This is the Japanese version of our native False Hellebore. Wonderful broad pleated leaves and when old enough, nice spikes of white starry flowers to 3' or more. This likes a rich moist soil, emerges early in spring and goes dormant by mid to late summer. Deer resistant and very hardy.  Young plants.

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.

Robust California native that has a very limited distribution in the wild.  This seems like the cabbage of Erythroniums as it puts up very large succulent green leaves with pendulous flowers of a rich yellow intensity.  These increase quite nicely by offsets leading to impressive clumps.  Shade.

Spring Vetchling.   One of the stars of the early spring garden, this perennial bush Pea makes a soft-textured clump with scads of lavender-pink Pea flowers.  Combines well with Hellebores and Narcissus and is virtually pest-free.  Low-maintenance - cut back in fall.

A very good evergreen fern native to Taiwan, China and Japan which we imported from a specialist in the UK.  Tidy and attractive species reaching 30" wide with fronds to 20" tall, this requires shade to part shade.  And brace yourself - it is tolerant of dry shade!  Happier of course with some water,  Spore-grown by us.

An eyecatcher as evidenced by our friend Brian, with exquisite taste in all things beautiful, when he made the hopeful inquiry "These probably aren't ready to sell yet"  From a Malaysian botanic garden, this has sumptuous burnished metal leaves on the uppers with rich red undersides.  White/pink flowers are not needed.

Kind of a rocking plant in that it really requires nothing from you.  We have it in a drier spot in our shade garden and it just trucks along looking good and putting on nice white flowers for months on end.  Horrible winter weather comes and it doesn't care - just stays evergreen.  We've gotten rather attached to it and you will as well.  One of Beth Chatto's 100 favorites.

From great plant friends in Scotland, this showy cross of two fine Candelabra Primrose species garnered accolades when they used this to great effect in a display show garden.  Colors are widely variable and size can be a bit shorter than the parents but literally, all are good and work well together.  Now if only politicians............

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!

An extraordinary variant from Linda Cochran's (of course) old garden which she allowed us to salvage when moving.  Distinctly mocha foliage in early spring, with various plant parts retaining dark tones.  Notably, the flower stem is very dark as are the bracts enclosing the flower bud.  The flowers are lovely, white and richly colored in dark maroon.  These are bulbs from isolated, hand-pollinated seed.

An extraordinary variant from Linda Cochran's (of course) old garden which she allowed us to salvage when moving.  Distinctly mocha foliage in early spring, with various plant parts retaining dark tones.  Notably, the flower stem is very dark as are the bracts enclosing the flower bud.  The flowers are lovely, white and richly colored in dark maroon.  These are bulbs from isolated, hand-pollinated seed.

Our collection from an end-of-day hunch-driven venture up a nondescript dirt track into forested hills which remains one of the best two hours we have ever spent in the field. A deciduous species with upright fronds 20"-30" tall on plum-colored stems (stipes and rachis).  Texturally, graceful and light.  Spore-grown by us.

Chinese Bleeding Heart.  This is a departure from the ferny foliaged Dicentras we are used to by sporting broad leaflets looking more Astilbe than Dicentra.  Another departure is the cream to soft yellow flowers.  Vigorous in moist rich soil, this makes an impressive patch quickly.

Beautiful clumping species that may well be the queen of the genus.  Or are we granting royalty because it is new on the scene?  Maybe, but it is awfully good. This makes a stout small clump of evergreen fern-like leaves from which emerge in spring the peculiarly Coptis greenish-yellow flowers.  From China.

'Jim's Pride' is the selection of this sedum relative from the Caucasus Mts which is notable for the showy variegation.  This is not as vigorous as the typical green form and the nodding strands of bead-like flowers are creamy rather than yellow as well.  Easy evergreen as seen by the stone basin in our shade garden.

We learned our original offering of this was incorrect as noted by a Primrose Society judge who said what we had was 'Jay Jay'.  Shortly thereafter, we got a letter from Deborah Lutz who said our 'Lois Lutz' was not correct and she should know as Lois was her mother and would we like the correct one?  Thank you and Yes!

A superb smaller evergreen Solomon Seal from China which we have grown for many years and have come to regard as an indispensable part of the collection - one of the first plants we would grab when the greenhouse catches on fire, perish the thought!  Milder gardens, glossy leaves, clustered white flowers and bright ted fruit.  Often an epiphyte.

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.

The first all-gold foliage form of our native Prosartes hookeri.  These are seed-grown from our fantastic variegated Prosartes hookeri 'Lemonworth' which we found near Leavenworth WA.  Seedlings come up either green or gold and we look forward to planting seed of this gold form.

If you are into variegation, like woodland plants, want to make a statement, are a botanical Sinophile, a discerning or even indiscriminate plant collector or just plain driven by beauty in the garden then this is a must have.  White variegated leaves on stems to 4' with whitish flowers followed by black fruit.  Evergreen if mild.

This blueberry relative was an exciting find from a small mostly deforested limestone ridge in Vietnam. It was a small compact 12"-18" shrub growing both in the rocks and epiphytically with orchids on the few trees left.  Evergreen with boss white tubular flowers and a red berry sheltered by 3 large red bracts.

A fine foliage plant in the family Urticaceae and it is easy to see the family resemblance in it's cousin the nettle.  But no worries, this is a venomless pussycat making a clump of tall stems with dangling panicles of tan flowers.  Great texture for the moist shade garden.  From China/Korea.

This is easily the best disappointing plant we have.  This is one we imported from Japan - at some significant coast - as a Gold Leaf cultivar.  The first year was magic with leaves like pure sunlight but never again.  The best part is that it is an exceptionally good, vigorous clone with big flower heads and superb foliage.

These are plants from a special deep purple form of this Candelabra Primrose from friends in Scotland who are enviable growers with an equally enviable discerning eye.  We have not flowered these yet so we will be surprised and delighted together.  This requires a moist to wet soil and can take full sun in cool sun areas.

Named by plant guru John Flintoff who found this as an interesting seedling growing in plantswoman Loie Benedict's garden. Light green leaves with a spreading habit and flowers of a soft muted lavender which happily goes with most everything. As long as the soil is reasonably moist, this will be good in sun to light shade and is resistant to deer and rabbits.

Little creeping woodlander from the East Coast newly placed in the Colchicaceae which alters our world view.  Socially inept biochemists will soon lump all life into a single family derived from a virus, blue-green algae or a bacteria.  Bah!  Delicate creamy bells in spring.  Quite tough.

Serious business here on the Ligularia front. This makes a dense ground cover of weed-suppressive, overlapping large leaves and tall spikes of yellow flowers. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering.

This evergreen Solomon Seal lookalike represents a rare introduction from Taiwan by our friends at Crug Farm.  Originally described as the new species, taiwanensis in 1989, this was sunk into the Chinese species pernyi by Govaerts in 2000.  We could live with that if it was pernyi var. taiwanensis to indicate its unique geographical provenance.  Pretty cool either way.

A very good and stable selection from Japan of this little woodland creeper.  Dark green leaves are well-marked with feathered yellow tips and in spring this has pendant white starry flowers.  This will increase to create a definite bit of visual velcro in the garden because as your eye roams the plants, it will stop abruptly on this one.

Crazy fern that takes away the need to fuss with growing this from spore as it makes a multitudinous panoply of ready-to-go plantlets on the leaves that will soon have you owning the corner in your 'hood dealing in fern babies.  Remember, if it's a kid, the first one is free.  Warmer gardens or indoors, mulch protect in zone 8 winters.