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Very intriguing perennial with intricate light brown flower buds that appear to be spun glass art depicting the skeletal structure of some microscopic sea creature. From the center extends the feathered pinkish petals. While not spectacular compared to a Dahlia, we think it spectacularly interesting but then we are certifiable plant loons.

Little gray-foliaged low small cushiony clumper. Pinky lavender flowers on stems of a few inches in length. Easy and quite hardy.

Giant Pincushion Flower. We saw this used to great effect in numerous cottage gardens in northern England during our coast to coast walk in June-July 2012. Impressive zone 3 perennial whose open, branched stems can exceed 6' tall and bear creamy yellow flowers. Perfect for mixing with lower bushy plant.

Katsura Tree. A collection in China by tres hombres, three Henrik's from Sweden's Gothenburg Botanical Garden.  How could they not use HeHeHe as an expedition acronym?  Fantastic ornamental tree species, this has rounded ovate leaves richly colored in spring with reds and purples and color persisting to some degree well into summer.  Elegant habit and high marks for presentation, the insignificant flowers are not required,  Yellow-orange fall color accompanied by a subtle burnt sugar or cotton candy scent from the fallen leaves.  Eventually maturing at 40'-60' in the garden but old growth specimens in the wild are larger.  Can be single or multi-trunked, ours is the latter after some nocturnal critter broke the top out when young and may have done us a favor as it looks stellar.  Cutting-grown from single clone.

Northwest late great plantman Roy Davidson found this growing wild on the shoulders of Mt Fuji in Japan and brought cuttings home. This Japanese Flowering Quince has deep red flowers which smolder with the same intensity as that long evening of urgent abandon with that Spaniard in Barcelona where anything was fair game again and again and again...........

A plant of refinement to be sure. One that is appreciated and admired by the higher echelons of gardening. A collector's plant. Different ways of saying that this is not a flamboyant show-stopper but a tasteful blend of delicate texture and airy soft pink flowers that helps make it all work.

Fairy Wand. Small plants of this cool species we grew from seed and it is right up there with Ruscus for unprofitable slowness. Male flowers have an arching plume of white flowers while the females have a smaller, erect spike and we have no idea on gender for these plants. Rich, moist soil in shade to part shade.

Silver Cloak Fern. At home over a broad stretch of Asia from Vietnam up to Siberia where it favors growing on rocks or walls in degraded - some say rotted - moss and organic matter. A low growing evergreen fern with startling white undersides to the leaves. Low water requirements once established. Most folks say zone 5 but we'll say 6.

Japanese Turtlehead. This light shade loving perennial has late season pink flowers shaped like a foxglove but for us, it is most evocative of an erect Nothochelone nemerosa which is a familiar native wildflower if you are a hiker in the Olympic or Cascade Mts. This makes a nice clump giving a valuable late show.

A dense hard light green patty of minute needle-like foliage on this good alpine from the Wallowa Mts in NE Oregon which is a regional Mecca for serious rock gardeners and growers of alpines. Our plants have come from two of the most extraordinary growers of rock garden plants, Kathy Allen in Oregon and Rick Lupp of Washington. The fact that these two grew this in their nurseries says plenty as to merit as well as growability. A gritty soil in a rock garden or container in full sun and can be stingy with its white flowers but awesome even if it never bloomed.

An exquisite and rare shrub both in cultivation and in nature. This dwarf fringetree is found only in small Florida populations and is facing possible disappearance in the wild much like it's textile fashion equivalent but at least in the case of the plant not for lack of visual appeal. This unsuspecting tree explodes head to to skirt in a riot of long-petalled white flowers dangling gracefully like sleeves at a discotheque. 

*For sale only to Washington customers*

Choice and uncommon Japanese native making a many stemmed plant with lots of white bottle-brush flowers in spring. The glossy green and nicely textured leaves are pleasant the rest of the season.

Chicken Feet. Native to China and named for the floral phalangeal arrangement of small greenish white flowers on thin stems which are quite fragrant. Widely grown subshrub for its use as an aromatic especially for a tea additive and for medicinal properties. Useful in the frost-free or nearly so shade garden. We've enjoyed more than a few chicken feet at meals in our travels through areas where this grows.

More widely known as 'Apricot', this is one of the stellar performers in the fall garden where its seemingly artless open display of classically simple single flowers of peachy pink ray petals around a yellow eye belie a scrupulous attention to detailed presentation behind the veil of nonchalance.

Pretty amazing mum that makes an extremely dense mound of its own accord and then smothers itself in small white flowers with a yellow button in the fall. The green leaves are made all the more attractive by the silvery undersides. We showed this to a couple of visiting Aussies who have the premier rare perennial nursery Down Under "Do you have to pinch this to have it look like this? No? Well, that's a Criahkuh (Cracker) of a plant!". Convict bloodlines aside, these boys knew a good a plant when they saw it.

One of two similar but subtly different chance seedlings in our garden thanks to the tireless hybridization efforts of our various bee species. Apparently they visited the nursery and purloined pollen from 'Dixter Pink' or 'Cottage Apricot' and placed it on our Chrysanthemum yezoense - awesome! Why didn't we think of that? Softly pale pink flowers with petals flat to slightly reflexed.

This is a true jewel and one we always look forward to seeing in the fall when the tabletop sized patch of low dense dark green leaves are alight with outrageous large white daisy flowers. Talk about contrast with so many of the hot colors of Autumn! In taxonomic flux, we previously offered this as Nipponanthemum nipponicum. The white flowers take on some pink-lavender tones as they age and all looks quite good over the dark green foliage.

Alternate-leaved Golden Saxifrage. Love it when customers share interesting plants with us which is how we came by this little goody. This is pretty much circumarboreal in the northern hemisphere where it is often found in rock outcrops in moist areas. Nice rounded evergreen leaves and umbels of yellow flowers in spring. This is going to work nicely as a small scale groundcover in a moist lightly shaded spot. It grows in some pretty northern cold areas with a distinctly continental climate so good and hardy.

Cute little evergreen small-scale groundcover from moist shaded habitats in China. We saw this growing in very moist shade in deep moss over rocks which carried seepage from the summit of Wumeng Shan. Interesting clusters of yellow flowers and has proven perfectly hardy for us.

Our introduction from 2012 of this new to cultivation species. This was found on a scramble up a shaded and damp ravine which would have been a small stream during rainstorms. Fortunately it was sunny. A tight groundcover with normally green leaves but this sport has frosty white flecks in the leaves most prominent in the spring. Small green flowers.in branched heads up to 6" above the leaves. We were hoping for yellow but this will make the green flower contingent happy. You would be surprised just how many of them are out there! This overwintered nicely in our garden winter of 2014 enduring two separate events of 3 nights of 15F each time.