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A hybrid between E. moorei and E. lucida that grew from a chance cross at Hillier's nursery, the original plant was cloned and distributed under the name 'Winton' and we preserve that name here to differentiate it from any further x hillieri selections. Retains the glossy narrow semi-evergreen foliage of its parents with pure white flowers beloved by bees and pollinators. Has shown excellent hardiness, anecdotally surviving a below 10F winter freshly planted in a nearby garden. A child which may well outexcel its parents.

Here is a little Japanese bulbous plant that will add some late summer glitz to the rock garden or special foreground planting niche. Not shy about blooming, this will strut its stuff with round purplish flowerheads on 10" stems which sends our friends the Butterflies and Bees into quiet delirium.

A collection from Mount Imlay in New South Wales of an expected hardier form of the species. Prickly needle-like leaves on a multi-stemmed shrub with white flowers although light pink flowers have been reported in that location. Ours is white so that takes the guesswork out. This should be fine in milder gardens here in the Puget Sound and can take poorly drained situations. Deer do not find this tasty.

A Wynn-Jones collection from the Aso area of Honshu in Japan where there is a range of color variation in the species. We are wild about this genus and it combines beauty, rarity and growability in its appeal. Evergreen rosettes of flattened broadly lance-shaped leaves with spring whitish flowers accented by purple stamens. Zone 6.

A superior red seedling that arose here and one that is a bit larger than the other large red selections we grow. It was fun to lay out a table of flowers of all the cultivars and our seedlings for comparative evaluation. It was quickly apparent that it is hard not to love red and might as well go big. Just add water, food and sun. The name refers to Anna Massena, Princess d'Esseling and Duchess of Rivoli of France. Her husband was a serious amateur ornithologist with 12,500 bird specimens including an unidentified hummingbird which he had collected along the west coast of North America. This was later named Calypte anna - Anna's Hummingbird. This is a favorite resident here all year and loves the winter flowers in our greenhouses during spates of freezing weather. The males are little emerald green Jack Russell's, flashing a conspicuous Rivoli Red throat patch.

This is likely the first introduction to cultivation of this curious Theaceae or Tea family member from our collection just north of the Vietnam border in Guangxi Province. This is serious 99% pure Plant Crack and even we have to cut this stuff to be able to function well enough to do things like buy groceries. An evergreen shrub to 10' in the wild with long, slightly drooping olive-green leaves prominently hirsute especially along the margins. Lamentably insignificant cream flower whose petals barely exert themselves beyond the green sepals whose reduced number and size places this as var. glischroloma according to the Flora of China. Look beyond the transience that is flowers, if this had any to speak of, and be wowed by what is really good foliage on a very handsome shrub that will mark you as an irredeemable plant nut. The flowers give way to small black fruit. No idea how hardy this is but we are thinking zone 8 as this mountain endured a serious cold and ice event in 2008 and we saw no evidence of damage to these plants in 2010. We returned in 2012 and it is this collection that is being offered.

Superb blue-green leaf selection of this exceptionally ornamental evergreen Himalayan Blueberry. We saw this in western Arunachal Pradesh in 2003 at 10,000' and discovered an eastern range extension of this in Sichuan in 2006. This is a superior form to both populations and likely has its origins with Barry Starling, UK Ericaceae expert. Fruit is edible but very tart, good only for special preserves and you might be better served eating the birds that came to eat the berries. Not that we would. Or do.

This is a hardier and somewhat smaller-leaved form of the Chilean Guava that was recently introduced by Paul Barney from Pucon, Chile and which Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy brought into the US from the UK. An excellent evergreen ornamental small shrub to 5' or 6' with scented white flowers and deep burnished red fruit in the fall which were said to be Queen Victoria's favorite fruit. We expect this to handle at least a half zone colder.

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.

Sweet Mother of God. It's hard enough to get either one of the species let alone crosses. Flowering size plants we grew from seed collected from a couple of our favorites from the breeding work of Charles Price who deliberately meddled in the private affairs of the West Coast Trilliums in hopes of getting fragrance. These will vary somewhat in color and to the degree they resemble their parents - some approaching chloropetalum, some looking much like kurabayashii - but all well within the parameters of very good.

Our collection of this smaller species from an area little visited by westerners. This is an ideal species for todays urban gardens as it has a narrower and shorter habit than some tree types. Adaptable to sun or light shade. Terminal slightly descending panicles of whitish flowers followed by showy balls of black fruit. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy offering.

Eastern species with nodding flowers of pure deep red. These are nice, blooming seedlings from plants Sue brought from her old nursery in Vermont. Parted with reluctantly and Sue reserves the right to take them back if she deems it appropriate for the welfare of the Trillium. Personally we like Trilliums that clump up sufficiently to divide and this is one of those species.

A 2012 Chinese collection of one of our favorite Schefflera species (and Schefflera is a favorite genus!) remarkable for its second layer of leaflets and tendency to be extremely floriferous with globose white flowers aplenty. This was a small multi-trunked tree in the wild and is shaping up to be very similar in our collector's garden where it was knocked back by a particularly cold winter but has excelled since.

A subtle woodlander for most of spring and summer until late summer and fall when it suddenly busts a move and starts strutting its stuff. Fern-like foliage backs small white puffs of flowers in May which become showy clusters of bright white fruit in late summer & fall. The white version of our red fruited native.

This is one of those plants worth the greenhouse space if you can't grow it outside, which we can't. An evergreen vine from Chile where it is the national flower and once you see this bloom, it will likely be your personal national flower as well. Big waxy pendant flowers of typically a rose red, but can be white to pink to dark red. These are seedlings from our friend Ilse who has some of these other colors as well. While these are seed from her rose red plant, there may have been some interesting co-mingling going on with the greenhouse doors open at night and the hawk moths out and about, but pretty sure these will be rose red.

These normally flower in late summer and fall, and we were entranced by beautiful specimens in bloom when we visited the west of Scotland in the fall of 2013. A memorable moment was getting asked to leave the Chilean Terrace at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh where this was flowering beautifully against a wall. We have no idea how they found us at closing time as we were one with the Lapageria and our pleas "But the Lapageria is in flower" were met with polite firmness and an aura of "If I just had a few bob for every time I've heard that". Small plants but strong and well rooted.

Purple flowered version of the typically blue-flowered European species. Thanks to our friend and Hepatica guru John Massey of Ashwood Nurseries for sharing seed. We have flowered these plants and they are indeed purple! Perfect in the woodland garden, very hardy and with impeccable provenance.

Oh ill-fated queen of legend, doomed by prophecy, but glorious and radiant in life. In this Guinevere is rightly given to a bearer of such lovely white flowers. Detractors of the art will complain of browning, and beauty befuffled by rain but don't all things fade in the end. These are seedlings off the rare British cultivar and could theoretically sport a different color but we have had pretty flawless luck thus far in continuing the blushed pallor of a medieval English queen. 

We love white flowers in the shade garden. The juxtaposition against the dark earth and the interplay and mediation with other colors makes white an excellent choice. These have pure white flowers with a light chartreuse throat touched faintly in red and of course those perfectly mottled leaves.

This blueberry relative was an exciting find from a small mostly deforested limestone ridge in Vietnam. It was a small compact 12"-18" shrub growing both in the rocks and epiphytically with orchids on the few trees left. Evergreen with boss white tubular flowers and a red berry sheltered by 3 large red bracts. Edible. This will get larger with longer stems when growing in cushy cultivation.

Friends who bring you seeds are good friends, friends who bring you seeds from legendary South African seed supplier Silverhill are even better, luckily FRBC board member Cody Hinchliff falls into the latter. Very cool African butterfly bush with evergreen, glaucous silver-grey-green leaves and globules of fragrant purple flowers that are more rounded and bunched than their more commonly grown relatives. Rare in US cultivation but some have claimed suprising hardiness when given some protection to establish. An approachable way to check off another continent in your garden of the far reaches.