Sort by:
1772 products
1772 products
Oyster Leaf. The leaves are edible and taste - and feel - exactly like raw oysters. If raw oysters are your thing, this is an OMG veg alternative. The now closed El Bulli in Catalonia, regarded as one of the greatest restaurants ever, ran with Oyster Leaf innovative ways. Loved to have tried the leaves striped in golden caviar and splashed with Grey Goose. Beautiful glaucous blue-green leaves on sprawling stems tipped in small sky blue flowers. This likes ample nutrition. Perennial and dormant in winter. This is a plant of just above high tide line on cold northern hemisphere beaches from Maine to Greenland and Japan to Alaska so if you have a cool to cold garden, here you go.
We have seen this species in the wild on multiple occasions and it is variable but all are first-rate foliage plants. This particular collection is derived from the plant voted best broadleaf evergreen of the trip, excluding Rhododendrons. Umbels of small creamy flowers give way to small black fruit. While we can't recall every plant we have seen plant hunting, the memory of this is crystal clear.
A real stunner, this rare member of the bellflower family holds aloft its glorious flowers atop 3-5' stems. Those flowers? Quite unlike anything you've seen before, unless of course you're hiding the world's first Passiflora x Campanula hybrid (our phone lines are open!). Reflexed white petals forming a sun-like halo around a showily protruding pistil make for a guaranteed garden conversation starter. Potentially a great fit for the sunny rock garden or other well drained sunny spot.
From the ruins of a once great empire only one princeling remains...
A conifer for fans of the post-apocalyptic genre, hailing from a genus that once lived from Antarctica to New Zealand to South America to the Indian Ocean now reduced to just one extant species found only in Western Tasmania. But even beyond the incredibly cool botanical history to put your friends to sleep with, the tightly scaled snaking branches that splay along the ground and translucent red cones like little strawberries make for an equally fascinating horticultural specimen.
Partridge Berry. An introduction from Piping Tree Gardens Nursery in Virginia who made numerous selections from the rich local woodland flora. We can't attest to comparative sizes - too much like junior high locker rooms - but can say that this small-scale evergreen groundcover with small white fragrant flowers does have lovely red fruit.
The Wynn-Jones of Crug Farm collected this woodlander from Japan's Shikoku Island and represents a link to the shared flora we have here in the Northwest as there are native Mitella in our nearby woods. This is a low and evergreen species with foliage patterned in chocolate markings. The flowers are small pinkish-brown affairs with strongly recurved corolla lobes and held on stems 8"-15" above the leaves. This won't stop anyone in their tracks on its own but as part of the intricate plant tapestry that is required for an exquisite shade garden, this is an essential element. Plus if you are a tiny bit competitive, you can't disregard the fact that you will have something that is very unlikely anyone visiting your garden will have in their own garden. Zone 6 at least, likely lower and best in shade to part shade.
We are very fond of this plant from Chile where it can scramble up into trees quite a ways and the branchlets poking out into the sun are studded with glowing brick orange 1.5" trumpets. We've also seen it kept as a loose mound in full sun literally covered in flowers. Evergreen.
Or as we like to say, Lah-go Poo-Yay-Way. Presumably collected near the Chilean lake for which it is named, this uncommon clone is not horticulturally distinct from the Lake Caburqua form but does represent important genetic diversity in this monotypic genus. Scrambling and rambling and climbing woody gesneriad with orange tubular flowers and hardy here in Zone 8. A good wall plant for sure. We brought this home from England after acquiring it from an elderly collector who had numerous treasures which admittedly were staring into the abyss. Happy to say, it is living large here.
A plant we got from Michael Wickenden at Cally Gardens in Scotland who collected this in Chile. The flowers on this form seem a bit larger than typical as if they need to get any better. Wild orange-red dangling tubular pouches beckon man and hummingbird alike. Can clamber up into trees or kept small and shrubby by a bit of clipping. Sadly Michael died in October 2016 while plant hunting in Myanmar which is a keen loss as he was an uncompromising plantsman who was not afraid to take on nonsensical and misguided bureaucracy whether it was plant patents or ponderous legislation regarding wild and plant seed collection.
One of the better grasses you will find as this has impeccable manners coupled with tasteful presentation. A dense and self-contained spiky green mound of thin green blades gives rise to dark-stemmed flower spikes which can reach 30" tall and are at their best in late summer to autumn. Came to us via Marchant's in the UK.
A Bee Balm native to the Ocoee River in Tennessee, formally described as a new species thanks to the work by botanist Aaron Floden. Nice white flowers on what for us has been a shorter plant of 18" or so, but we expect it to be taller in the garden.
Pretty much an awesome plant for the rock garden or hell strip as this relishes good drainage and hot sun. We saw this at Lakewood Gardens in Denver summer of 2014 and had to have! A small subshrub covered in blazing red tubular flowers and allows no other plant to have any attention whatsoever. On the moderate to dryish side and lean. Did we mention deer don't like this? The current (now April 2017) issue of the North American Rock Garden Quarterly has Marian as the covergirl and it is well-deserved notoriety. BTW - if you are not a member of NARGS - that is a mistake fortunately easily corrected by going to their website and joining. Good publication, great plant people, exceptional conferences and tours and then there is the most awesome seed exchange list - some of our best bragging plants have their origins in that seed list.
An intriguing Iris relative from higher elevations in South Africa which has narrow vertical foliage and dark yellow very Iris-like flowers. This has proven to be nicely hardy for us here and may well be hardy to Zone 6 especially with mulch. This provides that important vertical element in your design scheme.
Love Moraea and a lot of them are winter-growing and too tender for us but this is one that is summer growing and flowering which fits right into the program! Narrow green leaves with a slight tunic at the base, not as flamboyantly netted as in M. alticola. Lovely yellow Iris-like flowers come in succession on stems above the leaves.
A favorite from the Himalaya, this thistle mimic is pretty outrageous in the garden. Robust clumps of gently spiny leaves and taller stems bejeweled in rank upon rank of long-tubed, white flowers which turn pink when pollinated. Nice to see we aren't the only ones who get a sexual flush during pollination.
A curiosity found and named in Japan, this has long, crazy thread-like leaves on thin stems and will make a spreading, small mound which would hang over an edge if so sited. It can be staked up to get a bit of height which we like. No fruit or flowers on this Mulberry and don't grow this clone for silk production - the poor silkworms would starve!
Tororaro says the matador as I charge blindly, eyes red with plant lust, wiggy-wig-ing out in my mad dash to reach shrubby divinity. Alas I come out empty handed, bashing my head against the wall of a 6b climate. Years of this until, sufficiently bloodied, my captors judged me no longer fit for service and put me out to pasture here in the milder climates of Washington. Plodding into my well-earned elysium I dropped to my knees and wept at my long-sought-after arrival in what must surely be my long-dreamed of piece of New Zealand garden utopia. The airy presence of this incredibly unique shrub will buoy you up to the heavens as well, the delightfully heart shaped leaves will fill your ventricles with joy, and the deer and drought resistance will ensure you never have to work another day in your life. More time enjoying your new Aotearoan pals.
We just love plants that keep us guessing. At first glance, is this one
dead? Would we care if it was? It looks freakin' cool. A New Zealand prostrate groundcover with wiry stems that from gravelly/sandy soils from coastal to subalpine areas. Our plant is from John Massey's private garden at Ashwood Nurseries. Light amber flowers require good knees and sharp eyes.
Crimson Fans. An amazing clone of a hardy Korean species in the Saxifragaceae. The early spring flowers are little pale things which are les amuse-geules for the foliar main course. In sun, the leaves turn a screaming crimson as summer ages especially if briefly and carefully water stressed. Moist.
A hardy and excellent selection from Japan with deeply divided and ruffled
leaves, providing a unique texture for the shade to cool sun garden. Fall color is often a rich
burgundy red. Best coloration in light shade during hottest part of the day. Panicles of pure
white flowers with red-pink centers appear in early to mid-spring.