Himalayas

Collected in northern India by the intrepid plant hunting duo of Bleddyn and Sue Wynn-Jones, this species offers some midsummer exotica with yellow flowers emerging from soft red calyces on 2' stems. Yet another hardy-for-us species in the Zingiberaceae that we are enamored with.

Offering from division of this excellent selection by our friends at Crug Farm who collected this in Nepal while plant-hunting with Dan Hinkley and Jamaica Kincaid. The species is typically very robust and stout and this is no exception with green leaves and a red pseudostem. The white flowers with a light lavender wash are a nice departure from the norm. This does not like warm night-time temps and hot, muggy humidity - it's from the mountains after all.

Himalayan Maidenhair Fern. Evergreen to semi-evergreen creeping fern making the the most textural groundcover imaginable. Salmon pink new growth goes to light olive and finally green leaflets on black wiry stems just 8"-12" high. Likes a loose moist soil but will tolerate dry when established.

A true Ginger relative, this is a vigorous and hardy hybrid between R. auriculata and R. cautleyoides and is a wonderful fusing of all that is good in both parents unlike me who got the short round gene. Stout tanned foliage with large variably purple streaked flowers in shades of cream.

Also found as Potentilla lineata. We originally received seed of this back in the 90's from a Chris Chadwell collection in Nepal. An exceptional foliage plant with long silken silvery leaves and tall loosely arrayed yellow flowers in early summer, which we have offered in the past simply as Potentilla sp. This was misidentified by another nursery in the area as P. gelida and as a result, is in the trade here as P. gelida which is unfortunate as it bears little similarity to this ornamentally uninteresting species. Then to make matters more complicated P. lineata recently became Argentina lineata nonetheless it is one of our favorite herbaceous Potentilla-like plants which Chris ID'd for us here in the summer of 2013.

Chinese version of this species which gets into the Himalaya as we've seen in Arunachal Pradesh. Softly banded in mocha as the new green leaves emerge, the white flowers show nicely below the expanding leaves. Late summer, round orange fruit appears. A different collection from what we've offered previously.

Very collectible selection of this hardy terrestrial orchid which boasts - yes, boasts, of its unique, light chartreuse foliage. if your ears, like ours, are tuned to that high frequency in which plants converse, you can just make out this orchid sounding like an NBA player after throwing down a one-handed jam from an alley-oop "Yeah! Lookit me! Me! I'm a bad-ass orchid! You ask yo mama how bad I am! An yo sister - she loves how my leaves shine when the lights go down." I've given up on the NBA because such displays are wearisome but somehow, with this orchid, it is an endearing cheekiness. Light yellow foliage looks it best in bright shade to part sun and not the part during the hot part of the day. Leaves 18"-24" with pinkish-purple flowers a few inches taller in June and hardy to zone 6 especially with winter mulch.

We've seen this wee gem in both Bhutan and Sichuan at high elevations at 12000' where it mingles in alpine meadows. Open-faced lavender pink flowers at ground level followed closely by foliage just a few inches high. Easy in the garden. Who would suspect it's a Solomon's Seal?

A rare grand foliage plant from lower elevation in the eastern Sino-Himalaya. Allied to Schefflera, this differs in its armor of spiny prickles and whose terminal inflorescense produces black fruit. We offer this with some trepidation in fear of sparking a feeding frenzy among the Araliaceae collectors who are a particular subset of plant nerds that walk the knife edge of obsession that separates reason from Poe's " A Descent into a Maelstrom". Before you knee-jerk and click add to cart, take your meds and wait an hour. Of course this may well be sold out by then.......... A portion of the proceeds goes to support the mission of Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.

A decidedly unBaby's Breath Baby's Breath. This is a delightful deciduous creeper that absolutely covers itself in lavender tinged white flowers with darker pencilings. Very nice in the rock garden or rockery. Appreciates good drainage but some moisture in the soil.

We always think of this as an easy and affordable substitute for orchids as the flowers are reminiscent. In the ginger family, this is easy Asian tuberous plant can be grown in part sun to light shade. It will get a foot or more high and will have a succession of showy purple-pink flowers and clump quickly.

Named for the stringently impeccable plantswoman and designer, this large-leafed deciduous Bergenia with pink-white flowers is a worthy namesake. She had a deserved reputation of not brooking fools gladly but strangely was always pleased to see us - perhaps a case of the exception proving the rule. Light green leaves with crenulate dentation on the scalloped leaves.

A very distinct form of this species which was collected in Nepal by Tony Schilling and shared with us by David Mason of Hedgerows Nursery. A good spreader rather than a clumper, the rounded ping-pong paddle leaves offer much as a small-scale groundcover. White to tinged pink flowers in early summer. Deciduous to semi-deciduous, we are inordinately fond of this collection and have it planted at the entrance to our shade garden. This particular collection is quite rare in the trade. Tony used to be the director at Wakehurst and David was deputy director so the chain of provenance custody is just how we like it.

A hardy Ginger relative from our seed collection just a long days drive from the Tibetan border. Narrow petals of white and peach are floral whimsy and always manage to coax a smile out of us. The unscented flowers compensate for that lack by having one of the showiest seed displays in the genus. This collection seems to be distinctly shorter than other forms of spicatum we grow. Mulch in winter.

Pretty awesome evergreen fern because not only is it cool, but it increases fast enough to make a statement in the garden before you are in your dotage and have forgotten why you bought this, yet not in that rampaging acreage-eating Borg-assimilating manner that is sometimes described as "a good nursery plant".

The genus was named for William Roscoe, who founded the Liverpool Botanic Garden way back in the 1800's and is in the same family as culinary ginger, Zingiberaceae. We have lost our minds over this genus, collecting and hybridizing with abandon. This is a superb selection out of the UK with dark stems and leaves with pale lavender-tinged flowers.

One of the few plants the damn yaks don't eat up in the Tibetan Plateau which explains why we were able to collect seed of this herbaceous honeysuckle relative. Bold leaves with absolutely nothing flowers in June which yield smashing clusters of marble-sized red fruit.

Nice hairy-leafed species from the Himalaya ranging from Nepal to Pakistan. This is semi-deciduous in our area and will go totally deciduous in colder zones. Like most Bergenia, this can take full sun, but late spring frosts can ding the new leaves and pink flowers. Rounded hairy mid-green leaves with reddish petioles. This clone a gift from a serious collector's garden.

This flamboyant Blueberry relative is almost hardy in our area but is an easy and dramatic attention-getter in a pot. We keep ours in the cool greenhouse over winter or if you are annoyingly mild like West Seattle, just bring in during the rare hard freeze. The 1" red tubular flowers marked in distinctive pale chevrons are favored by our resident hummingbirds and we all snack on the lightly sweet pale lavender fruit. This is an epiphytic species from the foothills of the Himalaya with arching pendulous stems clad in small evergreen leaves. We sold our nearly 30 year old stock plant as there are offers that you can't refuse but we still pine and wonder how our priorities became so skewed. But we took cuttings and so on it goes.

Helmeted Cobra Lily or Jack in the Pulpit. Young bulbs of this rare species from the Indian Himalayan foothills. Tall stems to 4'+ carry big 3-parted leaves and strongly cowled or helmeted flowers varying from green with white stripes to purplish. Choice plant and one to brag about. These are seed-grown from our plants in our shade garden which have persisted and done well for 7 years now.