Bottlebrush.  Perhaps the hardiest clone enduring single digits with scarcely a whimper.  (It may be whimpering but my own wails of despair drown all else out).  Evergreen picking up russet tones in winter.  Summer fuzzy red flowers on the stems.  Deer Proof/drought tolerant.

There ain't nuthin' like this.  Early spring yellow stars followed by leathery lobed green leaves in a dense low mound.  It is the early yellow flowers that steal the show in part because they have so little competition and in part because they are so unique.

We are quite pleased with ourselves for collecting seed of this desireable and scarce variant in the eastern Sino-Himalaya.  This hardy Ginger relative has large flowers with white dorsal petals and a broad white labellum liberally washed in violet.  Very plant-nerd worthy as well as being just a beautiful addition to the garden.

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.

To find fault with this bit of botanical jewelry would be to put on display character defects so profound that your friends would desert you in droves while making plans for your involuntary institutional incarceration.  Perfect marbled leaves subtend appleblossom pink-white flowers of larger size than typical.  Shade garden pizzazz.

We received this plant as the cultivar 'Gigantea' which doesn't appear to be an accepted name hence our double quotes.  Disclaimer aside, it is a big mother, stout of stem, leaf and flower and very grudging with seed and divisions.  Large late summer light purple flowers.  Muy Gigante!

These are seed-grown from the impressive yellow hybrid Meadow Rue, Tukker Princess. These will gain some height reaching 6'-8' in flower with a nice display of bee-lovin' scented yellow flowers. These will vary somewhat but all squarely in the very nice range.  For all  who've been to the nursery trying to pick up this from the tables only to find it was poking through from the ground beneath, this is what you wanted.

A hardy Gladiolus that could win over that segment of gardeners who just don't like glads but we suspect they would be glad to grow this.  Happy even.  Some verging on ecstatic.  Smaller statured in leaf and flower, this will make nice clumps with flowers of  a clear,  soft creamery-butter yellow.  Mulch if winter is bitter.

Moon Carrot.  Freakishly good plant with gray-blue leaves with an impressive mid to late summer branched inflorescence sporting compound umbels touched in pink then maturing white.  Plant nerdishness meets high-end design with this one.  This is biennial but reseeds so do not fear.  Good drainage.

This is a little charmer from a Diana Reeck collection in Yunnan which is quite short to just a few 6" tall but with very lovely pinkish and white flowers.  When we see this bloom it takes us back to those same woods where saw this same species a year after Diana collected its seed in 1996,  This is a sturdy little fellow increasing each year by offsets and reseeding a bit.

Soldanella is a Primrose relative native to the high meadows in the mountains of Europe.  This is one we received from Collector's Nursery with dark violet flowers - very choice!  It looks to be a match to the Bulgarian Soldanella rhodopaea.  Evergreen and clumping, this takes the same conditions as Primroses.

Choice selection with ruffled heavily marbled leaves and light pink flowers.  You normally grow Hepatica for the early spring flowers and any foliar enhancement is pure gravy but with Cremar, flowers bow their heads to the majesty of the leaves. Quite a choice plant and does well in light shade with decent drainage.

A true Ginger relative, this is a vigorous and hardy hybrid between R. auriculata and R. cautleyoides and is a wonderful fusing of all that is good in both parents unlike me who got the short round gene.  Stout tanned foliage with large variably purple streaked flowers in shades of cream.

We are smitten with Veratrum and this is an exciting addition to the mix.   This one has pale petals and darker eye pattern to the center, and narrow pleated leaves in an open and airy arrangement on the 3' flowering stem.  A rich moist soil in part shade will be just the ticket.  Our thanks to Aaron Floden for sharing this plant with us.

I want my burial mound covered solid in this - seriously, it's that good.  Wavy edged leaves on a low evergreen clumper with big deep blue trumpets on 2"+ stems.  An established clump of this is simply riveting with dozens of big flowers the blue you dream of.  Rich soil and moist.  Loves food.

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.

Shayne Chandler's collection from Vietnam of this assuredly tender but most enchanting Begonia. Long stems gloriously hirsute in red hairs hold broadly rounded palmate leaves whose upper surface is studded with carefully spaced green hairs and the underside veins bristle darkly. Pendulous white flowers are small but wow with calyces bearded thickly in Viking red. We easily overwinter this in a cool greenhouse.

A perennial (usually anyway) thistle relative from South Africa which makes a multicrowned clump of softly spiny leaves which by themselves merit nothing more than a good hosing of Roundup but the large purplish flowers are the swan emerging from the ugly duckling.

This is the form most often available here in the Northwest and which may well be a hybrid with Vancouveria planipetala.  The flowers are much paler and a smidge smaller than typical Vancouveria chrysantha from our observations.  Regardless, a first rate evergreen ground cover which is drought tolerant.

So notoriously promiscuous as to make a rabbit blush, these evergreen bulbous Iris family members are all about the summer of love. Embracing any bee that taps on its window bringing pollen from any nearby floozy flower, this exhibits a Bacchanalian moral turpitude that is either damned or extolled.  These are young seed-grown plants from one of our darkest Dierama so at worst, this will still be pretty good.

We love seeing this False Hellebore when we are hiking up to Marmot Pass or Mt Townsend in the Olympics.  Always growing in dappled light or partly sunny spts where there is ample moisture, the big wide pleated leaves are perfect with the drooping plume-like green flowers.  Deer proof.

If this is what you get for sinning then I can hardly wait!  New selection from the UK that has to be Lucifer's love child.  This is much better than that old devil with dark sooty stems holding deeper blood red flowers with a wider flared corolla. So bad it's good.  Burn, baby burn!

We were completely blown away by the plant we saw in full fruit in the exceptional garden at Dancing Oaks and sad to say, we did doth covet our neighbors plant with lust in our hearts.  Leonard and Fred thought it prudent to sell us one.  To 6'-8' with soft yellow flowers and dripping with clusters of salmon fruit.

Steve Hootman saw this growing and established in a Pennsylvania garden and with a puzzled "What the hell?", immediately took cuttings.  This evergreen groundcover Ficus is most often grown as a houseplant but this Pennsylvania selection should do well in the PNW.  Will cling to walls or rocks.

Dwarf Solomon's Seal to just 6" but spreading with very nice lavender-pink flowers which go well with the gray-green whorled leaves.  This rare Yunnan Diana Reeck collection differs from the Nepal form which is typically cultivated.    Floden thinks this is closer to pumilum, Wynn-Jones says it's graminifolium.

False Solomon Seal. This Chinese species is one of our favorites in the shade garden and we delight in its ribbed leaves with elegantly understated small violet daubing at the base of each leaflet followed by the precise detail in the small greenish flowers. In the late summer into fall, it has strut-your-stuff full heads of bright orange fruit.

This has been a fantastic Hebe in our garden handling our worst winters with aplomb.  A low 20" x30" evergreen shrub with narrow gray-blue leaves and lots of small white flowers for at least 2 months June-August.  Ours looks great planted with Mertensia maritima and it is perfectly ok to steal this planting combination.

At garden cocktail parties where the design elite and the grass cognoscenti compare notes over a cool Negroni perfectly mixed with Punt e Mes vermouth, this is often alluded to as their favorite grass. Thin green supple leaves are imbued with a simple timeless grace and the delicate seed-like white flowers are the perfect contrast.

Our collection of this Chinese mayapple from Yunnan China.  Pink flowers in spring followed by large red roma tomato fruit in Fall.  Rich moist soil.  Great foliage.

We quite love the Roscoea clan and we have a special affection for this one which challenges for top honors as having the smallest flowers in the genus.  Why would I want the small flowered one you ask?  Intensely colored purple black Bing Cherry reduction small orchid-like flowers is why.