Eastern North America

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.

Whorled Stoneroot. A pretty sweet Southeastern woodland wildflower whose uppermost two pairs of broad leaves are so close together you would think they were held in a whorled arrangement rather than opposite. Add in its woody rhizome and you have the origins of its common name. The spike of peachy-cream flowers is both lovely and rich in detail. I gallon size.

Spotted Mandarin. This former Disporum is found from Michigan down into Georgia and has been a nice addition to our shade garden montage. The flowers are worth a close look and beg for macro photography as they are finely spotted to which the specific epithet maculata refers.

Classic spring epehemeral of the eastern woodlands with ferny foliage in early spring and white flowers in March. This will go dormant by late spring and is an excellent little plant to grow on top of later growing shade loving lily species or Arisaemas so that you get double duty out of the same planting spot.

A selection by Piping Tree Gardens Nursery of this dwarf species from Alabama where spring starts early and so does this phenotype of the species. The March flowers are delightful little imps and why not get the party started a little early, we always say. Ultra-cute rhizomatous clumping species to just a few inches high with irrepressible perky upward-facing scented white flowers.

Sweet Wakerobin. One of the best Trilliums you can grow, this has some of the largest flowers in the genus and the news just gets better because these flowers are not only big but deep red. Stunning, hanging ornaments. We seldom offer these which we have grown from seed but every so often we have to let a few go as proof of progress for our therapist that we are managing our plant hoarding dysfunction.

Fairy Wand. Small plants of this cool species we grew from seed and it is right up there with Ruscus for unprofitable slowness. Male flowers have an arching plume of white flowers while the females have a smaller, erect spike and we have no idea on gender for these plants. Rich, moist soil in shade to part shade.

Doll's Eyes Baneberry. Striking woodland plant in fruit - the white puffs of flowers in late spring are ok but the fruit is serious business. An elongated fruiting spike holds with red stems, round white berries each with a small black pupil. The common name is immediately obvious and is either clever or creepy depending on how many "Chucky" movies you have watched. We think it is clever. All parts poisonous which means deer proof.

This used to be var. kolenatiana from the Caucasus but this widely distributed circumarboreal species has had the species equivalent of a taxonomic black hole occur with numerous varieties, subspecies and genera all ascribed to this one species being sucked into the vast maw of botany never to be seen again. White flowers on 7"-10" stems.

Extremely rare lily native to just a few sites in the southeastern US and discovered by Mary Henry in 1940. She found this growing in the Florida panhandle and it is known as the Panhandle Lily or as Mary described it, Pot of Gold Lily. This is virtually unobtainable, and we were lucky to receive ours from a botanist friend who is doing work on the genus. This is found growing along streams and particularly in association with pitcher plant bogs, so its habitat is threatened by human mismanagement. It is not all that common to find a lily species adapted to warm winters and high humidity but perhaps the moist conditions cools the bulbs.

This striking Turk's cap lily will be 3'-6' at maturity and have from 1-4 flowers in late July through August. The bulbs are very rhizomatous and will make a nice little colony when happy. Speaking of happy, these have a reputation for being finicky but we wonder if this was not a fault of tissue culture as most experience with this species were with tissue-cultured bulbs, a process which has since been discontinued. These are not from TC and obviously our friend grew these quite well in containers, in a mix of 50-50 peat moss and sand, as he sent us nice blooming size divisions. Mary Henry grew and flowered this from seed in a pot on her porch in Philadelphia and then to further douse this notion of being a persnickety bulb, our friend reports these being grown in an Ann Arbor Michigan garden quite successfully for several years. These are allied to Lilium superbum and apparently no more difficult to grow. The bulbs are naturally very small but increase well. An absolute must for the lily collector.

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!

Fragrant Dwarf False Indigo. An excellent plant for the xeric garden although not the best in sandy soils since it hails from good prairie soil in the midwest from central Canada down to Texas. Nice small woody shrub with erect small spikes of clustered small tubular flowes of violet blue petals and red stamens - whoa!

Did we mean to infer that this is a PINK Gillenia???? Why yes, we did. And it is. Pink, definitely pink. An exciting offering of a dandy variant on a choice eastern native. Pink Bowman's Root will get 24"-30" tall with multiple stems sporting an airy array of pink flowers. The leaf color will be improved and intensified with some sun and great fall color to boot. This can take full sun in our cool-sun maritime Northwest but part sun to shade in hotter areas.These are hefty plants field-grown for two years from the plug size one sees generally offered and are a cut above. Bringing the action on this one.

Leatherflower Clematis. This infrequently encountered southeastern US native is just a gem. Rambling small vines to 8' at the most with fuchsia-purple closed bells which turn to white at the flared sepal (petal) tips. This blooms in late spring but continues to flower sporadically into fall. Perfect for clambering into shrubs or that small trellis which would get eaten by a Clematis armandii or Wisteria. For those of you to whom provenance matters as much as it does to us, this is a collection from Humphreys County Tennessee. Young sturdy plants which may or may not flower this year but we're thinking they will.