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Like a true American statesman this plant fulfills none of it's promises and gives you plenty of the unexpected. Contrary to it's common name of Pineapple Lily this is neither pineapple nor lily, luckily the unexpected reality is a shockingly easy South African summer bulb. Attractively lax rosettes of thick strappy light green leaves sometimes freckled red at the base. Flowers in a raucous spike of pink and white stars topped by an unkempt mop of green bracts, almost like a florist's recreation of a pineapple. Easy to please in a sunny spot with decent soil and can tolerate some degree of shade.  

An Arizona collection by FRBC board member Cody Hinchliff of this excellent and underutilized perennial. In exchange for a hot sunny spot and top-notch drainage you will receive plentiful returns in the form of deer-resistant drought-tolerant finely textured foliage with a crown of fiery red corollas. This collection is particularly late-flowering extending the season for both you and your local hummingbirds to a time not particularly known for such saturated blooms.  Not for those with wet summers.

Yellow Avalanche Lily. Who doesn't love seeing this during a mountain hike in the Olympics or Cascades where these seem to leap out of the ground soon after the snow recedes? There is nothing like a hillside sheeted in thousands of these in bloom. This one you are holding could be the start of the same in your garden..

Quite an uncommon evergreen species in cultivation from Shaanxi and Sichuan in China possessing an impish charm to which few others in the genus can lay claim. A smaller species with cute rounded leaflets which subtend stems bearing rounded simple flowers which are a soft yellow and quite distinct as they lack the familiar spurs found in many Epimediums. This has an innocence of beauty that taps into that same well of emotion which comes into play when you see a line of newly-hatched ducklings swimming behind their mother. Perhaps the lack of spurs on the flower indicates that this is a more primitive species in the evolutionary development of the genus and as a result, our reptilian "third brain' initiates a deep limbic nurturing response. These are the things we think about at 3 in the morning as we lay awake trying to go back to sleep. Good drought tolerance hardy to zone 5b.

A nice bright silver-foliaged selection of the California Fuchsia. This loves a well-drained soil in a hot sunny spot where it has lots of tubular scarlet hummingbird magnet flowers on a plant 12-18 inches tall in late summer. Disappears in winter but comes up from the spreading underground rhizomes. Cut back in spring. This can take a good amount of dry once established and not liked by deer.

A selection of this California Fuchsia from El Tigre Peak on Santa Cruz Island. This is low growing form to just 8" tall but can spread to 4' across or more when happy. And making this happy is really pretty easy - pretty much just ignore it in a dry, hot sunny spot with good drainage and your reward will be lots of tubular orange-red flowers in late summer-fall with further decoration provided by appreciative hummingbirds.

Fine Buckwheat from seed collected in Kern Co. CA at 7830'. This population is one of the most compact forms of this variety with very small, gray-white leaves on a low mat that can eventually get 2' across. The flower stems can be 16" tall, and unlike its pom-pom flowered kin, the white to pale pink flowers are ranked along the stem to nice effect. Dryish mineral soil zones 5-8.

Native to the Caucasus and northern Iran where hardline clerics have been known to set aside fiery rhetoric while getting dirty bedding out plants of Eryngium caucasicum at their villas in the Elburz Mts. The Eryngium flowers are a natural cleric mellowing agent making them feel like the Ayatollah of Sea Hollyola. Small blueish flowers in quantity. Hope this isn't our unintentional Salman Rushdie moment.

Big fan of these underrated little herbaceous doers, was an even big fan when they were under the phonetically delicious Zauschneria. Mounds of silvery foliage topped for an impressively long period in the late summer and fall with salmon pink tubular flowers very similar in appearance to a salvia. That long flowering and flower form also mean they are a delight for hummers. California native and the Sierra should give you some hint to cultural requirements, does well in well-drained and even rocky soils, drought tolerant but not averse to some moisture, at the same time it doesn't want wet feet. Provides a lot that we will be in need of with changing climates, especially in the rain shadow (deer resistant to boot) so we're hoping to see more of it out and about!

A small evergreen shrub in everyone's favorite family, the Pentaphylacaceae. This was collected in Taiwan by Mark Weathington of the famed Raulston Arboretum and is a rarity in cultivation. Best suited for mild gardens, this will have very small white flowers along the stems under the leaves followed by small black fruit. Best planted in a raised position to better view the flowers.

Fairy Wings Epimedium or Bishop's Cap. This is one of the most elegant of the numerous species and cultivars of Epimedium with long blade-like leaflets nicely colored when young and white flowers like drifting parachutes in a Lilliputian fantasy. Hails from China and a necessary addition to the shade garden.

A seriously good Buckwheat native to just three of the Channel Islands where it grows mainly on dry cliffs. It does great in cultivation however and probably finds it a relief to be able to relax a bit. Evergreen domes to a foot or more tall with flower stems up to a foot long bearing long lasting blooms of red to white.

Truly a Sea Holly as this Eryngium is a dune plant throughout a good part of Europe. Hard to beat texturama for the dry garden, Mediterranean style or really, an ol' garden as long as you aren't too nice to it. Good drainage in lean soil and you can bask in the splendor of the gray, lightly spiny foliage and the small light purple flower buttons.

A robust Eriogonum from shrub steppe habitat east of the Cascades from WA to CA and east to ID. An awesome plant for a larger spot in the rock garden, mounding to 18"x30". Arrow-shaped leaves are felty-green on top and wooly-white beneath while white to pale-yellow umbels of flowers appear late May to July. Like many other Eriogonum, this is an important pollinator plant for butterflies. Lean and good drainage.

A rich reddish purple foliage form of our native Western Stream Orchid found by Roger Raiche in California and the best foliage of any selection. Totally hardy outside and loves a wet spot but is perfectly happy in a garden bed that doesn't dry out. This makes a colony of vibrant colored leafy stems bearing numerous orange-brown-yellow flowers. Divisions from our patch potted this spring. This can be found throughout the entire western half of the US.