New and Restocked Plants

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.

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.

Choice shrubby flowering cherry that gets to 8' and as wide making a mass of zig-zag twigs in winter followed by profuse white flowers with pale pink calyces and all the hot colors in fall from rich yellow to rich purple.  Hard to find fault with this and there is too much of that going around nowadays anyway.  Excellent for bonsai.

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.

Seedlings from a floriferous red-flowered selection from Russell Graham.  Russell had one of the most beloved specialty nurseries in the Northwest and to say he knows a good plant is stating the obvious.  The parent plant is a short, dense clumper with small red flowers that rule by their majority.  This has pride of place in our garden, widely separated from our other Dierama, so hope is for similarity on these children.

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.

Exceptional Mountain Ash form our collection on the summit of Leigongshan in Guizhou where this was a multi-trunked small tree/large shrub to 10' with nice clusters of white berries.  This species is being grown in the UK but they have yet to put a name to it.  From the highest point in its range.  Freakin' Cool!

Our selection from near the extirpated location of a dwarf population above Carbonado relayed to us by NW plant legend Edith Dusek.  This has proved to be very atypical in that it produces a zillion crowns in a single plant,  A one gallon pot plant had 50 divisions, a large garden clump over a thousand.  Smaller than lowland clones.

Young plants of this extremely rare species which we speculate will have only light frost tolerance so perhaps good for zones 9-10.  Evergreen bold leaves bringing to mind an unholy union between a laurel and a rhododendron.  Insignificant flowers at a relatively young age.

From Vietnam by Floden-Mitchell-Wynn-Jones of this surely lovely Ginger family member.  We say surely because most Alpinia are lovely and we've grown this for ten years with nary a flower.  No fault of the plant but of our cool climate with no summer heat.  Dense clumps to 30" tall.  Let us know when it blooms.

Snow Poppy. This Chinese Bloodroot relative is a great addition to the large wild garden where its rambling tendencies can be a positive attribute rather than a curse. Neat looking 4" leaves and glistening white 2" flowers for several weeks really light up the shade garden. Deciduous.

A luscious, tender Nerine sarniensis hybrid worth every effort to overwinter.  Related to Amaryllis, this bulb is summer dormant with the leaves appearing in winter and flowering in fall.  The flowers are the rich pink of promise speaking directly to the limbic brain conjuring ancient cave responses as though confronted by sex, ripe fruit or blood. Civilization is but a thin veneer.

Good and vigorous hybrid between two excellent blue species, Corydalis flexuosa and C. elata. This will put on a show in spring into June with lots of vibrant blue, nicely scented flowers on reddish stems which stand above the foliage. Perfect in the shade garden. This will go fairly dormant in the dog days of summer but will start up again in early fall.

A seedling found in the gardens at Pan Global Plants in England and named by the proprietor Nick Macer.  This is a hybrid between two of the blue flowered Chinese species, C. flexuosa and C. elata and carries through with blue scented flowers of its own.  Named for the conservative members of Parliament or "true blues".

This was one of those "Holy shit - lookit that fern!" moments when we first spotted this species growing at the base of soaring pinnacles of vertical peaks in Guizhou, China where it was not intimidated in the least and perfectly in scale.  Massive 4'-6' wide fronds 6'-8' tall in the wild and clumping.  Likely smaller in cultivation but still BIG!  Zone 7b-9.

Willow Gentian.  One of the truly excellent late summer/early fall blooming plants which jazzes up the shade garden with lots of stems in a circular arching vase shape with ranks of blue to lavender blue flowers ranked along the stems.  Just what you need when you are sick of Hostas.

Young plants of a rare offering of this graceful woodland species from the borderlands of China and Vietnam. Upright plants to 10' that rarely branch with expected Schefflera - we mean Heptapleurum - green leaves. Umbels of black fruit in a raceme. Hardiness unknown but let's start with not very. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering

Our 2014 introduction  from a cross between Epimedium grandiflorum 'Queen Esta' and E. acuminatum L575 with fine mauve-red flowers and fantastic new foliage vividly splashed in splatters of red.  It is apparent we have watched too much CSI, Criminal Minds, True Blood and the odd, graphic Nature.

A Bay Area species thought to be extinct until a single plant was discovered in 2009 during a botanical survey prior to a freeway expansion.  This one plant was dug and lifted by crane for transplanting to San Francisco Botanical Garden and one of the first propagations was given to us by the curator.

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. These are non-flowering divisions in gallon pots and could and should bloom next year. White flowers are of good size.

Wheel Tree. Our collection from Taiwan of this indispensable broadleaf evergreen that usually is a small tree in gardens. Very clean and attractive, always the first criteria to be considered whether shopping for plants or romance, the Taiwan forms are regarded as better garden plants with better foliage. Surprisingly nice green flowers

Mint Bush.  Brought to the UK from Australia by Jeffrey Irons and sent to us from a friend in Holland.  A Welsh nuseryman describes it as "a cracking plant tolerant of heavy frost and sells on sight".  We love the genus with the aromatic deer proof evergreen foiage and in this case, white flowers tinged lavender.

A collection from Kyushu, Japan by the Wynn-Jones of Crug Farm.  Deeply incised palmate leaves with long finger-like lobes are visually arresting in themselves while the early to mid summer large yellow daisy flowers just piles on the eye candy.  Structure, beauty, form and function - only the most bitter cabbage would fault this for not being edible!

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.