Vietnam

This collection by Crug Farm from Fansipan in Vietnam of this very distinctive clumping grass is especially yummy with showy pink flowers in this form. The evergreen leaves are bold, broad and lightly pleated with the flower heads mingling among the upper reaches of the leaves. Solidly dramatic!

F2 plants from the original wild collection of this rare species. This is a very handsome thing with superb glossy textured leaves and showy displays of red fruit. Just looking at it, we thought - bummer, can't possibly be hardy but heard from one of the collectors that it handled zero Fahrenheit so woohoo! We later saw for ourselves the reason why as we climbed on Mt Fansipan, "The Roof of Indochina' and saw this growing near the summit. A portion of the proceeds goes to support the mission of Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.

Great foliage on this Wild Ginger from China which keys most closely to the species caudigerellum. A mist of white spray droplets on the leaves is especially vivid on the young foliage making this very desirable. Small tan to soft red flowers are a welcome addition. We have seen nice clumps of presumably this species in Vietnam looking fabulous on the forest floor among the bright buff trunks of Camellia trees.

A bold plant of 12' forming part of the species-dense broad-leaf forest margins on the incredibly steep slopes of a mountain previously not visited by westerners to our knowledge. It was a long day's climb which ended in the dark with rain and wind on a bare ridge hoping the tent didn't blow away with us in it. Fortunately, after 20+ miles and 5800' feet elevation gain, sleep came easy! Broad leaves with up to 14 leaflets held on petioles touched in red. Cream flowers and black fruit on dendritic panicles. Proceeds from this offering go to support the mission of Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.

An uncommon variety of the standard evergreen Tongue fern found across East Asia. To this already attractive species 'Keikan' adds wide fronds with rippling deeply lobed margins resulting in a striking flame-like effect. Best grown in a well drained location or on a slope where it will happily spread by its trailing rhizomes.

Chinese Bald Cypress. Another one of those monotypic genera we love! This deciduous conifer is the only species in the genus and highly threatened by habitat loss in the wild. This will get to be a big tree which your yet unborn child's children can sit under. In their boat. Fairly slow - ours is in our bog garden pond.

Cutting grown from original seed collection in Vietnam's Hoang Lien Son mountains by Floden-Mitchell-Wynn-Jones. The evergreen trees were 50' with showy red seed "cones" with scented pink to sometimes red flowers. We have not flowered our plant so on tenterhooks. This species is best in mild gardens.

Extraordinary yellow-flowered evergreen species from northern Vietnam on this collection. The trees in the wild were all small second-growth trees with mature examples nowhere in evidence. That night we slept in a nearby farmer's house with our sleeping bags on wide flooring planks of magnolia wood - mystery solved where the big trees went. Best in a sheltered spot from freezing winds. Young plants of this choice species.

Originally from Maurice Foster who is one of the UK's great plantsmen who would not gladly brook an inferior form. This can hit 10'+ in height with a narrow aspect and generally deciduous willowish or bamboo-like leaves. Small purplish flowers and outrageous jester's cap fruit with dangling orange arils. This used to be the variety quinquecornutus but that has been sunk. We've seen this various times in China and Vietnam and always get the same pleasant rush.

A lovely shrubby epiphytic Indochina gesneriad in the same genus as lipstick vine. That comparison made, this should be an excellent houseplant although we speculate that it ought to take a brief light frost. A lot of the exposed limestone ridges radiate heat away at night making them colder. Red tubular flowers. Airy crumbly soil. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Plant

Staggeringly good foliage Begonia collected by Ozzie Johnson at Bai Dat Sun in northern Vietnam that we previously offered as cf. villifolia. Large tan-green leaves with a later than 5 o'clock shadow of red hairs. Pink flowers play peekaboo in the foliage. A species not fully trialed for hardiness but zone 8b with protection such as a mulch of wood shavings.

An exciting tender perennial Impatiens from Vietnam we brought in via the UK. Deep green leaves with magenta undersides on a stout 3'-4' upright plant are quite enough but add the late orange-yellow flowers with red lips and be ready for involuntary expletives and religious exhortations. We saw this in the wild and were blown away. We overwinter ours in a cool greenhouse. Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Collection

As Cousin Itt is to the Addams family Agapetes malipoensis is to the Agapetes genus, a freak even among freaks. In a genus full of mind boggling fruits and flowers, the slender yellow-white tubes covered in white fuzz put out by these fellas is sure to delight those that find charisma in cretinous things with inexplicably devoted fanbases. Our collection from mountainous North Vietnam as yet untrialled for hardiness though the species has been grown outside at the Rhody garden.

2011 collection of this very attractive species from Dragon's Tooth in Lao Cai, Vietnam at 1700 meters. This rare Mondo Grass makes good evergreen clumps with narrow arching leaves up to 20" long with showy lavender flowers with darker flecks. Any plant from a place called Dragon's Tooth should be pretty tough as well as bringing a bit of magic to your garden.

Our collection from Vietnam of this fascinating epiphytic genus.  This was growing on a tree trunk on a small limestone ridge populated by a mix of frost-tolerant and frost-intolerant species.  The hardiness of this remains to be tested here - maybe a warm zone 8b? - it made it through the admittedly mild first winter here so at least some frost hardiness.  Excellent drainage is likely key to improved hardiness and ours is in a tufa wall.  Spreads by creeping rhizomes and has dimorphic leaves with persistent basal fronds and fertile foliage fronds though only the latter have been produced on ours thus far.

This smaller Schefflera is a very ornamental species from our collection northern Vietnam from a mountain previously unexplored by westerners. Loose panicles of presumed creamy flowers and black fruit. Similar but different to Schefflera sp. NV 023. Pretty cool! A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering.

Shayne Chandler's collection from Vietnam of this assuredly tender but most enchanting Begonia. Long stems gloriously hirsute in red hairs hold broadly rounded palmate leaves whose upper surface is studded with carefully spaced green hairs and the underside veins bristle darkly. Pendulous white flowers are small but wow with calyces bearded thickly in Viking red. We easily overwinter this in a cool greenhouse.

Small winter-flowering species collected by Kettle and Wynn-Jones on Mt Fansipan in northern Vietnam. This is nice little ginger given varietal status due to its larger flowers and much larger sagittate anthers. Sagittate anther envy - it happens even in the plant world. Stems to 28" with very nice spidery white lightly scented flowers with reddish bracts. One of the evergreen species and best suited to frost-free conditions but does great in containers and easy to bring in during cold snaps - we keep ours just above freezing in the winter during the cold dips. Collectable rarity and worth trying indoors if you don't live in the Bay Area.

We first encountered this species in the fall of 1997 when we were on the mid to lower slopes of the Cangshan Mountains looking down to the barely discernible 3 Pagodas of Dali fronting the broad expanse of Lake Erhai. This groundcover species formed broad carpets of evergreen foliage covering the large rocks on the boulder-strewn slope so as to give the impression of a tumultuous green sea frozen in place. The day sounds much better than it was, for back in 97 there was but a rough single track road to the higher elevations and on that day our jeeps were blocked by a massively overloaded lorry whose driveline had failed under the weight of massive marble blocks quarried from the higher reaches. The truck was gradually sinking into the mud with just a few inches of clearance and a young skinny boy had been fetched from downslope to slither underneath and effect repairs, which was going to take many hours at best. This meant we were stranded at low elevation with a bunch of botanically fascinating, marginally hardy plants which was not our goal. We made the best of it and one of our new acquaintances was this Ficus.

We were pleased as punch when our friend Jim Fox gifted us with cuttings he took from Roy Lancaster's garden where it is growing as a foundation plant against his home. It was not a stretch to think that this plant was from the same population we had seen as Roy had traveled this same road years earlier as part of the Sino-British Expedition to Cangshan. Sadly we can't grow this outside here in our gardens but if you are lucky enough to have only very light frosts or none at all, then this would be a fine groundcover. This does have small reddish figs but stick to the ones you get at the store.

Collected by Floden-Mitchell-Wynn-Jones at Lao Cai, Vietnam at 2050 meters. This rare species is best suited for the naturalistic or wild garden as this makes a large shrub with the branchlets tipped in fingers of small and admittedly insignificant pale white flowers which contrast with the reddish stems and textured rich green leaves. From a purely foliage and stem standpoint, this may be the best in the genus and has good fall color to boot but is still a shrub best suited for botanic gardens or dedicated Asian flora plantaholics. Hardy to zone 8b.