Give a Gift Certificate to Far Reaches Farm. Let your friends and loved ones select pick out the plants they've been carving.
Solomon's Seal. This is a nice perennial for the shade garden with gently arching stems whose green leaves are marked in a creamy variegation. Paired white bell shaped flowers dangle beneath the stems. Makes a nice grove of stems over time and can easily be divided. Tolerant of some dry.
Nifty groundcover introduced from Taiwan by Crug Farm in Wales. This is a good spreader though easy to keep in bounds and prefers a loose organic rich soil that doesn't get too dry. Great under shrubs and perennials and forms a feathery dense mat with white starry flowers. Evergreen unless very cold.
Nice little clumper for the rock garden or special niche from plant guru Steve Doonan. Airy sprays of small red flowers are most becoming. Likes a well-drained soil that gets some water now and then. Not as drought tolerant as Hens and Chicks but then what is? Very nice form of this Saxifrage.
A surprisingly hardy tuberous little wildflower from the mountains of the Southwest. This has BLUE flowers of some enviable intensity. The flower buds are held clasped in a pouch like a heart folded in half and one flower emerges each day. Sun, dry to moist and decent drainage.
These are such good little quasi-bulbous plants from South Africa. Likes a full sun rock gardens with good drainage. Nice summer bloomers and good increasers making dense clumps. Probably deer resistant.
Little bulby plant from the Drakensberg Mts in South Africa. This is a good rock garden subject in that it likes good drainage in the winter. When growing, keep it watered reasonably and it will bloom its tail off with loads of small reddish flowers. Mulch if bitter cold in winter.
A hybrid selection of the Asiatic Gentians. I've always envied the Strathmore's in their big Manor House and the huge estate with impeccable gardens and all just so and in perfect taste with impeccable timing. And all seemingly effortless. Rich moist soil results in decadent sky-blue trumpets.
A very rare species (good luck googling this for any real info - we're lucky to have the Dierama monograph) This has flowering stems to 2'-3' with crowded smaller flowers of white to palest yellow, rarely tinged pink or lavender. This makes narrow evergreen clumps. Good drainage.
A fun Primrose that when settled in and enjoying a rich crumbly soil can really make a nice patch. This spreads by underground rhizomes and is a good colonizer. Some plants when you say colonizer it rightly sounds an alarm much like a submarine klaxon on an emergency dive. Not so this. Rich tomato pink flowers above season interest-extending felty foliage.
Great little frothy mound of silver foliage that deserves a place in the plant petting zoo. The yellow button-like flowers dance on wiry stems in late spring and early summer. Too cute. On the dry side. Thanks to David Mason and Susie Grimm of Hedgerows Nursery for sharing it with us.
This is way too hot to be called an Ice Plant. Scarlet flowers scorch the foliage in summer and blaze with nary a care. Great sidewalk edger, rockery or container plant especially for those of you who delude yourselves into believing you really will water your containers. It's xeric.
Seedlings from hybrid parentage which have a conditioned vigor and resilience from having to stand alongside The Chosen Rhodohypoxis with bona fide names while enduring catty remarks. These are just as good.. Damp rock garden, Good drainage. Mulch in winter if real cold.
Minutifolia. Tiny leaves indeed. Densely packed infant rosettes gradually expanding to a palm-sized patch that is only knee high to a beetle. The flower stems are comparatively robust getting a few inches high with a bunch of little white stars. Perfect trough plant or for chinking rock crevices.
Rhodohypoxis is a genus of small bulbs with dense grassy foliage and fairly large flowers for the size of the plant which are produced with exhuberance. This one of the legion of pink-tinged white selections and is a good grower given well-drained yet moist soil. Choice little rock garden subject.
Love the Rhodohypoxis and this is one that is not that easy to find. A tidy densely clumping bulb which loves good drainage when it is dormant in the winter and ample moisture when growing. Great for the sunny rock garden with some water. Medium pink flowers aging to white.
Small but rapidly clumping bulb from South Africa with dense grassy leaves and small white flowers produced with some say reckless abandon during summer. Named for Ruth McConnell who was one of the main growers and hybridizers of the genus in the UK. This has been easy in the garden here.
Large lavender blue flowers with a darker reverse grants this little slowly creeping Wood Anemone its own small fiefdom in the shade garden while it is in bloom. Very pretty indeed. Of course by mid summer the peasants and serfs rise up with scythes and cudgels to reclaim their land but next year the glorious cycle of rule and revolution is repeated.
We don't have a real name for this one but continue the informal designation given to it by friend and mentor Steve Doonan. Original Blue just means that it was the first blue one in his collection. Smaller a bit than 'Robinsiana' but pretty close with dusky blue flowers. This adds much to the shade garden.
Free-blooming groundcover that is evergreen with yellow button flowers on 8" stems from spring until fall. Very few demands from this plant and as such, we expect few complaints from you. This will grow and perform ably given minimal attention. Indicator plant for a new hobby.
Excellent form from the legendary Steve Doonan and one whose name has been lost in distant horticultural banter of years past. Despite its nameless status, we easily recognize it by its numerous robust (for its size) flower stems sporting large (again, for its size) creamy flowers.
Lily Jean is a demure little thing with small double flowers randomly flecked with bits of red, pink and white. Quickly increrasing to form a dense little tussock with scads of flowers. This like ample moisture when growing and very good drainage in winter when dormant. Rock garden plant. Mulch if real cold.
A decidedly unBaby's Breath Baby's Breath. This is a delightful deciduous creeper that absolutely covers itself in lavender tinged white flowers with darker pencilings. Very nice in the rock garden or rockery. Appreciates good drainage but some moisture in the soil.
Asiatic Gentian with big deep blue trumpets on this mat forming beauty. Rich moist acidic soil is best for this late summer-fall bloomer. Outrageous in bloom.
Shipping restrictions may applyA gold-leafed form of our native Flowering Current. This has the typical dark pink flowers and the foliage really brightens up a shaded spot. Too much sun can burn the leaves so a lightly shaded spot or morning sun is best. Pretty drought tolerant when established.
More widely known as 'Apricot', this is one of the stellar performers in the fall garden where its seemingly artless open display of classically simple single flowers of peachy pink ray petals around a yellow eye belie a scrupulous attention to detailed presentation behind the veil of nonchalance.
A fine little dwarf Astilbe native to Japan and one that has proved to be very enduring as well as endearing. This is one Sue used to grow at her old place in northern Vermont. Low mounds of dense and finely cut foliage with short spikes of soft pink fluff in early summer. We grow this out in the full sun with ample water.
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.
Named for the very unErigeron-like (that little rumble you just felt was my English teacher rolling over in her grave) hummocks of foliage that are texturally amusing in a skewed botanical sense. The ray flowers add to the charm and makes this a suitable plant for the rock garden.
Rare St. John's Wort found only in the high southern Appalachians in the Carolinas and Georgia. A good candidate for the rock garden as this is quite small and bloomed its little head off in our 4" pots. Good drainage in sun with summer yellow flowers on this plant which for us is just a few inches high.
