Desirable Plants
Desirable
Plants
We specialize in herbaceous
perennials, the choice, the interesting and the offbeat. Our bold intention is
to list a modest range of immodestly interesting plants from our large and hard
won collection. We sell plants by mail order to the UK and at a select group of
plant sales across southern England. Almost everything offered here is
propagated on site, by the two of us.
Ordering
Place your orders by post or email
using the order form. Prices reflect size as well as scarcity and ease of
propagation. Most pot-grown plants are in 1 litre or 10cm pots, some have to be
larger. Where two prices are given, this reflects seasonal variation. A more
recently propagated plant will be smaller and cheaper. Always use the higher price
- we will adjust the total if the lower price applies. Minimum order £15 plus
carriage. We can only accept orders accompanied by a cheque! Please write a
limit cheque, that is leave the amount blank, work out the cost of your plants
plus carriage, then cross the cheque 'Not to exceed £36.50', or whatever. We
can't make it out for more than that, but can make it out for less if
something's out of stock, cheaper prices apply, or if carriage is less than
expected. We will not cash the cheque until just before we send the plants. We
cannot accept cards. We never make substitutions unless you ask us to.
We can deliver prepaid orders to any
of the plant sales we attend, carriage free, but you must give us plenty of
notice. The days before a plant sale are even more manic here than usual.
Plants will be sent out from the
first week of October. We expect to finish the main batch of orders by late
November. Later orders are dealt with as they arrive, but we will not post
anything between mid April and the end of September. Order as early as you can.
Some items sell out quite soon. First come first served, but we reserve the
right to ration scarce items to one per customer if necessary.
Carriage
Plants are normally sent in closed
boxes, by carrier on a 48 hour cycle, but in some areas we may deliver in open
boxes with our own van. We charge £8.50 for 1-12 plants, plus an extra 50p per
plant thereafter, to England, Wales and the lowlands of Scotland (excluding
offshore islands). To the rest of the UK we use Royal Mail: allow double the
cost of your plants in your 'not to exceed' cheque, but we'll try to keep the
cost down. Let us know if you expect to be on holiday during October so we can
avoid these dates. If you include an e-mail address we will advise you on dispatch.
Please also note any special instructions to the carrier (e.g. if out please
leave in back porch - no signature needed).
On
arrival
Unpack immediately. Plant or pot up
divisions straight away (but see notes in catalogue on Arisaema, etc).
Consider whether to plant pot-grown specimens or to leave them potted until
spring. Only you have the experience to judge under your conditions. Please
tell us promptly if a plant is in bad condition; we can only consider a
replacement or refund if plants arrive dead or ungrowable. Bear dormancy
in mind before panicking!
Names,
hardiness
We are serious plantspeople who try
very hard to name our plants correctly. However, we can make no guarantee of
their accuracy, especially at this esoteric end of horticulture where there is
sometimes genuine uncertainty and disagreement about naming. We use the Plant
Finder as a guide to up-to-date nomenclature, unless we disagree with their
view. Similarly, we can only give pointers about hardiness and suitable
conditions, based on our own experience and the literature. But if you have
tracked us down, you're likely to be a serious gardener / plantsperson who
understands this.
Sorry,
no visitors
We are unable to
sell plants to calling customers; however, we can sometimes arrange for you to
collect an order from our house. Our nursery is not at this, our home address.
So, down to business…
Acanthus dioscoridis perringii £3 / £4
A
compact beauty, around 50cm tall in flower. Dark green spiny leaves; pink
flowers. Once well established, it forms a tight, dense clump and flowers
freely: we have it at eye level on top of a steep bank. Definitely for full
sun, but thrives on heavy ground.
Achillea
ptarmica 'The Pearl' AGM £3 / £4
Clean
white, buttony double heads, propagated by division from the Wisley plant
which, uniquely in the trials, matched the original description. Height 60cm,
spreading, but sanely.
Achillea
'Schwellenburg' £3 / £4
Grey
leaves in a dense clump 15cm or so tall, flower heads bright yellow and solid,
really hard, like a chunk of cauliflower on a 30cm stem, definitely for sunny,
dry places.
Aconitum
'Blue Opal' £3.25 / £4.50
Large,
pale blue flowers, stout purple stems. 1m tall. Very fine.
Actaea
cimicifuga (Cimicifuga foetida) £3 / £4
Pretty,
hooked-over spikes of greeny-creamy-yellow flowers, reaching 1.8m. Dark green,
well-divided leaves. Scarce.
Actaea
rubra neglecta AGM £3 / £4
It’s
great attraction is the glossy white (toxic) berries; nice divided foliage up
to 1m. Light shade.
Actaea
(Cimicifuga) simplex Atropurpurea group £3.50 / £4.50
Deep
purple, almost black, divided leaves perfectly offsetting 1.5m spikes of
fragrant white flowers in late summer. Colours best in full sun if you can keep
it moist, otherwise part shade. Divisions of our fine dark clone.
Actaea
simplex 'Brunette' £3.75 / £5
Our
stock of the old Bloom's cultivar has never been through tissue culture, unlike
most of what you find nowadays. I value it because in sun it is brown-purple,
rather than black-purple.
Actaea simplex variegated £7 / £10
Green leaves irregularly splashed white, with white
flowers. Does not seem to revert. A plant brought to the West from Japanese
cultivation by Dan Hinkley. Very hard to obtain
Adiantum aleuticum 'Japonicum' £3.25 / £4
A lovely, delicate fern, whose deciduous fronds,
bronzed when young, are held around 40cm high on dark stalks. For a humusy,
shady place.
Agapanthus
The
African lilies are sun-lovers, which flower freely when left to bulk up
undisturbed. Most of these should be hardy in the open
ground, except in cold parts of the UK. All look good in large pots, perhaps given protection in severe weather. The evergreen praecox
forms are hardy in a sunny position in southern England, and can flower
well outside, but a little winter protection helps them look their best
Agapanthus
ardernei hybrid £4.50
Large,
rather airy heads of white flowers; buds flushed lilac. 80cm or so.
Agapanthus
'Buckingham Palace' £6
A tall
Lewis Palmer hybrid, to 1.5m or more. Globular flower heads of deepish blue.
Scarce and
slow to propagate.
Agapanthus
campanulatus albidus £4.50
Good
sized, somewhat flattened heads of refined white flowers. Vigorous, hardy,
relatively short (60cm in flower) and irresistible.
Agapanthus
'Golden Rule' £4
A dinky
variegated clone, with a fine gold margin to the leaves - get the pun?
Agapanthus
inapertus pendulus £5
Mid
blue, not the fabled indigo form, but still nice. Deciduous.
Agapanthus 'Phantom' £10
Very large heads of white flowers stained with a clear
light blue towards the edges. Tall (1.5m), stout, hardy and very slow to
propagate. Fabulous.
Agapanthus
praecox white form £5
Big
round, long-lasting heads of clean white flowers on 1m+ stems. Evergreen.
Agapanthus
praecox 'Flore Pleno' £6
Extraordinary
and large deep blue double flowers. Evergreen.
Agapanthus
praecox 'Variegatus' £4.50
White
and green longitudinally striped leaves. Flowers blue. Evergreen.
Agapanthus
'Windsor Grey' £10
Big
round heads of delicate grey-white flowers, with a faint hint of lilac, on
stems to 1.2m or so. Deciduous and pretty hardy. Beautiful,
uncommon, and in great demand.
Ageratina altissima 'Chocolate' AGM £3 / £4
Copious
brown-purple foliage makes a lovely effect in the sunny border. Harmless white
flowers. Hardy, winter dormant. Previously known as Eupatorium rugosum.
Albuca fragrans £3 / £4.50
A winter growing South African bulb with tall (1m+)
stems of nodding flowers, yellow striped with green. Impressive but scacely
fragrant. Borderline hardy here.
Albuca
humilis £3.25
A tiny
counterpart, large flowers white, striped green, 15cm. Summer growing. The next may well be a very
tall form of the species.
Albuca
shawii £3 /£3.50
Another
summer grower, to 30cm. Many yellow flowers with a fruity fragrance in summer.
Hardy-ish and freely increasing.
Alcea x Althaea 'Parkallee'
£3 / £4.50
Creamy yellow semidouble perennial hollyhock which
doesn't get rust. To 1.5m. A very satisfactory garden plant.
Alchemilla
ellenbeckii £3 /£3.50
A far
creeping, densely mat forming plant with tiny grey green leaves and red stems.
The flowers are insignificant. From the mountains of East Africa, it is not
totally hardy everywhere, but has survived outside here for nearly 15
years, retreating in colder winters and
zooming back out in the summer. We use it over the corner of a sunny but not
dry wall as a positively attractive ground cover.
Allium beesianum £3.25
The classic sky blue allium. Heads of drooping flowers
on 20cm stems at the end of the summer. Rock garden or similar. Long flowering,
lovely and usually replaced by something else in the nursery trade.
Allium callimischon ssp. haemostictum £3.25
A dinky summer dormant Cretan with an odd phenology:
the flower stem grows with the leaves in spring, seems to wither with them in
the height of summer (don't tidy them away), only for the flowers to open in autumn on the leafless plants. The
flowers are white, spotted and veined dark red, and are one of the joys of
autumn. Pot or sunny raised bed, etc.
Allium
paradoxum var. normale £3
The
Snowdrop Allium. Nodding, pure white fls look really big on 10cm stems in
spring. Broad, bright green leaves. Forms tight clumps, ideal in a sink.
Stunning and safe, unlike the dreaded var. paradoxum on both counts.
Allium
schoenoprasum 'Silver Chimes' £2.50
Ordinary chives -
but with flowers a very attractive silvery white.
Alstroemeria
tall, long-flowering red £3.75/ £4.50
An
anonymous hybrid from Sarah’s mother’s garden, where it is astonishingly good.
Loads of deep red, yellow marked flowers on 1.5m stems from late spring through
to late autumn with her. She does give it a little low-down support, but
considers that worthwhile given the enormous impact in the garden and value as
a cut flower.
X Amarcrinum memoria-corsii 'Howardii' (Amaryllis
belladonna x Crinum moorei) £5
Big winter growing bulb, with the general look of a Crinum but
the growth cycle of an Amaryllis.
Fragrant, large pink flowers in autumn. Needs a bit of winter
protection, in a big pot.
Amorphophallus
konjac
£3 / £3.50
Reputedly the
hardiest of these big, arisaema-like aroids. Spathe purple-brown. Leaves lobed
in a wonderfully complex way, and recall a big shuttlecock. Dark petiole,
blotched cream.
Anemone
Those
with the wood anemone habit are best divided in autumn, so we will send out
pieces of
recently potted rhizome, best left potted until in
growth in spring.
Anemone
apennina var. albiflora £2.75/£3.50
A
spring flowering, readily clump-forming rhizomatous species, recalling nemorosa
with loads of extra sepals (in Anemone,
read 'petals' for 'sepals' if you're not botanically inclined). This form
has pure white, blue-backed sepals.
Anemone appenina double flowered £4
Rarely
seen, and weaker growing than the previous, this form has fully double flowers
of an indescribable, almost iridescent pale lilac. Few.
Anemone
flaccida £2.75/£3.50
A
rhizomatous plant for woodland conditions. The leaves are rather thick, and
elegantly marbled. The flowers are creamy white, of a good
size, in early spring. 15cm.
Anemone
‘Hatakeyama Single’ £3 / £3.50
Very pretty, very
dwarf, Japanese Anemone. Pink, to 40cm.
Anemone
hupehensis alba £3 / £3.75
A rare
'Japanese' anemone from China. White flowers with a central boss of golden
stamens, on
1.2m stems in late summer. When it rains, the flowers
nod, revealing that the reverse has alternating zones of white and deep wine
red. Very beautiful and in great demand. From a CLD collection.
Anemone
hupehensis 'Bodnant Burgundy' £3 / £4
Middling
height Japanese anemone with plenty of deep reddish pink sepals. To 1m.
Anemone
x lipsiensis £2.75
Essentially
a smaller, more delicate version of A. nemorosa, with lovely pale yellow
flowers. Well
worth finding it the humusy soil it needs.
Anemone
nemorosa varieties £2.75
The
wood anemones need little introduction as tough, gently spreading woodlanders,
never failing
to charm, whether in leaf or flower.
'Bill
Baker's Pink' is a good pink, starting pale and darkening.
‘Buckland’ and 'Royal Blue' are decent blues. 'Blue Eyes' is a shaggy
semi-double, white with a blue flush around the centre of the fully double
flower. 'Flore Pleno' is a pure white double - increasingly I doubt whether the
differences between this and 'Vestal', which people so freely quote, are valid.
The muscular 'Lady Doneraile' has really big white flowers standing head and
shoulders above the leaves (it may be the same as Leeds' Variety and Wilks'
Giant; nobody knows wood anemones well enough).
Anemone obtusiloba 'Sulphurea' £3
Small softly hairy rosettes sending up lemon yellow
flowers with a luminous hint of highlighter pen, in spring but often continuing
well into summer. 10cm. Humusy soil, light shade.
Anemone
ranunculoides ssp. wockeana £3
Tiny,
floriferous, buttercup yellow wood anemone relative: 5cm.
Anemone
rivularis £2.75 / £3.50
A fine
plant for moist humusy soil in full sun or light shade, with its many white
flowers, with sepals backed in metallic blue. 75cm.
Anemone
sylvestris 'Flore Pleno' £3 / £3.50
Exquisite,
neat, full double form of the next species.
Anemone
sylvestris 'Macrantha' £2.75 / £3.50
Fine,
large flowered form of the Snowdrop Anemone. Scented white, somewhat nodding
white flowers in spring and beyond. More or less spreading habit;
for sun or shade but not too dry.
Anemone
sp. nov.? £3 / £3.50
Chinese,
and rhizomatous. White, purple backed flowers, young leaves purple. Height
40cm. Moist, sun.
Anemopsis
californica £3 / £3.75
A
really different plant for the bog garden. Striking white bracts surround a
tight inflorescence of little white flowers, making a big false flower.
Rosettes of thick smooth leaves. From the American South West, and thriving in
very hot conditions - we saw it looking splendid in a Tucson garden last Autumn
- but seems hardy for us. Keep it wet!
Angelica
maximovicii £3 / £3.50
Grown
for its lovely narrowly lobed leaves, it's a low runner. Terribly interesting,
but a dubious identification.
Aralia
cachemirica £3 / £3.75
Ultimately
a huge plant, approaching 2m in height, with wonderful divided foliage; creamy
flowers
followed by attractive black berries. Entirely
herbaceous in Britain, and terribly refined.
Arisaema
The
Cobra Lilies are dormant in winter, going up and flowering quickly once the
tubers
start growing. Everything about them is lovely, the
spooky mottled emerging shoots, bold leaves and exotic
aroid flowers. As a rule, plenty of warmth and moisture, a relatively well
drained soil away from direct sunlight will
suit them (most of these are from warm temperate Northern India and the Himalayas, and serious cold is not to their liking). Our
heavy wet soil is not to the liking of every species,
so we grow many very successfully as pot subjects. Once they die down, we let
the compost dry off, then lift the tubers in
early autumn, storing them in brown paper bags in a cool but frost-free room, potting up again from the end of February here. In
autumn, we supply recently lifted tubers in autumn. Store as above, planting next spring. All are propagated here in
Devon.
Arisaema
candidissimum £4 / £5
White/pink
striped spathes. Trifoliate leaves. One of the best known and best as garden
plants, even on clay. 40cm.
Arisaema
ciliatum £3.50
Freely
dividing, and very late into growth (June here) - hence late flowering. Flowers
when small,
25cm tall, but said to reach over 1m ultimately. A
good bet in the open garden.
Arisaema
consanguineum AGM £3 / £4
Tall,
once it gets established, up to 1m.
Arisaema
exappendiculatum £3 / £4
A few
spares of this one, rather new to us.
Arisaema
flavum £3 / £4
Short
and pretty, flowering when young. Small spathes, green and yellow. Known as a
good doer in
the garden.
Arisaema
ringens £5
Very
distinctive flowers; the large green/white striped spathe is folded over at the
top, almost closing the entrance. An excellent
plant. 50cm.
Aristea inequalis £3.25 / £3.75
Still unflowered
from seed but high hopes: fans of narrow grey irisy leaves should produce1.5m
spikes of deep blue flowers. Sun, drainage; winter rainfall region of South
Africa.
Aristea
major pink form £3.50 / £4
Erect
fans of tough, broad leaves. Dense heads of little pink flowers on stems lm+ in
summer.
For a mild, sunny position.
Artemisia
lactiflora 'Jim Russell' £3.50 / £4
We think this more
elegant than the well known Guizho group. The foliage isn't quite as dark, but
the flowers are properly white, not a dirty off white, and the habit is rather
more arching. Still a sound 1.5m clumper.
Arthropodium cirratum 'Matapouri
Bay' £3.50
/ £4.50
Big evergrey-green
monocot. Tall branched panicles of nodding white flowers in summer. Definitely
for the frost free conservatory. FROM SPRING '08.
Arum
italicum ssp. albispathum £3 / £3.75
Hearty,
easy garden plant with dark green, silver veined leaves and white spathes.
Arum
italicum 'Chameleon' £3 / £3.50
A gentle and comely plant, in leaf through the winter and
spring. The large central part of each leaf is
a misty blend of small areas of dark, pale and silvery
grey greens. Easy in light shade.
Arum pictum £3.25 / £3.75
Grown for its
silver-veined grey-green leaves in winter and spring, flowers autumn. Sun, good
drainage.
Aruncus 'Johannifest' £3 / £4
Interesting German
hybrid. Fuzzy spikes of white flowers age pinkish; leaves finely divided. 60cm.
Asarum
caudatum £3 / £4
Sinister purple flowers among dark green leaves; usefully spreading
habit. A toughie for shade.
Asarum
maximum 'Silver Panda' £3.50
Big
evergreen leaves marked in silver; black flowers with white centres in spring.
Low clump for shade. Ideal in pot.
Asarum
splendens £3.75
Larger
leaves, marked silver. Flowers large enough to be noticeable without
grovelling, with cream as well as brown in them.
Splendid indeed. Moist-but-well-drained, and protect from slugs.
Aster 'People won't buy
asters' is one of the great truisms of the nursery trade, right up there with
'people like blue flowers' - you'll note the contradiction - but tough, we're
going to waste a little space on four absolute favourites from our garden in
autumn. If we still have to mention the m-word, let's just say that we've never
seen mildew on any of these, although if you treated them horribly enough for
long enough you might be able to prove a point...
Aster 'Fellowship'
£3 / £4
A big
shaggy double lilac-pink michaelmas daisy. Julian's Mum uses it as a very effective cut flower. 1.2m.
Aster 'Little
Carlow' AGM £3 / £4
Heaps
of medium sized really blue flowers in September, all over a bushy plant. Bred
in Devizes. 'Creating large clumps of colour year in year out [it] is a
first-class, 'no-fuss' hybrid' writes Paul Picton, who really should know.
1.2m.
Aster 'Ochtendgloren' AGM £3 / £4
Another floriferous hybrid, with slightly smaller pink
flowers. Good bushy habit and strong constitution. 1.2m.
Aster 'Pixie Dark Eye' £3 / £4
Lots of
medium sized rich purple, yellow eyed flowers on a compact (60cm for us) plant.
Quite out of the ordinary.
Astrantia
The
Masterworts are classic perennials for heavy ground, thriving in sun or part
shade. All have dense umbels of tiny flowers,
surrounded by a conspicuous collar of bracts and looking for all the world like a large, single flower. All reach around 60cm.
Divisions.
Astrantia
'Buckland' £3 / £4.50
Very
attractive hybrid, with large pink and green flower heads - like all
Masterworts, great on heavy ground.
Astrantia
major involucrata 'Shaggy' £3 / £4.50
Plants
in pots never look their best. Once really established in fertile soil with
reasonable moisture all year, the green-white bracts are really long, making a
spectacular large false flower. These are divisions from Sarah's Mum's
excellent plant.
Athyrium
'Branford Beauty' £3.25 / £4.50
Beautiful
hybrid Lady Fern, vigorous and with a grey cast to the leaf. Deciduous.
Athyrium
filix-femina var. angustum 'Lady in Red' £3.25 / £3.75
Another good,
distinctive Lady Fern, light green fronds with a red rachis (the stalk/midrib
bit...).
Athyrium
filix-femina 'Minutissimum' £3 / £3.50
Adorable little
Lady Fern, less than 20cm tall, but perfectly formed, and making a dense,
spreading clump. Ignore Martin Rickard's disparaging comments - these are not
dodgy Dutch imports which end up tall but divisions of the plant we've
cherished throughout our gardening career, originally from Washfield. The
epitome of mini-ferniness.
Athyrium
filix-femina 'Victoriae' £3.50 / £4
One of the classic
rarities, we offer divisions of established tissue-cultured plants, very close
to the ultra-slowly splitting original (which was found by someone named Cosh -
just thought I'd share that with you). Avoding mutant fern technicalities, the
frond is long, narrow and almost parallel sided, the divisions are narrow and
bracken-like, branching into little fingers at the tips, as does the tip of the
frond. Undoubtedly weird and unnatural, but holds a peculiar attraction.
Athyrium
'Ghost' £3.50 / £5
On the same lines
as 'Branford Beauty', but the metallic grey is more pronounced - stunning.
Athyrium
niponicum var. pictum AGM £3 / £3.50
Classic
easy silvery-grey leafed fern, with a mauve tint around the veins. Deciduous.
30cm.
Athyrium
otophorum var. okanum £3.25 / £3.75
Semi-evergreen
yellowy green fronds with red rachis. 50cm, some shade, not too wet or dry.
Very pretty.
Baptisia
australis £3 / £4
Indigo
flowers on mounds of grey-green foliage in summer. Plant it and leave it. Sun.
Begonia
boliviensis £3 / £4
Something to grow
in a pot by the house or, as we do, in the conservatory. It arches out in all
directions, with elegant bright orange flowers in summer. Store the tubers
frost free in winter. Quite a novelty, and impossible to miss.
Begonia
palmata £3 / £3.50
An
extraordinary, apparently hardy, Chinese species. Thoroughly winter-dormant, it
has big
palmate
leaves held 30cm above the ground on translucent red petioles. Plenty of pink
flowers in
late summer. A much more substantial plant than B.
grandis ssp. evansiana.
Bergenia
'Beethoven' £3 / £4.50
Densely
packed white flowers with a fetching hint of pink.
Bergenia
ciliata £3 / £4.50
Has
hairy dinner plates for leaves; wonderful pale pink flowers in February. Pretty
hardy, but hard frosts can mash the flowers, so choose
a sheltered site.
Bergenia
emeiensis £3.50 / £4
A
little sweetie from Western China, white flowers from pink calyces and small
leaves. Compact and under 30cm in height.
Bergenia
pacumbis CC3616 £3.25 / £4.50
Related to ciliata; very big leaves edged with
hairs and pink flowers.
Bergenia 'Rosi Klose' £3 / £4
Deservedly
mass-marketed, for once. Very free flowering, bright pink to 30cm.
Bergenia
stracheyi Alba Group £3 / £4
Smaller species, white flowered and compact.
Bergenia
tianquanensis £3.25 / £4.50
One of
the least often seen Chinese species, this plant makes handsome rosettes of
rather upstanding obovate leaves. We'll be honest, we've had it growing
healthily for 5 years and it's never flowered.
Blechnum
chilense £3.25 / £4.50
A very
handsome large fern, evergreen with tough, glossy pinnate fronds. Bold and
somewhat
spreading, 1m or so in height. Hardy in southern and
western areas, pretty good even in the Midlands,
it seems, especially if mulched. Acidic or neutral soil.
Bletilla
striata £3 / £4
An
easy, large flowered, clump forming hardy orchid - what could be nicer? Bright
green, pleated leaves and vivid pink flowers, dying back to tubers in winter.
Recommended for humus rich partial shade, but can
thrive in full sun or heavy soil.
Bletilla
striata 'Albostriata' £3.25 / £4
The
same again, with a somewhat variable white stripe to the leaf margin and
flowers a much more delicate lilacy pink.
Bletilla
striata var. japonica f. gebina £3 / £4
And
again, this time white flowered with a pink flush inside.
Bomarea edulis £3 / £4
A herbaceous, climbing Alstroemeria.which can
reach 2m or more in a season, with tubular dull red flowers, yellow and green
inside, in late summer. Dies down to edible tubers tasting cucumberish.
Brunnera
macrophylla 'Betty Bowring' £3 / £3.50
Bold
summer foliage and white forget-me-notty flowers in spring. Spreads in a shady site, ideally not too
dry.
Brunnera
macrophylla 'Jack Frost' £3 / £4
In this
fine form the main veins of the leaves are picked out in silver. This effect
lasts all year. Blue flowers. Protected by Plant Breeders Rights,
unfortunately.
Brunnera
sibirica £3 / £4
A hardy
rarity. The blue flowers are much like B. macrophylla. Different bold
leaves and running habit.
Bulbinella
nutans £3 / £3.75
Winter
growing bulb: bold dense spikes of lots of small yellow flowers in early
spring: takes just a little frost.
Caltha 'Honeydew'
£3.25 / £4.50
The
hybrid marsh marigolds are desirable things, vigorous and floriferous, and
scarce in the nursery trade since they have to be propagated vegetatively. This
one is a clear pale, but not very pale, yellow, rather larger in flower than palustris
var. palustris, the usual garden form. For moist to wet ground in
sun or shade.
Campanula
persicifolia 'La Bonne Amie' £3 / £3.50
Semidouble
white, not as tidy a flower as the old ones but it does grow...
Campanula
takesimana 'Beautiful Trust' £3 / £3.50
Freaky
mutant whose white corolla is a bell split to the base into five long, narrow
petals, and hanging.
Campanula takesimana 'Elizabeth
II' £3 / £3.50
Large,
double pinky-purple spotted bellflowers. 60cm.
Campanula
trachelium 'Bernice' £3 / £3.50
A good
violet blue double, stiffly upright to 50cm. Clump-forming rather than widely
spreading. Sun or part shade but avoid winter wet.
Campanula
'Van Houttei' £3 / £3.75
Very
big, dark blue-purple flowers. A very good plant. 75cm or so.
Cardamine
Great
plants as they are, we can't fill the catalogue with descriptions of plants which
almost nobody wants to buy. We have small numbers of the following, at
£3/£3.50, mostly dormant until spring and best left in pots, watered, until
well into growth. Woodlanders unless stated: diphylla 'Eco Cut Leaf'
(nice leaves), glanduligera, quinquefolia. (Kew/Washfield flowering
form), raphanifolia (big, bold, pink flowered, a beaut for the bog
garden in spring), waldsteinii (really nice).
Carex grayi £3.25 / £4.50
Persistent, spiky inflated utricles.... oh, forget it.
The flower spikes look like maces (the weapon not the spice) and look rather
spectacular from early May through to the summer. A broad leaved hardy sedge
for ordinary conditions. Everyone seems to want it when we take them to early
May plant sales ( then we run out).
Cenolophium
denudatum £3 / £4
An
excellent umbellifer, with finely divided foliage and white umbels in summer.
Best of all, it thrives in dry shade. Variable in
height, but can reach 1m.
Centaurea
benoistii £3.25 / £4.50
An fine
tall plant with excellent silver grey foliage when grown dry and lean. Wine red
knobby flower heads. 150cm.
Centaurea 'Caramia' £3 / £3.50
A pleasing shorter
plant with undivided green leaves and purple-pink rayed flower heads. 40cm.
Perhaps a form of C. phrygia, perhaps a hybrid - the status even of some
wild plants is very unlear.
Centaurea
cheiranthifolia £3.25 / £4.50
Lovely
large palest yellow cornflowers. Grey-green leaves. 40cm.
Centaurea
fischeri £3 / £4
Rather
similar, with pale pink flowers.
Centaurea
kotschyana £3 / £3.50
Low
growing, with rather shiny green leaves, and purple thimbly flower heads:
yellow stamens
contrast beautifully.
Centaurea
montana 'Gold Bullion' £3 / £3.50
A
cheery bright golden leaved form of the common perennial cornflower, with the
usual big blue
flower heads. Give it full sun for best leaf colour,
and well drained soil.
Centaurea
montana ‘Joyce’ £3 / £4
The
usual greyish foliage, but with flowers of a clear pink (not pale as in carnea).
Centaurea
montana 'Lady Flora Hastings' £3 / £4
As
above, but nice spidery white flowers with contrasting dark stamens.
Centaurea montana 'Ochroleuca' £3 / £3.75
An interesting pale yellow flowered form, later
flowering than most. I could beleive it is a hybrid with cheiranthifolia.
Centaurea
montana 'Purpurea' £3 / £4
As
above, with unambiguously purple flowers.
Centaurea uniflora £3 / £4
Solitary
purple-pink flowers over glossy green prickly leaves. 40cm.
Centaurea Totnes Fat Lemon' NEW CULTIVAR
NAME
Fat knobbly yellow
flower heads on a rather stocky plant, about 50cm tall. Greyish green leaves.
It's a selection from our controlled cross, benoistii x orientalis.
While orientalis is a well known plant, we find it small flowered,
unhappy in our wet climate, and a bit rangy. This does the same job much
better, we feel.
Centaurea
simplicicaulis £3 / £3.50
Finely
pinnate leaves, clumping up nicely, with attractive purple pink flower heads on
thin, wiry 30cm stems. For the rock garden or border front in sun.
Centaurea
triumfettii 'Hoar Frost' £3 / £4
Good
sized white flowers with pink-purple tinted centres in May. Grey leaves. 30cm,
strongly summer dormant. A Monksilver selection from their own Turkish
collection. A great plant for a sunny, well drained place.
Centaurea
triumfetii x montana £3 / £4
A lucky
mistake meant that we've grown one of Joe Sharman's experimental hybrids for
some years, and have come to regard it very highly. Blue montana-like flowers
at the tops of unbranched stems to 75cm, with a more open, running habit than
montana, but still tough in the garden. Thanks, Joe!
Chasmanthe
bicolor £4.50
A winter growing ally of Crocosmia, flowering rather spectacularly in spring.
The flowers are long, with vermilion upper segments, lower segments yellowy
green. Height to 1m. The corms make a good clump quickly. For warmer southern
gardens where it can dry out in summer, perhaps at the root of a big shrub.
Chloranthus
fortunei £3.25 / £3.75
A whorl
of four leaves, purple/brown tinted when young, on each 30cm stem, and little
white
flowers
in May. A hardy clumper for woodland conditions. Very peculiar, very
attractive.
Chrysosplenium macrophyllum £4
The golden saxifrage that thinks it's a Bergenia.
Round bristly leaves, new rosettes forming at the ends of obscene fat hairy
stolons. Flowers quite large but uninteresting compared with the foliage. Mad
ground cover for a woodsy bed.
Cimicifuga
see Actaea - the names have been changed to protect the
innocent...
Cirsium 'Mount Etna' £3 / £4
An odd
little plant, only 60cm tall with narrow flower heads, white with projecting
violet stamens. Not unlike C. oleraceum, but without the lush decurrent
stem leaves. Seems to be getting around the nursery trade, but frankly I think
the next two are infinitely better.
Cirsium
rivulare 'Atropurpureum' £3 / £4
The
classic crimson-purple flowered species for the border. 1.2m.
Cirsium
sp. £3 / £4
This is
an imposing counterpart in pure white, with good sized flower heads in August.
Rather taller (1.5m or more). Unidentified, from Roger & Sue Norman. I have
never seen this fine plant anywhere else.
Convallaria
majalis var. rosea £3 / £3.50
Lily of the Valley is one of those infuriating plants
that likes some people/gardens and not others, for no discernible reason. This
is the pink form...
Convallaria majalis 'Vic Pawlowski's Gold'
£3.75 / £5
...and this has
particularly good yellow stripes to the leaves; we've never seen a reversion.
Coptis
japonica var. major £3.25 / £3.75
From the backwaters
of the Ranunculaceae comes this small Northern genus for cool, humusy
positions. Finely divided, but rather stiff, ternate leaves to 25cm, and tiny
white flowers in autumn, as the leaves go down, with extraordinary whorls of
seed pods with the new leaves in spring. Gently running. Very rarely seen.
Coriaria kingiana £3.25 / £4
A low sub-shrubby perennial with fine pinnate leaves,
covered in little yellow-stamened flowers in spring, followed later by small
dark purple berries. Not very hardy, so
give it a milder spot. I really like this rare, rare plant.
Coriaria terminalis xanthocarpa £3.25
/ £4
The only Coriaria
that's anything approaching widely grown: larger leaves and clusters of
translucent yellow berries at the stem tips. Few. No news yet on the
whereabouts of the red fruited form.
Corydalis
leucanthema DJHC 752 £3 / £3.50
A
fibrous rooted species for shade. Rather substantial leaves, grey and somewhat
marbled in silver. Pink-and-white flowers in spring. 15cm.
Corydalis
'Kingfisher' £3.25 / £3.75
Much more compact
and less running than the next two, it
is a really lovely sky blue in flower; cashmeriana x flexuosa.
Corydalis
'Spinners' £3 / £3.50
There
are many flexuosa/elata hybrids around now. We still consider
this and the next to be the finest. 'Spinners' is close to elata in
appearance with scented indigo blue flowers, but bulks up more densely and
generously, as with flexuosa.
Corydalis
'Tory MP' £3 / £3.50
This
one is more obviously intermediate. It's tall (to 75cm), forming a vigorous,
dense, spreading clump, with intense blue flowers and red tinted stems. It
flowers for an unusually long time in late spring and summer, then may repeat
in autumn after a summer recess. It grows well in full sun as well as partial
shade.
Crinum 'Ellen
Bosanquet' £5 / £6
An old
hybrid, with spreading leaves and little neck to the bulb. Flowers a warm
colour at the red end of pink. Once large and deep, the massive bulbs are
hardy.
Crinum 'Hanibal's Dwarf' £4 / £6
Compact
plant, around 50cm. Pink flowers with a rather starry effect.
Crinum moorei £5 / £6
Palest
pink, well formed flowers on 1.5m stems. Perfectly hardy in the mildest gardens,
such as
Coleton Fishacre where it is one of the glories of
late summer. Give it a warm, sheltered site or pot elsewhere.
Crinum x powellii
AGM £4 / £5
Tough
and hardy; I've admired a huge clump in Ledbury (cold!) for years. Luxuriant
foliage, and bright pink flowers to 1.2m in summer.
Crocosmia
All £3 / £4 unless stated
aff. aurea
(£3.25 / £4.50) Very large, completely nodding, orange, spidery flowers in
September. Said to be from Magaliesburg. Exciting.
'Baby
Barnaby' Branched stems with orange flowers, blotched maroon. 60cm. Sarah says
I must emphasize how very nice it is.
'Debutante' Peculiar, but attractive pinky orange.
Quite early, but with staying power.
'Dusky
Maiden' Browny orange, bronzed leaves, 50cm.
'Fire
Jumper' (£3.25 / £4.50) Dan Hinkley's red/orange bicolor. Excellent, and new to
the UK. Unusually many flowers per stem.
'Gerbe
d'Or' Warm yellow with bronzed leaves.
'Mrs
Geoffrey Howard' Large tomato red flowers, quite tall.
Rayon
d'Or' Early season, bright
orange-yellow, marked red at base, outward facing flower.
masoniorum
'Rowallane Yellow'(£3.25 / £4.50)
Rich yellow, upward facing flowers on arching stems; very fine. 60cm.
'Sir
Matthew Wilson' Vigorous, with big red flowers.
'Star
of the East' Very large, open, slightly inclined orange flowers.
'Sultan'
hot, rather burnt, red tones, bronzed leaves.
'Ellenbank Firecrest' From a distance looks like
'ordinary' x crocosmiiflora which seemed to be blasting out of every
Westmorland cottage gateway this August, but tidier close to, since it isn't
clogged with dead flowers. 60cm small flowered orange and red bicolor.
'Zambesi' (£3.25 / £4.50) Best of the African
Rivers hybrids. Very tall and long flowering. Many large outfacing orange
flowers.
Cyclamen coum 'Tilebarn Elizabeth' £3.50
Leaves flushed silver all over, flowers pale pink
stained much deeper towards the edges.
Cyclamen hederifolium seedlings
from Ruby Strain £3.25
A good
proportion are flowering deep red-pink. Autumn flowering.
Cyclamen repandum good form £3.25
The nursery trade generally fails to deliver the
tough, strongly purple-pink flowered, scented form which naturalises freely in
some old woodsy gardens, notably at Knightshayes, but here it is thanks to
Peter Chappell who has it seeding around at Spinners.
Cymophyllus fraserianus £3.50
Small North American sedge whose flowers are an
improbable pure white, against the dark foliage. 15cm. Probably needs acid
soil. Slow.
Cyrtanthus
breviflorus £3 / £3.50
A small
bulb from the Drakensberg. Starry yellow flowers 2-3cm across in spring. Easy
in pots, do-able outside.
Cyrtanthus
brachyscyphus £3 / £3.50
Semi
evergreen, like mackenii, with orange-red tubular flowers at rather
unpredictable times.
Cyrtanthus contractus £3.50
/ £4
Glossy
scarlet flowers, long tubed and flared at the mouth, but so much bigger than
the previous or the next. Summer growing. Few.
Cyrtanthus
mackenii £3 / £3.50