China

Pretty cool and needless to say, rare rhizomatous evergreen perennial taxonomically wandering among genera from Tupistra to Campylandra to currently Rohdea which we have written in pencil. This has proven nicely hardy here in the PNW making a statement with elegant narrow green leaves with a muted amber central stripe. Flowers curiously interesting. Sure, this could be damning by faint praise using classic nursery merchandising deflection and obfuscation but the flowers are curious. And interesting. This is from a Quarry Hill Botanic Garden collection which they shared with us. We saw this species growing among bamboo and mixed shrubs on the slopes of Luoji Shan in Sichuan and it was like unexpectedly running into a friend, a brohdea, so to speak.

  Read the article.

This busy Lizzy is not the free-wheeling wild times tropical annual of your Grandma's time, this is the conservative backlash foliage over flowers, year round workhorse Impatiens. Hardy down to the warmer parts of Zone 6 this is a great plant to add some tropical flavor to your less-than-tropical perennial woodland garden. Plus happily spreading and easily dug to share with friends! Wheels of lime or silver-streaked dark green leaves centered in red with yellow balsamineous flowers in Summer. These are cutting grown from a particularly narrow form at the old Heronswood nursery. 

One of the stars in our shade garden is this Chinese Trillium relative. We find this eminently superior to the typical Paris polyphylla typically offered. These are seedlings from our garden plants which are marvels of vegetative increase. The 3 bulbs we originally planted 8 years ago have now increased to over 50 stems up to 40" tall with elegant flowers and showy orange fruit. Hope these kids have learned something from their folks.If you are ordering this as a dormant bare root bulb, it is fine to plant it outside now (assuming the ground isn't frozen etc) as these have been growing outside here at the nursery. Three inches deep should suffice and if you live in harsh winter climates, a good mulch will help. These come up late in the spring for us - later than other forms - so don't worry too much. They like an acid soil, moist yet draining, and we expect that if you can grow Trilliums successfully, you should succeed with this one. Zone 6 for sure and probably into zone 5 although we have no personal experience with it in those regions.

We love the Asiatic Gentians and want them all as they are easy, hardy and put on such a show in late summer/early fall. We were thrilled to get this one from our friend Urs of Edelweiss Nursery who brought this in from a German gentian specialist. Not your typical blue, this has white flowers with pale yellowish stripes. Moist and sun.

Legendarily beautiful, tricky, and hard to get. So reads my tinder profile and so too reads the story of the fabled blue poppies. Luckily this one makes it ever so slightly easier on the latter two while retaining the first. Baileyi has sometimes been relegated to variety status under M. betonicifolia but either way you name it this Meconopsis is a bit more tolerant of less than optimal conditions, plus once it gets going this particular batch likes to form small clumps or even spread along its apostolic stolons until you are left with a veritable blue sky in amidst your bed of garden treasures. Likes acidic soils, cool summers and coldish winters. Cannot be grown anywhere it gets hot and/or humid in the summer.

*Limit of 2 per person