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Cool little gesneriad which recently was transferred from the now defunct genus Briggsia Glabrella. We only call this molecular meddling when we are updating our various database entries and pot tags. Shaded moist areas in Guangxi and SE Yunnan and can take light frosts. White/pale pink flowers.

Our collection from a plant with particularly good red-purple new growth where it was growing in rich soil moist soil in open woodland with a few plants of the rare Primula ovalifolia as neighbors. This is groundcover with strawberry-like stolons terminating in a plantlet which will root where it touches. Lovely thing with pale flowers above the bold foliage in early spring. The species handles the east coast as well growing in the Dronenburg-Weil garden in Maryland.

This hails from the mild Crinodendron tucumanum/Podocarpus parlatorei cloud forests of northern Argentina. It thrives as an understory plant and competes well in the tangle of rampant growth clothing shaded banks along the road. Pendulous bright red clusters of long flowers give way to edible-if-the-fruit-stand-is-closed fruits.

A very small white-flowered version of the typical European species generously shared with us by our friend John Massey of Ashwood Nurseries in England. This is very petite - just an inch or two high in leaf and ideal for that special spot just waiting for the keen-eyed visitor to spot and covet while you go "Oh, that old thing." Best under deciduous shrubs or trees to get full light through flowering and new leaf expansion.

Tender South American shrubby succulent making a 3'x4' mound of thin stems with small fleshy leaves Flowers unknown and we are perfectly willing to accept that this might well be a different genus entirely! Pairs well with cactus, bromeliads and xeric shrubs. Let us know what it looks like when it flowers! A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering.

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.

Best form of the species with good green leaves and clustered ok but unremarkable pale pink flowers which transmogrifies into totally remarkably awesome bunches of impossible blue fruit which seems crazy out of place in the woodland but now you can't imagine gardening in shade without it. This comes from a University of British Columbia collection in Guizhou and is regarded as the best of the various forms which have subsequently been collected. This is best suited for mild gardens as cold winters will cut it to the ground which happens here regularly. It regrows fro the base but needs an another year to bloom and fruit. This does beautifully just a mile or two from us in a friends woodland garden which points out the difficulty of definitive hardiness zones and ratings.

Tasmanian Blueberry Vine. Very cool evergreen vine from Tasmania with tubular greenish white flowers in May and June followed by very showy violet non-messy berries which depending on the weather, can persist through the winter. One of the finest small vines.

A Dan Hinkley collection from Mt Emei in China's Sichuan Province and touted as being hardy to Z7 but only by those in serious zonal denial. That said, a customer told us that he mulches his deeply and it has survived our worst winters so there is a clue - mulch!. An attractive plant with late season pink flowers and well worth trying in a sheltered spot.

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.

A certain innocent muscularity is displayed in these gently questing tendrils carrying flowers whose familiarity is overshadowed by their startling size. Intricate blue and white flowers, steeped in Christian symbolism, are twice the normal size. Average soil, good drainage, a vine of distinction.

We are crackers over this group of Saxifrage and this species pleases us no end. Rosettes of rounded leaves with a an entrancing (we would be such ideal subjects for hypnosis) purplish coloration where the leaf blade joins the petiole and that dark color lines out through the leaf in the veins. Small white snowflake flowers typical of the Irregulares section are a perfect combo.

A vigorous cross between our native stream orchid Epipactis gigantea and the European marsh orchid, E. palustris. This will make lots of stems to 18" with small flowers whose various parts are colored in orange-red, brownish and yellow and white. Easy given a rich moist soil and hardy to Z5. These are single stem divisions potted early this spring and won't put it's best foot forward this year but will seem like money well-spent come next.

Silver Feather Grass is one of the most graceful and curious of all perennial grasses. From a low clump, spectacular flower spikes rise to 30" unfurling curled streamers that jive in the breeze. These corkscrew feathers fly off carrying a single long, weighted seed which uses the wind to self-drill itself into the ground. Drought tolerant and kinetic.

Young plants from our seed collection in Switzerland a couple summers ago while hiking the 120 mile High Pass Route. Nothing like fresh snow in late August on the crazy narrow goat track path above a dizzying drop on the highest pass to make you wail for mama. Kelly wailed, Sue was fine. A few extra plants from planting out. Showy filamentous purplish flowers.

Poet's or Alexandrian Laurel. Panache oozes from the phylloclades of this haute shade shrub. Before you get nervous, phylloclades are leaf-like organs of modified stem tissue as this nonpareil evergreen is so far beyond the cutting edge that true leaves are just so yesterday. Small green flowers to delight a microscopist, showy red berries in fall. Imagine wearing this crown of laurel in ancient Greece after winning the marathon. I can visualize the wearing but am having a bit of difficulty focusing on the running part. Now if it was a weeding marathon, I would have to say, let's get it on! These aren't big plants that you will get by any means as they are slow to go but we have gotten the painfully slow beginning out of the way so it is all good from here. You can't go unless you start.

Our collection of this interesting Solomon's Seal from the Cangshan in Yunnan way back in 1997 when we were with Kunming Botanic Garden. This has bamboo-like new growth which is quite striking and tiers of verticillate lanceolate leaves on stems to 6' gives great texture. The leaf axils are crowded with small pale flowers followed by orange-red fruit in the Fall. Tolerant of our cool full sun and part sun is ideal.

Rare Campanula relative from Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet. This has a perennial carrot-like root and in mid spring, the new growth emerges getting 12"-18" tall and tipped by pale blue bells with a darker blue base. We collect Codonopsis every time we see them in Asia because we love them. Musky foliage if bruised.

Amazing Chilean Lobelia that is perfectly hardy here if you mulch it during nasty cold snaps. This is one of those perennials that when you see it grown well and you aren't familiar with it, has an almost concussive visual impact. Even when you do know it well, it still seems like a freak of nature it is so beautiful.This gets multiple stalks to 7' high with spires of tubular red flowers for 6-8 weeks which beckon hummingbirds from afar. Highly dramatic and surprisingly easy given good drainage. This grows in sandy areas in Chile so drainage is key. We grow ours in raised beds and mulched with dairy manure as they have a healthy appetite. In late fall, we cut up the stalks and lay them over the crown and usually toss some more cow poo over that as we want to keep frost from the crown plus it can make growth early which can get frosted so the mulch helps. We get ours through short periods of low teens with no problem. This is surely one of the finest of the larger perennials.

A hardy Gladiolus that could win over that segment of gardeners who just don't like glads but we suspect they would be glad to grow this. Happy even. Some verging on ecstatic. Smaller statured in leaf and flower, this will make nice clumps with flowers of a clear, soft creamery-butter yellow. Mulch if winter is bitter.