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Perhaps polite society really is dead, or at least polite society garlic. This poor little fella is quite possibly extinct in the wild, or at the very least critically endangered and restricted to a tiny area of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. If that's not enough to elicit your sympathy then the sweetly fragrant soft pink flowers are sure to win over your heart, and make you forget for a blissful moment the comparatively uncouth smell of the foliage (though that provides it with deer resistance. Drought tolerant and desirous of fair drainage but otherwise easy going for a South African bulb.

Unlike the common folk of Tulbaghias this "society garlic" got the white-tie message and is rather the more fetching for it. Blushing pink buds opening to pure white or pale-pink flowers making for a picturesque plant I'd be happy to ask for a dance at the next gala, if only it wasn't for that impolite garlicky smell....well beggars for hardy South African bulbs can't be choosers I guess.

Chilean Guava. Our mama plant is loaded with fruit in the greenhouse right now and after eating some, we're questioning why we are selling any instead of keeping them to lavish ourselves in personal extravagance. If we were just two miles down the road by the shore we would grow these outside but here in the relative Siberia of the Quimper Peninsula Steppe, we dasn't take the chance. One of the perfect evergreen shrubs for mild climates, this has shiny aromatic leaves giving olfactory testimony to its inclusion in the Myrtle family. Nice white flowers followed by ruby flavorful fruit the size of average Blueberries and all on a broadly columnar plant to 8' tall. If this was hardier, it would be ubiquitous. As it is, it is worth coddling in cooler climes and personally we are going to throw down some Chilean Guava on our foodie friends come Christmas. The best thing about bringing an Ugni dish to Christmas dinner? It'll be the best Ugni anyone has ever had. Neo in The Matrix, not in black but in Chef white, holding a plate of Ugni a la Far Reaches in one hand and reaching out, beckoning "Bring it, foodies" with the other. Oh yeah, so doing the Ugni.

We are so close to being able to grow this outside that we literally can see the 2 miles to downtown PT where this would thrive but no, we're the nursery on the hill in the cold pocket. Yes, a little touchy about it. Flashy variegated leaves in pinks-creams-yellows-whites and greens go with the pink flowers and tasty fruit on this Chilean Guava. Gorgeous evergreen for gardens above 15F which are annoyingly prevalent in our area.

This is a hardier and somewhat smaller-leaved form of the Chilean Guava that was recently introduced by Paul Barney from Pucon, Chile and which Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy brought into the US from the UK. An excellent evergreen ornamental small shrub to 5' or 6' with scented white flowers and deep burnished red fruit in the fall which were said to be Queen Victoria's favorite fruit. We expect this to handle at least a half zone colder.

The Japanese name 'Seiju' translates to "master" in English. This showy dwarf Chinese Elm has mastered textural structure with especially corky bark as it ages. The small leaves don't obscure this corkiness and have a brief Autumnal dalliance with yellow. A go-to specimen for Bonsai and provides a larger element in the rock garden.

Excellent member of the Crassulaceae which means it is a succulent basically, but one that eschews the arid sunny spot in favor of lusher environs like our shade garden with dairy manure mulch. Makes a thick clump of fleshy green leaves with taller stems of pendulous strings of bead-like yellow flowers that are nothing less than captivating. This is one of those plants we have had for a long time but one that surprises us each year when it blooms because we don't expect something so familiar to float our boat quite so high. Very easy to please and a plant people want when they see it in flower.

Jim' Pride' is the selection of this sedum relative from the Caucasus Mts which is notable for the showy variegation. This is not as vigorous as the typical green form and the nodding strands of bead-like flowers are creamy rather than yellow as well. Easy evergreen.

Merry Bells. One of our favorite of the Midwest and Eastern woodland wildflowers. Rich gold pendant flowers dangling like earrings on a woman of some serious substance. Combines beautifully with upper crust plants such as Cardiocrinums and Arisaemas yet hangs comfortably with box store Hostas. These are divisions from our stock plants.

A nice find in the woods of North Carolina, this variegated Perfoliate Bellwort is a choice addition to the shade garden. Creamy, feathered markings adorn the margins of the perfoliate leaves which pair nicely with the creamy white flowers. Perfoliate means the leaf surrounds the stem so it looks like the stem runs through the leaf. Slow to increase, we don't have many.

Perfoliate Bellwort. So named for the perfoliate leaves in which the stem seems to pierce the leaf and bellwort for the pendant pale yellow (in this form) to greenish flowers. This is a collection from Hamblen County Tennessee shared with us by botanist Aaron Floden. A delight in the shade garden contrasting well with dark Podophyllums and ferns.

Little creeping woodlander from the East Coast newly placed in the Colchicaceae which alters our world view. Socially inept biochemists will soon lump all life into a single family derived from a virus, blue-green algae or a bacteria. Bah! Delicate creamy bells in spring. Quite tough.

One of the little gems of the woodland is this scarcely encountered selection which we have planted under our Disporum 'Night Heron' in our shade garden where it contrasts with the almost black new growth of the Disporum. Pretty sweet. A gentle infiltrator wending amongst plants of stouter stature, this carries a joyous light in its white edged leaves and pale bell flowers. Naturally small rhizomes.

For those sick freaks who want to be cold year round, this is one blizzard that sticks around during the summer and makes way for the real thing in Winter. Darrell Probst selection of this delightful Eastern woodland native dusted with variegation from light green to white like a miniature chlorophyll snow storm. Slowly spreading and with small yellow flowers in Spring. 

A wunderbar find by plantsman Darrell Probst. This delicate woodlander creeps about sporting a hanging creamy bell-shaped flower in spring. The glory of this selection is the yellow margined foliage putting this way high up on the plant collector's "gotta have" list.

There are many bigger and more impressive Uvularias and even more similar enough to pass the same tests. BUT. If I was a fairy, or a gnome, there are none that would match this one for planting priority. The perfect diminutive but not tiny size, drowsily nodding habit, and large cream yellow bells, all capped off with a painted margin of white just make this so incredibly charming in a children's book sort of way. Wood make for a truly idyllic groundcover in a woodland garden where all your local fae-folk friends live their merry or naughty lives outside the gaze of the plodding 'Big People', oh to live in such a world. 

A distinctive Vaccinium (Blueberry) collected by Jens Nielsen in western Yunnan at 3000 meters. Large leaves of serious substance alternately flank the arching stems and take on red-bronze colors when young as well in winter on the least mature leaves. No surprises on the white urn-shaped flowers or with the purple-black fruit which add ornament to an already interesting plant. We can only guess as to mature size of the plant but would think 3'-4' tall with arching and trailing branches to 6' or more. This is likely epiphytic in the wild which means good drainage in the garden.

Thank gods for Steve Hootman of the Rhododendron Species Botanic Garden who is a champion of the lesser Ericads otherwise we would be blissfully unaware that so many necessary plants such as this existed and this rare epiphytic Vaccinium is just such a plant. Fortunately Steve did not assess a leech surcharge appended to each sale of this plant otherwise we would be in serious trouble as they were legion in the Salween and his stories of his boots squishing as if filled with water from the monsoon rains only to find that upon removal of the boots that the sloshing was not so much water as it was blood which poured red from the weeping leech bites. Eighteen bucks starts to sound pretty reasonable don't you think? Very cute little epiphyte with small rounded cupped leaves and wee white flowers. This is going to be a source of no small pleasure in zone 8 where it will be happy growing in a container creeping in a rotting log or mossy rock in part shade. We grow ours in a cool greenhouse kept just at or above freezing and has been easy as pie. Not the showiest in the genus but isn't high maintenance or prone to drama. This has an unassuming beauty that only generations of attention to understated detail can achieve and there is not a thing we would change about this except perhaps that occasional nightmare concerning leeches.

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Our collection as cuttings from the Cangshan in Yunnan of an especially small leafed form of this evergreen species. Steve Hootman of the Rhododendron Species Botanical garden now and again mutters about giving it a clonal name. Probably best in a mild garden.

Superb blue-green leaf selection of this exceptionally ornamental evergreen Himalayan Blueberry. We saw this in western Arunachal Pradesh in 2003 at 10,000' and discovered an eastern range extension of this in Sichuan in 2006. This is a superior form to both populations and likely has its origins with Barry Starling, UK Ericaceae expert. Fruit is edible but very tart, good only for special preserves and you might be better served eating the birds that came to eat the berries. Not that we would. Or do.