New & Restocked

A cool tolerant species from the Himalaya, we keep this in our 40F greenhouse over the winter and it seems to like it. We're not traditional orchid growers as a rule but this has been super-easy, even in pots like everything else here. White flowers are of good size.

Imagine prizing open the rigid and unrelenting fingers of one Kelly Dodson and wresting from him prized jewels and precious heirlooms. A scenario not far from the one that has finally made this exquisite Central American bulb available to you our beloved customers for whom we endure much separation anxiety and grief. The flowers like little flames must be very akin to the will-o-the-wisps in their native cloud forest, luring unwary travelers to an endless curse of botanical lust. Desirous of moist, well draining mix and not amicable to deep frosts. Bulb at or near flowering size.

Alpine ferns, full-sun ferns, NZ ferns are all underrepresented in US cultivation. This species and even more broadly this genus are completely unrepresented as far as I can tell. Named the thousand-leaf fern for its finely divided appearance, it can be found high in the mountains of Aotearoa scrambling in between rocks where it forms dense low clumps, a habitat betrayed by its distinctly fuzzy texture. Happy in sun with sharp drainage and though its considered semi-evergreen it goes dormant for us in the greenhouse during winter and will likely doubly do so with outside temps. Hard to say on hardiness given the scarcity but we are betting on 8a at least. 

This diminutive Felt Fern is widely distributed in China and Taiwan and differs quite markedly from the increasingly ubiquitous Pyrrosia lingua with 6" strappy leaves soft as the ears on our friends' new kittens, Oliver and Stanley. This would be found as an epiphyte in trees or shaded rock outcrops or cliffs that are moist, where it grows nearly horizontal. Would make an excellent stumpery groundcover element.

Another of the maybe mantoniaes, which is to say the hybridity is up for debate, as is the proper cultivar name (Bifido-multifidium and Bifido-cristatum are also in use), what isn’t up for debate is the really cool cresting on this Polypody with dichotomous branching at the frond apex as well as variably expressed splitting at the end of each pinnae creating a look like a row of bones. Makes me think of pirates every time I see it, and who couldn’t use more time out of their life thinking about pirates. It’s the pirate polypod life for me yarhar. 

Endemic to a small region of central Chile, and vulnerable in the wild, this is like the rare collectible variant of Lobelia tupa, with much the same habit and cultural requirements, meaning full sun and decent drainage, especially in the face of winter wet. The flowers present as a flurry of frilly pink corollas that conjure images of the fabulous tails of tropical birds, honed for years by evolution to attract flirtatious females. The flirtation here is with hummingbirds, endowed with the perfectly adapted slender beaks; or with coastal climate gardeners endowed with the perfect mild winters. Likely slightly less hardy than L. tupa and will be reset to the ground each winter. These are from wild seed collected by FRBC board member and botanist Cody Hinchliff.

The deciduous Photinia beauverdiana is a loose-limbed, sinuous presence in the garden. White flowers are followed by showy clusters of orange-red fruit which hold their position long enough for a slam dunk combination with the autumnal yellow of the leaves. Kelly was standing on a sloped mossy rock stretching to collect a fruit of this for a friend when he fell, holding the fruit safely aloft rather than using his hand to break his fall, and cracked a rib. From that day on, he has trash-talked this graceful species as "That phucking Photinia". A well-loved punchline lost to its taxonomic repositioning into Pourthiaea, well those 'Pour' taxonomists are just gonna have to suck it up cause we give everything for the bit here.

Perhaps the most widely grown species of this genus rarely seen in the Northern hemisphere but much beloved by those in the know. This is due to its history of cultivation as an edible substitute to taters, but having seen the tubers myself I think I'll be stickin' to spuds. Also perhaps one of the hardier members with some making claims all the way down to 7b. However the range is large and varied in elevation, this Guatemalan collection as of yet remains untrialled. Ours go winter-dormant in the greenhouses which makes it a good candidate for pot culture anyway, coming out in the warmer months to twine its way upwards until it explodes into a glorious array of bright pink, lime throated flowers.