This Central American epiphytic blueberry relative calls the cloud forests home and enjoys cool conditions with no frost. Brilliant red new growth, tubular soft red flowers with red calyces followed by darkly intriguing fruit. Will develop a caudiform lignotuber in time. This is a visual feast for months on end.

We got this little gem as cuttings from the nursery manager at Stephen F. Austin Botanic Garden a few years ago and have been quite taken by its small glossy evergreen foliage and dense shrubby habit.  Finally bloomed for us and we missed it but could tell from the fallen petals it was a lovely small white flower flushed gently in pink.

This is the rarest US Magnolia species occurring in just 6 counties in the Florida panhandle. Fantastic species with huge leaves up to 2' or more long and nearly a foot across. On plants young as 3-4 years old, white scented flowers to 10" wide appear in May avoiding frost damage . Dramatic large shrub to small tree.

Extraordinary yellow-flowered evergreen species from northern Vietnam on this collection. The trees in the wild were all small second-growth trees with mature examples nowhere in evidence. That night we slept in a nearby farmer's house with our sleeping bags on wide flooring planks of magnolia wood - mystery solved where the big trees went. Best in a sheltered spot from freezing winds.

Cutting grown from original seed collection in Vietnam's Hoang Lien Son mountains by Floden-Mitchell-Wynn-Jones.  The evergreen trees were 50' with showy red seed "cones" with scented pink to sometimes red flowers.  We have not flowered our plant so on tenterhooks.  This species is best in mild gardens.

Seed-grown from a wild collection in Winston County Alabama of this unrivaled North American tree..  This has the largest simple leaves of any native plant - up to 30" long - and let's add the flowers as well which are 8"-10" wide and rarely to 12".  These fragrant soup bowls are white with rose-purplish bases and followed by showy big cone-like fruits from which red seeds hang by threads.  Seriously.  Rich moist soil sheltered from wind.

This is a beloved shrub to small tree species notable for flowering young with nodding white flowers which are best viewed when you can look up into them such as ours on a raised bed. Original introductions likely from Japan have red stamens but this collection of ours differs with yellow stamens.

Small plants from wild-collected seed of this dramatic species native to the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains.  Drama comes in with the leaves - up to 24" long and 10" across and the white 6"-10" flowers.  The flowers are scented but not pleasantly so and not enough to banish from the garden this impressive tree.

Seed-grown from the clone 'Soft Caress' which is good parentage to say the least.  This will be similar and expressing to varying degrees the qualities of its parent which are good non-spiny foliage with upright yellow candles of flowers on a narrowly vertical evergreen shrub.  It will be good and also a unique one of a kind.

One of the great Mahonia species or Berberis as they are now known.  We saw this growing on Wawushan in Sichuan where it exhibited it's characteristic waxy white underleaf.  Loose sprays of pinky-orange flowers in the fall followed by nice fruit.  Easy and a connoisseurs foliage plant.

Dwarf False Lily of the Valley.  This wee woodlander as a species is native to western Europe and Japan with this tiny-leafed form likely from Japan.  This is sometimes offered under any number of names and we got this one from Michael Wickenden of Cally Gardens.  Small white flowers.

A collection by PT's own Josh McCullough from Volcan Azul in Guatemala at around 10,000'.  This grows both epiphytically and terrestrially.  Fab narrow pleated leaves with terminal drooping panicles of flowers backed in lavender-pink with pale faces followed by shiny red berries.

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.

Pretty cool False Solomon's Seal whose terminal display of small, narrow-tubed yellowish to green flowers carries more interest than might be implied.  This is genetically distinct from the white flowered M. henryi from Yunnan and has a pure, sweeter fragrance than the more cloying white form.  We love them both.  Sometimes seen as the invalid species ginfushanica.

Staggeringly good False Solomon Seal from China which owns its corner of our shade garden when it is in bloom.  The very gratifying terminal white flowers are a reward unto themselves but on a big clump like we have, the fragrance from these makes this a multi-sensory experience of the very best sort.

If I were of the appropriate rank, I would knight this plant.  Grant it sainthood.  Commute its sentence whatever the crime.  Give no limit on its credit card.  As it is, we wash it's feet in the finest dairy manure and pledge fealty.   Asian False Solomon Seal to 5'+ with big clusters of light purple flowers.  Holy oleraceum!

One of the finest False Solomon Seal's around and rarely obtainable. These are spirit-breakingly slow to grow from seed and the time required to grow plants to flowering size which these should be calls into question our business acumen. However, these are of such perfection when mature with stout 24"-30" stems arching gracefully and each bearing a terminal plume of flashy white flowers.

One of the finest False Solomon Seal's around and rarely obtainable. These are spirit-breakingly slow to grow from seed and the time required to grow plants to flowering size which these should be calls into question our business acumen. However, these are of such perfection when mature with stout 24"-30" stems arching gracefully and each bearing a terminal plume of flashy white flowers.

A False Solomon Seal collected by the good folks at Crug Farm Nursery during a plant hunting trip to Central America.  They found this once common species in Guatemala relegated to remnant populations at higher altitudes above 9000 feet where it found it spread rhizomatously to form small colonies.   White flowers and mulch well in winter.

A collection from Guatemala at 8000'-9000' by Josh McCullough where he found this gowing both epiphytically on Oak trees and terrestrially.  Cool new world False Solomon's Seal that is likely best brought in during the winter.  We haven't flowered it but this has long 10" pedicels.

This is from a collection of ours from North Dakota where its glaucous-green leaves looked most appealing.  Small starry white flowers in May and June and the subsequent fruit is most appealing - to us anyway - when immature as the round green "peas" are decked out in dark stripes.  This will spread a foot or so a year and you can eat the new shoots to keep it in check.

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 was quite a pleasing sight as we slogged up the muddy trail of an obscure mountain in Guizhou with the rain coming down when we saw looming out of the mist, branches of this fine Malus laden with small cheery lemon-yellow crab apples each bejeweled in glittering raindrops. Small trees to 15' with broad, irregular crowns and likely white flowers.

One odd little plant from the Andes possessing neither flamboyance of flower, nor headiness of perfume, nevertheless, it's pretty damned cool.  We've never noticed it blooming, the flowers being so small but the resultant edible but insipid white fruit are attractive as is the foliage and habit.  Great in the rock garden.

Quite the uncommon small evergreen tree to large shrub that has tiny little red flowers cladding the stems which individually are a bit of nothing but in their multitudes are really kind of fun.  Native to Argentina through Chile down into windy Patagonia, this has not been trialed much here but is growing at the Arboretum in Seattle.  Zone 8.

These are seed-grown plants from a fantastic rich purple form of the Blue Poppy shared with us by Merrill Jensen of the Jensen-Olson Arboretum in Alaska where these magical plants grow like Matanuska cabbages.  This is a very choice offering.  We've not seen this before and the pedigree remains a grandis mystery, so to speak! Cannot be grown anywhere it gets hot and/or humid in the summer.

These we grew from seed we received which are a bit of a mystery as half the plants were as expected and the other these delightful rogues.  We've not flowered them but certainly looks to be allied to Lingholm but whether these will be sky blue or violet blue, we can't say other than either will be lovely. Cannot be grown anywhere it gets hot and/or humid in the summer.

One of the best of the Blue Poppies and certainly one of the most reliably perennial. This has large flowers of good medium blue. This appreciates a partly sunny to bright dappled shade position with loose organic soil that drains, yet doesn't dry out. A percentage dies after blooming so save seed to be safe! Cannot be grown anywhere it gets hot and/or humid in the summer.

One of the best of the Blue Poppies and certainly one of the most reliably perennial. This has large flowers of good medium blue. This appreciates a partly sunny to bright dappled shade position with loose organic soil that drains, yet doesn't dry out. A percentage dies after blooming so save seed to be safe! Cannot be grown anywhere it gets hot and/or humid in the summer.

A expert grower friend in Scotland gave us seed of "proper" 'Lingholm' after he could no longer bear seeing the dark blue verging tinged purple flowers of the US 'Lingholm'.  We told him that gardeners here are near brought to tears by our domestic blue poppy and he said just wait.  Large flowers of the most piercing, unsullied sky blue. Cannot be grown anywhere it gets hot and/or humid in the summer.