equanimity.  Pink-backed white flowers followed by red fruit on stiffly upright stems.  From Erlangshan in Sichuan growing with the rare Epimedium flavum on a slope with Cardiocrinum in the wet thicket behind.

This is an excellent mat-forming perennial with handsome leaves and 1" amber orange flowers with a glowing red center in May-June and occasionally thereafter. Tough little dude getting a foot or more across with semi-evergreen leaves and best in decent soil that doesn't dry out. Long-lived too - always a plus.

Himalayan Maidenhair Fern.  Evergreen to semi-evergreen creeping fern making the the most textural groundcover imaginable.   Salmon pink new growth goes to light olive and finally green leaflets on black wiry stems just 8"-12" high.  Likes a loose moist soil but will tolerate dry when established.

Our collection of this distinctive viningMonkshood from the wooded slopes of Longshou in Sichuan.   We think this is quite superior to other color forms of this rare species and have given it the name 'Monk Gone Wild' because it is a pretty crazy color for a Monkshood plus this monk managed to remain technically celibate yet still have lots of children via stem bulbils.