Epimedium

Or Orange Queen in translation from the German. A tough and showy evergreen Epimedium whose tangerine flowers are among our favorites. This makes nice dense clumps which are fairly weed suppressive. Always a good thing.

Marvelous selection by Harold Epstein and named for his wife, this has some of the most opulently colored new growth which marries perfectly to the large purplish flowers. A deciduous species from Japan and an excellent garden plant that has no faults as far as we can tell.

Amazing find by Darrell Probst in China who found this one plant growing under shrubs where it had a 4' flowering stem which he estimated had up to 1500 flowers! This is unique in the genus in having indeterminate flowering - it just keeps going for months! Spidery yellow flowers keeps bringing it on sprawling stems.

Our 2014 introduction from a cross between Epimedium grandiflorum 'Queen Esta' and E. acuminatum L575 with fine mauve-red flowers and fantastic new foliage vividly splashed in splatters of red. It is apparent we have watched too much CSI, Criminal Minds, True Blood and the occasional disquietingly graphic Nature.

Our own hybrid introduction, this is a tasteful presentation of refined restraint. Small leaves well-speckled and clouded in quiet maroon when young are gently echoed in the sepals of the flowers which back the soft yellow spurs and cup. A tight grower making mannerly small clumps, this gets 8"-10" tall.

Lucky dip offering of open-pollinated seed-grown plants from a very vigorous and bold foliage mama plant. There were adjacent good Epimediums so these variable children should all be attractive and evergreen. Colors are going to surprise us all.

This is a seedling from one of the best clones of Darrell Probst's Spiny Leaf forms. The mama plant has luscious large bronzed new foliage with nice teeth on the margins and large creamy yellow flowers on low arching stems. The seedlings vary in flower color from light yellow to purplish flowers but all have seriously good foliage. All credit is due to the bees - we are just a conduit.

A fine selection of this deciduous Japanese species which was introduced by We-Du Nursery. Sizable flowers of rich purple are the hallmark of this plant and it more than holds it own against more recent hybrids. All Epimediums can't be painted with the same drought tolerant brush and this one appreciates more water than the real drought tolerant species.

A very good, not scary, evergreen groundcover. 'Mariko' is a selection from a collection by Mikinori Ogisui, incredible plantsman and plant explorer, who named it for his wife. Judging by the graceful spidery flowers with showy pink sepals and white spurs and petals plus bronzy new growth, Mariko herself has it all going on.

An Epimedium species of great merit and the Spiny Leaf Form from Darrell Probst puts this into the first rank of the evergreen species. Gorgeous big leaves richly bronze and captivating when young. This doesn't need to bloom to make us happy but the soft yellow flowers are welcome.

Nifty little species we salvaged out of plant collector Marian Raitz's garden when she moved. Low toothed leaves and nice mid-sized white flowers hazed lavender-pink. This will make a nice lower-than-most-Epimediums patch which works perfectly under low shrubs.

Despite sounding like sneeze, a great Epimedium with large evergreen foliage beautifully salmon colored in spring. This pairs incredibly well with the large, long-spurred soft yellow flowers. This is quite cold tolerant with the foliage holding up quite well into the single digits in winter.

The bees have done some fine work in the garden, shuttling between a Roy Lancaster collection of the purple/white Epimedium x omeiense and our collection of the rare yellow Epimedium flavum, found only in a small area of the Erlang Shan in Sichuan.  These are unselected seedlings which all have garden merit and are deserving of a good garden trial but our ADPS (Attention Deficit Plant Syndrome) is getting in the way of doing that so we are jobbing it out to you.  Various colors and evergreen foliage.

An evergreen Chinese species notable for the large evergreen leaves on long stems and for the numerous yellow flowers with their curved spurs which are held above the leaves. This will steadily increase in size bringing even more oomph to the garden. Coldest portions of its zonal range might see this be deciduous.

From our friend and plantsman guru John Flintoff comes this selection of Epimedium grandiflorum. Attractive bronze patterned new growth mingles with the copiously produced white flowers for a fine display. John named this for his mom which gives some clue as to its worth. He got along great with his mom, by the way.

One of the best of the new high-quality barrenwort hybrids that have been taking the market by storm as of late. It's no secret why these are being produced so broadly, deer resistant semi-evergreen that can take dry shade and cold temps is not a common set of attributes. Add to that the golden orange flowers profusely produced in this cultivar and you have a plant intro with some serious staying power.

A mouthful we'll grant you, for this Epimedium from Guizhou, China. Vigorous evergreen species with long leaves in 3's in stems to 18" tall. This can get to 4' or more wide and will provide a mass of inspired texture. The mist of up to 150 tiny white and yellow flower motes per stem are curious contrast to the substantial foliage. Does well at Chicago Botanic Garden.

This was named for the near black foliage color which occurs with the onset of colder winter temperatures. Spring and summer foliage is typically green and about 10" tall. The flowers are held above the leaves in spring and are small stars of yellow with orange veins. Choice.

Seedlings from our collection in Sichuan in 2006. We were thrilled to find this Epimedium - just 5 plants with a few ripe seed - growing on a shallow layer of moss and humus on a damp rock face along a narrow dirt road. Interestingly, two of the plants had black seed capsules and the other three were green. Yellow flowers from April to mid summer and then again in fall in our fertile and moist shade garden. We had this listed last year as Epimedium davidii which it closely resembles and thought this but a variation in flower until the keen eyes of Ben Stormes noticed that this was indeed the rare Epimedium flavum found only on the Erlang Shan which is exactly where this was found. This area, like many once remote areas in China, showed indications of being poised to be developed for tourism and there is little doubt that the plants we found are no longer.

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.