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1745 products
This collection is from the species elevational limit in the confluence of Tibet, Arunachal Pradesh and Bhutan. This species is well-represented in gardens but from areas with much less cold exposure. Paired pedate leaves of splayed finger-like leaflets and sizable green flower standing proud above with an even prouder erect spadix. The showy red fruit in late summer and fall extends the pride. A durable and easy species in the garden.
A cold-tolerant species from Brazil that was discovered in 1934. This not-so-common species gives the effect of a smaller Fuchsia magellanica with the small deep pink and purple flowers but on a smaller scale. In our cooler climate, this will get to 3' or so while in warmer, longer season zones, perhaps to 5'. Once well established, this will spread gently via rhizomes but easy to keep in bounds and perfect for sharing, furthering your propagation reputation.
A medium sized tree in the wild, this is from the same remote mountain which yielded the first introductions of Schefflera fengii and Rhododendron sinofalconeri some 25 years ago and has not been revisited since. Vigorous tree with copious white flowers we presume followed by nutlets. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering
Seed-grown from a collection in the Indian Heaven area of Gifford Pinchot National Forest in the southern Cascade Mts of Washington. Surely one of our favorite Penstemon, this has glaucous, rounded leaves on creeping mats with pink flowers that just lovely. This requires a rock garden, trough or crevice garden as it needs a lean and gritty, mineral soil with excellent drainage. This is a mountain plant and hot humidity both days and nights are fatal. Just sayin'. Loving it here in Port Townsend!
Our collection from Asia of this low growing - prostrate actually - creeping Cotoneaster. It is one we admired as it crept over a rock face along the trail and we kept going, not intending to collect seed. Looking back, we saw our friend and great plantsman Peter Cox collecting seed so we scampered back to do the same. Found in the range of C. dammeri but there are 111 species in China alone. White flowers, red fruit and evergreen.
A collection from the hills above Oaxaca by plantsman Chen Hao. A smaller upright shrubby species with very fine textured thin leaves and spires of small tubular pink flowers custom made for hummingbirds and other nectar feeders with enviably long tongues. This is evocative of P. kunthii except for the flower color which is paler. Something to key out this summer with chips, guac and several cold Negro Modelo.
We have seen this species in the wild on multiple occasions and it is variable but all are first-rate foliage plants. This particular collection is derived from the plant voted best broadleaf evergreen of the trip, excluding Rhododendrons. Umbels of small creamy flowers give way to small black fruit. While we can't recall every plant we have seen plant hunting, the memory of this is crystal clear.
Any and all Styrax appeal to us and this was a necessary collection as a result. A vigorous tree of good size widely distributed in southern China and into adjoining countries to the south. This will have a lot of small, white bells in spring followed by pale nutlets clasped by a somewhat swollen green calyx. A very few of these gallon-sized plants. We will have to flower this to ID it for sure as China alone has nearly 40 species. Hardiness unknown but from relatively low elevation. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering.
This is a remarkable species in the Theaceae or Camellia family, Native to Yunnan, Myanmar and Vietnam with this collection hailing from the latter. Evergreen trees rarely reaching 50' or more but doubt if you will have to contend with that eventuality! Large white flowers with yellow anthers occur in late winter and early spring. Suitable only for very mild gardens and worth trying on a wall.
A robust Eriogonum from shrub steppe habitat east of the Cascades
from WA to CA and east to ID. An awesome
plant for a larger spot in the rock garden, mounding to 18"x30". Arrow-shaped leaves are felty-green on top and
wooly-white beneath while white to pale-yellow umbels of flowers
appear late May to July. Like many other Eriogonum, this is an
important pollinator plant for butterflies. Lean and good drainage.
We have not keyed this Chinese species yet but it is on the docket. This was a small tree growing in bamboo and mixed forest at good elevation. The leaves are glossy and attractive but the almost lilac-like heads of white scented flowers are the thing. Small shiny black fruit. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering
An awesome - and I don't use this word lightly - hardy Impatiens from Eastern Africa. John Grimshaw in the UK speaks highly of this species. To 6' tall in morning sun or light shade with awesome (there i go again) 3" wide flat-faced white flowers with a red throat. Gorgeous. Perennial big tuberous roots. Not a seeding bully.
A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering. Our collection of what we presume to be this species although given the distribution from Nepal into China and Vietnam, we wouldn't be shocked to see this species broken into varieties or subspecies. If it is this species, give it some room as it can hit 40' tall as a venerable old-growth specimen but expect much less in the garden. Upright evergreen with pale butter-white flowers and blue-black fruit. Young plants of this rarity and hardiness unknown at this point.
This is loving our crevice garden but might be better in our rock garden as the 20" mat of trailing stems clad in small rumpled leaves is a tad big for the crevice. A profusion a creamy, violet-striped erect flowers sporting a purple hooded upper petal. From the Himalaya & Everest National Park, to nearly 15000'.
A Tony Avent collection from Korea's Jeju (Cheju) island of this very floriferous form of this Solomon Seal species. Large green-tipped white bells walk down the aisle underneath the 2' arching stems making this one of the finest expressions of the species. Polygonatums are an integral part of the mix in the shade garden and are a great genus to collect as there are lots of species with new ones still being discovered in the wild.
A fine Chinese species which we have seen on several plant hunting trips to China from Guizhou Province to Hubei. So often we have seen the 24"-30" arching out provocatively from a slope alongside the trail with the yellow fall leaves scarcely sheltering the clusters of black fruit held beneath. Someday we will have to go in the spring to see the green-tipped white flowers. This is a species in some taxonomic flux at the moment so hard to say where this will eventually wind up but this is one of the Polygonatum cyrtoneuma found in cultivation.
Sea Kale. A prized vegetable of olden times, this still would be widely eaten if the leaves didn't bruise easily in transport. However, that is just a gastronomic aside because the ornamental qualities outweigh its tastiness. A seashore plant of Europe, this has ruffled blue-green leaves and white flowers.
We acquired this incredibly tough, tuberous, summer dormant Geranium in the 80's from East Lambrook in southern England which was home to Margery Fish and the original English Cottage Garden. Provenance alone is merit enough but good lavender blue flowers and drought tolerance carries the day.
Our selection of an exceptional seedling from a Vietnam collection. Typically green-leafed, this one has lustrous red new growth looking pretty amazing spring through fall and darned good in winter too since it is evergreen. We haven't flowered it yet but expect creamy yellow flowers in summer. Young plants, cutting propagated. A tip of the hat to our staff wit Yvonne for coming up with the perfect name.
It's difficult to talk eloquently let alone persuasively about a plant newly collected and how it will appear in the various seasons and how well it will perform in the garden. We don't know a lot about this November 2011 collection from a shrub at Lao Cai, Above Silver Waterfall, Vietnam at 2150 meters. We can say it won't grow in Des Moines, Iowa or Black Duck, Minnesota but it will likely be happy as a clam in Seattle. These are young but sturdy seedlings which will really need greenhouse overwintering this first winter.
At this young stage, they bear resemblance to Schefflera alpina and S. chapansis but since they were collected by Aaron Floden, we're smart enough to know that if he doesn't know than we don't know. It's kind of like that Donald Rumsfeld thing where there are known knowns and known unknowns and if we know we don't know than we know more than those who don't know but know they do. Generally I found little palatable about him but I did find myself defending him over this quote as it made perfect sense to me. Somehow seeing it in print makes it seem less defensible and my veracity more questionable.