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One of the very good blue flowered hybrids combining the best traits of Corydalis flexuosa with those of C. elata. We were in China in 2006 and saw both species in a single day in the Wolong Panda area and these hybrids hold a special appeal to us. In the Poppy family, this requires light to bright shade and moist soil where it will make a nice patch. Z5-8.

Gold Thread. This is a rare native to WA but more common in BC and AK. Great evergreen groundcover for moist shade with glossy parsley leaves and golden thin rhizomes hence the common name. Dye plant and most likely medicinal. This spreads well in loose moist soil.

Big cheerful yellow flowers which open widely on stems to nearly 30" tall are the reason for growing this selection. This can help make some of the late season fiery colors seem even more intense by comparison or if asked to carry the floral load on its own, it is more than up to the task.

An uncommon New World subtropical blueberry relative native to the Andes. Can be epiphytic and has hanging thin branches up to 5' long but usually shorter with rounded pale green leaves. Just looks like it wants to be on a dripping cliff by a waterfall. Egg-shaped flowers that are white-pink with darker tips followed by translucent violet-tinged edible berries much like Agapetes. No frost. Way nifty.

Unlike its namesake this Primula hybrid hails from the Emerald isles. What it does have in common with the queen of myth is that alluring combination of darkness and light that makes for characters that live on through the ages and plants of timeless garden quality. The soft pink flowers echo chivalric beauty and the darkly sultry foliage speaks of adulterous romance, in this case cuckolding our usual monogamy with species Primulas. These plants come from our established clump in our wet and partly sunny bog garden.

A distinctly smaller form with wider and shorter leaves than any of the dozen or so clones we grow. This was found on the summit of Jinfoshan where it was growing in deep moss on top of hard limestone Stegosaurus outcrops in a miniature stone forest. We thought this might be a new subspecies at least but DNA puts it squarely in R. carnea. The scented pink and white flowers are much more visible in this form than in the typical range of the species and we felt it merited a clonal name.

Beautiful variegated form of this new Zealand Griselinia. As the species name suggests, this favors coastal conditions and can take the wind. We saw the typical form growing happily at Robin's Hood Bay in England as we finished the Coast to Coast walk. Think a much more refined laurel and you are in the ballpark. Easy to prune, gets to 12', zones 8b-9 or warm 8a. Flowers insignificant.

Gorgeous tuberous small Oxalis hybrid whose parents call the alpine scree slopes of the Andes home.  Harold McBride of Ireland did a cross between Oxalis laciniata and a deep pink form of Oxalis enneaphylla with the resultant seedlings called 'Waverley Hybrids' and we presume that over time, this one gained the most favor and is now simply 'Waverley Hybrid'. Intense purple flowers with petals striped in darker purple lines as well as white striations.  Small bulb-like rhizomes are several inches deep in the wild but in cultivation tend to work themselves close to the surface and seem to be happy in either regimen.  Ideal for troughs, crevice or rock gardens and we reckon easily zone 6-8.  A very tidy and compact grower and difficult to source outside of Europe which is where we had to go to get ours.

Lives up to it's common name of Felt Fern. Felty-soft, three to five-lobed fronds stay evergreen and have coppery undersides. Growing as an epiphyte in its native range, this prefers good drainage and a partly shady spot.  Spreads very slowly, but definitely worth the wait. What we are selling here is a predominantly 3-lobed form that is going around incorrectly as P. hastata.

A deciduous shrub that can be treated as a perennial or a woody perennial with the form and firepower of a flowering shrub depending on your clime. Each year the pithy arching stems rocket up to human heights and explode into a cascade of pink pea flowers. A worthy addition to a perennial border or to add a floral punch in a space where evergreens are the winter showpiece. Plus, I must say its a pleasure at cut-back time with its neat arrangement and satisfying woody crack. Can be a bit aggressive in the warmer climes of the Southeast.

Coming to us from ace rock gardener Kathy Allen of Oregon, and native to the Caucasus this forms a nice spreading clump of evergreen lightly ruffled heart-shaped leaves before putting out flowering stems of up to 2 feet covered in star-shaped bells of white. Happy in a well drained rock or crevice garden setting.

This Southeastern native is a very exotic looking Carex - so much so that it was placed in a separate genus Cymophyllus but recent DNA work confirms it is a Carex. The wide green semi-horizontal leaves look far more exotic than a grass and the truly unusual white flowers just adds confirmation. Shade and moist, these are divisions from our plant of many years which is important as this is threatened in the wild by habitat loss and grazing.

Perhaps polite society really is dead, or at least polite society garlic. This poor little fella is quite possibly extinct in the wild, or at the very least critically endangered and restricted to a tiny area of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. If that's not enough to elicit your sympathy then the sweetly fragrant soft pink flowers are sure to win over your heart, and make you forget for a blissful moment the comparatively uncouth smell of the foliage (though that provides it with deer resistance. Drought tolerant and desirous of fair drainage but otherwise easy going for a South African bulb.

Alpine ferns, full-sun ferns, NZ ferns are all underrepresented in US cultivation. This species and even more broadly this genus are completely unrepresented as far as I can tell. Named the thousand-leaf fern for its finely divided appearance, it can be found high in the mountains of Aotearoa scrambling in between rocks where it forms dense low clumps, a habitat betrayed by its distinctly fuzzy texture. Happy in sun with sharp drainage and though its considered semi-evergreen it goes dormant for us in the greenhouse during winter and will likely doubly do so with outside temps. Hard to say on hardiness given the scarcity but we are betting on 8a at least. 

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.

One of the showiest in this genus of vining Bellflowers. Large purple-blue flowers with a dark ring - sometimes pure white - quickens our pulses in either expression. Recently reduced from species status, grey-wilsonii has been retained as a geographic race of the species convolvulacea based on larger leaves and flowers.

One of the largest flowered selections of Gentiana acaulis, this is truly a showstopper with its big, deep blue trumpets in spring and lighter reblooms after. It may owe its vigor to hybridity but whatever the reason, we are down with it! Moist, rich soil in sun and stand back and enjoy. Gentiana acaulis 'Maxima Enzian' is likely the same as Enzian is German for Gentian.

An eastern US and Canadian species, this is the white expression of the familiar Red Trillium. This easy pedicellate species has a dark ovary which is a nice bit of punctuating contrast to the white flower. It's the little things in life, isn't it? Will hybridize with species like sulcatum.

Diminutive member of the true Ginger family, this little tuberous jewel makes up in volume what it lacks in size. Exotic small orchid-like flowers of soft pink. These increase by offsets and self sow making a grand little patch time with loads of the intricate little flowers.

This is the plant that was once sold under the now disavowed name Schefflera chapana in the UK and is now being sold by Nick Macer of Pan-Global as aff. alpina. That name itself is problematic as well often being used as a dumping ground for difficult or unknown Scheffs (or Heps if you're hip). Regardless of what its called this is a real beauty that has been thriving in the Comox, BC garden of our friends Kailey and Nathalie (Wild Oasis Plants!) who shared the seed with us. Rusty fuzzed stems and petioles that are blushed purple-pink closer to the leaves which are an attractively dusty matte-textured dark green. Many of these seedlings show a nice red flush to the emerging foliage as well.