This has consistently been a head-turner here when it is in flower. Rich pink flowers of good size and a large fringed lip or slipper pouch which is decked out in orange-pink spots with the interior all orange ruffles and flourishes. A good increaser and best suited for pot culture where it can be brought in, unless you garden in a mild area. Pleione orchids require excellent drainage.

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 fine selection of this deciduous Japanese species which was introduced by We-Du Nursery. Sizable flowers of rich purple are the hallmark of this plant and it more than holds it own against more recent hybrids. All Epimediums can't be painted with the same drought tolerant brush and this one appreciates more water than the real drought tolerant species.

One of those captivating Chinese species.  This has a neat stoloniferous habit sending out runners and making new bulbs so you soon have a grove of Lilies.  Flowers white with dark spots with recurved petals in the classic "Turk's Cap" style.  We love it.

Originally from Maurice Foster who is one of the UK's great plantsmen who would not gladly brook an inferior form.   This can hit 10' in height with a narrow aspect and generally deciduous willowish or bamboo-like leaves.  Small purplish flowers and outrageous jester's cap fruit with dangling orange arils.

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!

A choice Snowdrop with very large single flowers and one of the earliest to bloom.  This was found in the garden of John Gray in England and is a hard one to come by.  Increases moderately well and seems to be a survivor with a good constitution as it is going strong here while more effete selections have dwindled.

American Ipecac. Back in the good old days, this had usage as both an emetic and laxative.  Tempting as this might be, we have other options now and can simply enjoy this hardy perennial for its excellent ornamental qualities.  This rivals Bowman's Root, Gillenia trifolia, but is improved by its more finely cut leaves with persistent, small bract-like stipules creating a very fine texture with white flowers. Thanks to Mark Oppenheimer for sharing.

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 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.

Second generation plants from Steve Hootman's collection from Sichuan China and first time recorded in that province.  Statuesque tall Lilies with scented big white trumpets colored outside in puce.  Puce?  That's never gonna sell.  Stained outside in a soft Pinot Noir.  Really nice plants.

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.

Superb form collected by perhaps the preeminent current plant hunter, Jens Nilsen.  The list of 'firsts' in Jens' history of collections is astounding.  This collection is not a first but is notable for being an exceptional form.  Larger in all parts than previous introductions with gold flowers in midsummer.

If Thomas Hardy had written a book based on this plant, he would have tiltled it "Fusca the Obscure".  Or Poe "Descent into the Plant Maelstrom".  BIO -Botanical Interest Only.  If you buy this we're doing an intervention on you and get you into the Plant 12-Step Program.  You need help.

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.

An Ian Butterfield cross between P. pleionoides and P. humilis, this easy orchid has large flowers of pink-lavender with a fringed lip and interior well-spotted in red with a beckoning bee runway of yellow.  Typical Pleione culture - the internet is full of great advice fir growing in containers and also fantastic in mild gardens where it will thrive in mossy logs and stumps.  Great drainage first and foremost.

A cracking bicolored Lily of the Nile out of a breeding program in South Africa where this one seedling out of hundreds exhibited excellent white flowers with a blue base.  These are held in 6"-8" umbels on stems to nearly 4' tall!  Maybe the best thing is that is deciduous and hardy going to zone 7b with a good mulch.

A quietly fun perennial that should be on every green flower afficionado's hit list.  Lance-shaped leaves and branched stems bearing dull yellow tiny button flowers arising from green buds and all surrounded by a prominent green collar.  Lovely green effect with plenty of structural detail.  Archibal collection from the Pyrenees/Cantabrian Mts.

New offering from us of this underappreciated genus. We grow 7 taxa which must be some sort of record even for a nursery specializing in the obscure and unprofitable. This cool little groundcover is from Kyushu in Japan where it grows in shaded moist places.  The yellow/green flowers have an ineffable je ne sais quoi we quite enjoy.  Have not trialed for hardiness but the Ontario Rock Garden Society has tips for seed germination.

A Hinkley collection from Vietnam of this stunning foliage species whose bullate rumpled leaves are covered in imposing bristle-like hairs.  A gorgeous container plant or if you live where the frost is light and infrequent - and you know who you are and just so you know, we hate you - then this is fine out in the garden.  Flowers white if memory serves.

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.

Choice species (as seen in our shade garden) collected by NW Plant Wunderkind Riz Reyes on Mt Emei in Sichuan.  This species is often confused with Corydalis elata in the trade.  This selection is quite vigorous with red highlighted new growth and spires of icy blue flowers.  Moist.

A Roy Lancaster introduction of the variety chinensis from Yunnan, China (which in of itself is reason enough to have this plant in the collection) of an invaluable winter blooming shrub tolerant of deep shade with white fragrant flowers from late fall into early winter.  Superb shade evergreen shrub.

A tried and true selection that really puts out with classic orchid flowers with rich pink petals backing a white cup that is nicely fringed on the lip with some light spotting on the interior and touched in yellow in the throat.  An amalgamation of attributes in one flower.  Good increaser needing good drainage like a rotting log and overwinters here in Puget Sound.

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.

Coveted hybrid Mayapple nearly impossible to find.  'Red Panda' is a seed strain from the O'Byrne's with some variability but this form from Nita Jo Rountree is the best that we have seen.  Large copper leaves in spring which become infused with green as the summer wears on and very good red flowers in spring.  Moist shade in rich soil = Pandamonium.

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.

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 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.

A rarity in cultivation, this petite member of the Irregulares section of Saxifraga comes from our collection on the highest peak in the southern Wumengshan in Guizhou.  This was found in a deep cleft in a low limestone face shaded by scrub and is now lost due to habitat destruction.  Nice airy white flowers midsummer.