Oxalis

Sweet little groundcover whose double white flowers resemble fluffy bits of white popcorn strewn on the leaves. Perfect underplanting for other shade plants to pop up through and great between stepping stones. Gently spreading and not hard to keep in bounds. Darn near perfect.

This little bulbous jewel from South America takes a back seat to no bulb. A bantamweight in size but this flowers at a weight class much higher. A perfect bun of green foliage with lots of flowers whose pale pink chases dark feathers down to the white center. Gritty and drainage. Trough or rock garden.

Gorgeous tuberous small Oxalis hybrid whose parents call the alpine scree slopes of the Andes home.  Harold McBride of Ireland did a cross between Oxalis laciniata and a deep pink form of Oxalis enneaphylla with the resultant seedlings called 'Waverley Hybrids' and we presume that over time, this one gained the most favor and is now simply 'Waverley Hybrid'. Intense purple flowers with petals striped in darker purple lines as well as white striations.  Small bulb-like rhizomes are several inches deep in the wild but in cultivation tend to work themselves close to the surface and seem to be happy in either regimen.  Ideal for troughs, crevice or rock gardens and we reckon easily zone 6-8.  A very tidy and compact grower and difficult to source outside of Europe which is where we had to go to get ours.

Oxalis griffithii is an uncommon woodland clumper from Japan with single white flowers typically. Rarely can you find the double white form which is quite choice. Scarcer than hen's teeth is the double flowered pink form which marks you as a collector of the highest caliber. This is one of those botanical treasures where feeling smug is justified.

A plant this diminutive just can't be this sassy but Ione Hecker is obviously the English equivalent of Dolly Parton because this is a lot in a little package! Finely cut gray leaves in a dense mound with surprisingly large flowers that are a blue-hued pink with rich fuchsia striations leading to a magenta purple eye. A class act in a trough or rock garden and it is remarkably hardy. This was selected by Ione Hecker from a batch of seedlings raised by E. B. Anderson and is a hybrid between O. laciniata and O. enneaphylla.