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Hummingbird Sage. A California native perennial Sage that can take sun or some dry shade as this will grow under California live oaks. California shade is notably brighter than our Washington shade. This will get 16"-28" tall with rose-pink flowers appearing out of prominent dark calyces and will creep rhizomatously to 4' or so across. Hummingbird banquet and deer proof.

An extremely difficult day on one of the highest (9,793') mountains in Vietnam. A 9 mile hike with a 2 mile motorcycle ride to the trailhead and then all-day steepness climbing up red clay landslides then rocky scrub in rain arriving at dark to collapse in collapsing tent on wind-blasted ridge. These should be a thousand dollars each. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering

This climbing evergreen Jasmine vine has foliage richly variegated in creams, whites and yellows in an expressive free-form, I-gotta-be-me style which fits in well with our general philosophy. The leaves take on pink to purple coloration in winter's cold which is something to plan for as siting with that in mind could make you look like the Genius of Nuanced Design. Fragrant white flowers spring to early summer.

A collection from China by Olsen & Floden of this well-known ornamental pink or carnation. Very nice to have a documented collection as the cultivated material can get a little diluted via unintentional hybridization in the garden. I know that is some of the most fun we have in the garden. Crazy lacy hot tomato/fuchsia-pink flowers that are scented. I'm wondering just what exactly that color is myself but know that it is very vibrant and will not be ignored.

From the Yunnan-Vietnam borderlands, this small-leafed evergreen dogwood makes an attractive tree. Flowers not seen but if anything like the red fruit when ripe, then boom-shaka-laka! Even if the flowers are not as hoped, what a gift to focus on its many attributes and the modern plague of unrealistic expectation. Gallon pots. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Plant

This is an Olympic Mountain endemic meaning it is found nowhere else. This sweet little alpine is found among the dark shale chips on the gravelly-sandy ridgetops and is one of the first alpines to flower coming into bloom with its fuzzy little pokers of blue-violet flowers as soon as the snow clears the exposed ridges. The dissected or pinnatifid silver-white leaves are felted in dense microscopic hairs giving rise to the varietal epithet of lanuginosa. The reflective color of the leaves helps cool the plant and allows it to cope with the full sun exposure while the plastered hairs trap moisture keeping the foliage from dessicating in the wind, sun and frost. Good in troughs or rock gardens in a gritty mix. This needs a winter and we can only imagine that it would dislike prolonged summer heat as well as warm humid nights. Seems pretty easy here although we might trade being able to grow this for sitting out on an August evening without having to put layers on.

A gem of shrub if you happen to have that very mild garden which we do not. This New Zealander is known as the Scented Broom as the white to pink-lilac pea-like flowers are very fragrant. Flattened green stems share the chlorophyll load with the small leaves. In colder zone 8b gardens, best against a wall.

A choice and very dwarf form of the species in which everything is extremely miniaturized. This makes a tightly packed dumpling of dense, tiny leaves with 4" sprays of light pink flowers. Quite ideal for the damp rock garden or trough as this is an alpine form of Astilbe glaberrima endemic to the mountains of Yakushima in Japan. We were curious as to what constitutes the typical form of A. glaberrima and with a bit of noodling, were able to access online the herbarium sheet of this species from 1922 which is the holotype that was the basis for the original description of the species and we saw that it is indeed, a much larger plant. Plants are such great things to be curious about!

Scarce selection in the US, these seedlings all flowered pink although they can also come in white and blue. But like a good species Rhododendron, foliage rules for most of the year. Lobed leaves whose margins are crenulate - scalloped or notched with small rounded dentition - hence 'Crenatiloba'. This is one of the parents of 'Cremar' and our plants are derived from Ashwood Nursery stock.

A fantastic small Thalictrum from a Darrell Probst collection in China - no surprise that it is a great plant coming from Darrell. This will make an impressive ball of fine foliage with too many to count small white flowers whose petals are reflexed to unashamedly or brazenly - your choice - display its plant junk with soft lavender filaments. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering. Eventually to almost 2 feet tall and as much around.

As perennials go, this Mexican Pea Tribe member is staggeringly impressive. From a woody base, there appears in spring stout stems reaching 8 feet.. On a mature plant, these stems are numerous and it becomes a dominant seasonal shrub. Pinnate leaves with 4 leaflets, large discoidal purple-veined stipules and big yellow flowers in fall. If we were completely honest with ourselves, it is a safe bet that we all love large discoidal purple-veined stipules but we might not mention that to our parents at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

One odd little plant from the Andes possessing neither flamboyance of flower, nor headiness of perfume, nevertheless, it's pretty damned cool. We've never noticed it blooming, the flowers being so small but the resultant edible but insipid white fruit are attractive as is the foliage and habit. Great in the rock garden.

One of those captivating Chinese species. This has a neat stoloniferous habit sending out runners and making new bulbs so you soon have a grove of Lilies. Flowers pink with dark spots with recurved petals in the classic "Turk's Cap" style. We love it.

An intricate floral array on this selection with broad snowflake flowers softly imbued with a frosted lavender pink. The center of each flower is a white starry eye and the fine edge of the petals sparkle with touches of icy nibs. An aptly named selection and our thanks to Jan and Marty for upgrading our sieboldii offering with this and others.

Heloniopsis is a genus we would be loathe to garden without and we are always ln acquisition mode for new ones. This is a Japanese selection which has flowers of a deeper pink-lavender versus the typical lavender-pink - a distinction apparent when grown side by side. We notice as well in our cool greenhouse, the foliage coloring in red tones in winter. A charming bit of exotica for the shade garden.

Our most vigorous clone of this species which we collected in Sichuan in 2006. This will fill out a pot in no time and will do equally well in the garden. The day we found this is memorable because that evening we stayed in a hotel where we had to sleep with the lights on because every time we turned off the lights, numerous rats would scurry out from their home in our built-in bed and rustle about through our gear. When we turned on the lights, they would all dash back under and into our bed. Fortunately they kept to their level of the bed and we kept to ours but it was not the best of nights. This is a good evergreen perennial with whitish flowers with light purplish interiors and best in shade that doesn't dry out.

We saw this inhabitant of high alpine meadows in Sichuan in May of 2006 and were blown away by the small carpet of large pink flowers. Did we ever want that bad but no seed to be had. Fortunately a Norwegian friend collected seed and we can offer this rarity. Goes brown the winter so don't freak out.

A distinctive Vaccinium (Blueberry) collected by Jens Nielsen in western Yunnan at 3000 meters. Large leaves of serious substance alternately flank the arching stems and take on red-bronze colors when young as well in winter on the least mature leaves. No surprises on the white urn-shaped flowers or with the purple-black fruit which add ornament to an already interesting plant. We can only guess as to mature size of the plant but would think 3'-4' tall with arching and trailing branches to 6' or more. This is likely epiphytic in the wild which means good drainage in the garden.

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.

Codonopsis are usually twining members of the Bellflower or Campanula family and the range of color and shapes in the flowers of the various species keeps our interest in this genus at a sharp edge. We are very keen on this one as it not only has intriguing flowers but a non-vining growth habit. This makes a low clump of leaves from which long, stiff flower stems emerge to 18" tall. The flowers are held several per stem and while not large, overcome this size deficiency with exceptional detail. The small ivory bells are heavily netted in vivid maroon veins inside and out. These stems are surely adapted to growing through grass or other low plants in Yunnan and Sichuan. Hardy to zone 6 and likely lower.