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Very thrilled to be finally able to offer this Veratrum which was formerly in the genus Melanthium. Native from the Midwest to East Coast, this thrives in marshy, boggy settings or damp woods. Perfect in rich moisture retentive soil in the garden. White plumes of flowers to 5'+ in June and July. Deer proof - thank goodness for toxic alkaloids!

We love seeing this False Hellebore when we are hiking up to Marmot Pass or Mt Townsend in the Olympics. Usually growing in dappled light or partly sunny spots where there is ample moisture and rich soil, the big wide pleated leaves are perfect with the drooping plume-like green flowers. Fertilize them well when in growth to shorten the time to maturity. Too deep of shade inhibits bloom but you still get the great leaves. Deer proof. At least here.

Ok, this is delightful! A small evergreen subshrub which has these shiny little leaves on mahogany stems with sprays of lavender-blue with a distinctive magenta ring enclosing a white eye. This happily flowers from June until frost and shearing off the spent flowers encourages continued bloom. This makes a 10"x24" billow of foliage and flower in sun to part sun.

This sweet little New Zealand groundcover is perhaps best known by its former name of Parahebe olsenii. Soft lavender flowers with a yellow eye rimmed in cerise feathering are held just above the small rounded evergreen leaves that have tones of green olive. Tidy is a word that comes to mind.

A native of the wild east of Washington state, this is one outlaw that couldn't escape the long arm of taxonomical law and its free-wheeling life as the impossible to spell Synthyris has ended in emasculation at the hands of all consuming Veronica. Cormac would weep. Nonetheless it's evergreen discs of boot-spur margined foliage and vivid purple gun-barrel flowers spikes will live on in garden legend.

Way too much name for a favorite Veronica. This thrives in the sun and the gray foliage with blue candles of flowers butted up to a black rockery rock would make the cover of Rock Garden Quarterly.

One of the sweetest little groundcovers we have grown. Aside from the small terminal clusters of deep blue flowers in late spring and early summer, we are taken by its good evergreen foliage and year-round tidy appearance. It is in one of our troughs and spills over the lip perfectly. Good for the rock garden.

For most of us, this is a good container plant to lug in for the winter but if you have that garden which only gets light frosts or that microclimate we would kill for, then this is a goody. Native to Chile, this is in the Solanaceae and will become a 4'-6' evergreen shrub with drooping and narrowly tubular yellow flowers with long exserted stamens. The foliage is a bit unpleasant when crushed - and only then - which makes us think it will be deer proof. Good for a sunny position and was given the Award of Garden Merit by the Royal Horticultural Society.

Unique Viburnum with cute rounded evergreen leaves which are unmatched elsewhere in the genus. Clusters of small white flowers are in keeping as is the resultant black fruit. There is something universally appealing about this plant which must be the cute factor and somehow it manages to retain this even as a larger shrub to 8' tall. This was formerly Viburnum harryanum.

Cutting-grown from a rare wild seed collection of this infinitely ornamental species by Dr. Aaron Floden, consulting taxonomist to Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.  Leatherleaf Viburnum is a superb evergreen species whose large leaves are nicely textured for multi-season interest.  Cymes of white flowers beckon bees and butterflies and are followed by fruit that is first red, then a shiny black.  This gets to 10' tall and as wide and works as a standalone plant or excellent as hedging.  As a seller of plants, we are contractually obliged to tout the value of this for hedging.

This collection is from what we regard as the southern form of this populous Asian species. What makes this special is that this was from the 10000' summit of this virtually unknown mountain and surely must be the highest elevation that this form grows. That, plus being one of the toughest days we have had in the field. This makes a good show with likely white flowers followed by heads of red fruit that matures to blue-black and the evergreen leaves are more attractive than the northern populations. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering

F2 plants from the original wild collection of this rare species. This is a very handsome thing with superb glossy textured leaves and showy displays of red fruit. Just looking at it, we thought - bummer, can't possibly be hardy but heard from one of the collectors that it handled zero Fahrenheit so woohoo! We later saw for ourselves the reason why as we climbed on Mt Fansipan, "The Roof of Indochina' and saw this growing near the summit. A portion of the proceeds goes to support the mission of Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.

Our collection from an area of extreme resource exploitation in Sichuan. Normally we don't collect much in this group but this was huddled out of harm's way on a cliff face playing the sympathy card which coupled with unusually glossy leaves and showy red fruit, we relented. Multi-stemmed to 8'-10' +. Deciduous. Every time we look at Viburnum in Flora of China to key this out and see the 115 taxa, we get easily distracted.

This is a fine winter-blooming deciduous Viburnum named after Charles Lamont of Edinburgh Botanic Gardens who made the first cross using the parents Viburnum grandiflorum and V. farreri. Charles didn't cherish the seedlings and chucked them which may be where we got the verb "chuck." I love fanciful etymologies. Bodnant Gardens soon duplicated the cross and named some seedlings including the extremely popular pink flowered 'Dawn' and one white flowered selection which was named in honor of Charles Lamont. It is light pink in bud and then ages white and the scented flowers can be seen in November through to March or April depending on your climate.

There are a lot of bogus Charles Lamont being offered by very reputable nurseries which are pink. These are wrong. Charles Lamont is white, pinkish in bud. Ours came from a very uppity and serious English nursery in the mid 80's with the grave pronouncement that this was the genuine Charles Lamont. Being younger and a simple Yank, I'm sure I replied with an enthusiatic "Dude! This is righteous!" I remember not being shown any other special plants that resided behind the rope. These are small but very sturdy plants which will take off for you.

One of the good rock garden plants that is actually pretty easy to grow. Related closely to our Douglasia of the Olympics, this little jewel from the Pyrennees and Dolomites has yellow flowers nearly covering the foliage in late spring. Good drainage and not terribly dry.

This natural hybrid of one of the classic South African bulb genera is endemic to Cape Province, and you'd be hard pressed to find it much further than that native range even in cultivation, luckily we have excellent connections like Michael Wickenden who generously shared it with us. Bladelike foliage, while nice, is unlikely to wow. The flowers however can grow in great spikes of up to 6 1/2 ft tall! Individual florets can come in red or pink and look rather similar to a more trumpeted Hesperantha, corollas flaring out to a star shaped opening. Prefers a Mediterranean climate and very well draining soil, can be pot-grown in a similarly draining mixture for those not living the riviera lifestyle.

Our collection of this large species from Fanjinshan in China where we saw it growing in the open with mixed scrub. This was a leafless 10' rounded open shrub with seed capsules at the ends of the branches. We have not yet flowered this but Flora of China has this as the only species that grows in this area so that works for us. Expect white flowers tinged pink aging to red or some variation thereof and being fairly profuse in May. May is always a safe month to say when you have not flowered something. Gives you a little wiggle room. If you've got the room in a naturalistic wild garden or want something big summer screening, this could be the ticket. This would be excellent backing for tall Joe Pye Weed for example. Aside from appealing to hummingbirds with its broadly tubular flowers, this is the type of shrub that is begging to be nested in. Good branch angles, nice shell of exterior concealing foliage and relatively open interior. Channeling my inner bird.

Crazy fern that takes away the need to fuss of growing this from spore, as it makes a multitudinous panoply of ready-to-go plantlets on the leaves that will soon have you owning the corner in your 'hood dealing in fern babies. Remember, if it's a kid, the first one is free. Warmer gardens or indoors, mulch protect in zone 8 winters.This is often seen as W. orientalis in the trade but the pterido-prophets say the signs point to prolifer. 

Sporelings of the Mexican Chain Fern originally introduced from the mountains near Oaxaca. A rarely seen beautiful species surviving many years in a Seattle garden. The same garden has a glorious container of this which overwinters frost-free in the sunroom where it not only survives but thrives. Thanks to Jeanette Kunnen for sharing. These are young plants but if we wait, they will all be sold here at the nursery and they need to get out into broader distribution. Just a few.

We have just a handful of this choice form of the species in which the pinnae are distinctly undulated adding yet another layer of tasteful complexity to a species already awash in attributes. It really isn't fair to be born with gorgeous 6'-7' fronds but do you have to flaunt undulation too? Well, yes.