Helleborus - Kalimeris

Helleborus atrorubens £3 / £3.75
Slow growing smaller flowered species with red-green flowers. Carefully hand pollinated seedlings from bagged parents derived from Elizabeth Strangman's wild collections. Several years old now, and wanting to get out in the garden to build for a while.

Helleborus x ericsmithii £3.50 / £4.50
A very fine hybrid caulescent hellebore (niger x (argutifolius x lividus)). The leaves have a metallic grey tint, with 40cm stems of pink tinged white flowers from late winter. Sun, reasonable drainage.

Helleborus niger 'Potter's Wheel' £4
Divisions of a fine old form of the Christmas Rose: large, outward facing white flowers.

Helleborus x nigercors £3.50 / £4.50
Another caulescent hybrid (niger x argutifolius). Abundant greeny-creamy-white flowers over dark foliage: to 40cm.

Heloniopsis acutifolia BSWJ 218 £3.25
Pink tinged flowers in spring, 30cm.

Heloniopsis kawanoi £3.25 / £3.75
An uncommon dwarf species: umbels of white flowers over clean green rosettes.

Heloniopsis umbellata £3 / £3.50
Rosettes of narrow leaves with inflorescences of white, pink tinged flowers. 15cm. Woodsy conditions.

Herbertia lahue £3
A cheery little iridaceous corm from Argentina, with bright violet flowers. Grown in pots with minimal protection, so far. Bulks up well.

Heuchera americana 'Harry Hay' £3 / £4
A gigantic plant, forming a dome of purple foliage more than 50cm high and topping 1m in flower. Impressive. Selected by the man himself.

Hippeastrum 'San Antonio Rose' £3 / £3.50
A smaller American hybrid, with spidery pink flowers on 20cm. We've only grown it in pots with unheated winter protection so far, but it will certainly survive frost. Keep the slugs off it!

Hippeastrum 'Toughie' £3.25 / £5
We have Bob Brown to thank for introducing this exciting plant from cultivation in New Zealand. It is hardy out of doors in Totnes, and reputedly much farther afield as well. A summer grower, with strongly purple tinted foliage. The flower spikes are on the scale of the familiar tender hippeastrums, although not as large as the grossest modern cultivars. The flowers are a deep rather smoky red, on purple tinged scapes. For a sunny, well drained, reasonably sheltered spot. Protect from slugs.

Hosta plantaginea var japonica £3.50 / £4.50
Big, pale green leaves and very large fragrant flowers in autumn.

Hosta venusta AGM £3 / £3.50
A tiny species, with clumps of bright green leaves just a few cm tall; lovely spikes of light violet flowers on 10-15cm stems. For partial shade, not dry. Needs a choice corner or pot to appreciate it properly. Arnold Schwarzenegger's favourite plant? Hosta venusta, baby.

Hosta sp. AGSJ302 £3 / £4
Really tall (to 1.4m) stems of many (30-40 per stem) good sized flowers in a shade of violet which, by Hosta standards, is really deep. Planted in a moist fertile bed, in flower with candelabra primulas and Anemone rivularis, a well established clump is a real treat for us. Undistinguished yellowy green foliage, but who cares - something this tall needs planting well back in the bed.

Hymenocallis x festalis AGM £3 / £4.50
A big amaryllid with huge fragrant white flowers with a splendid staminal corona (i.e. a fake daffodil trumpet made from bits of stamen) in summer. Not hardy but easy in a pot with dryish winter dormancy. Be good and keep the slugs off it, won't you.

Impatiens arguta £3 / £3.50
A 30cm tall species with good-sized lilac-blue flowers over a long season. No evidence of dangerous seeding tendencies. Mild position, or replaced annually from summer cuttings (easy).

Impatiens omeiana £3 / £4
Dense spreading patches of beautifully silver-marked dark green leaves, and plump apricot flowers late in the season. The shoots are frost tender, but they arise from masses of thin rhizomes safely below the surface. Height 30cm unless etiolated.

Impatiens sp. from China £3 / £4
A Michael Wickenden introduction, much like the previous but with larger shoots, pale unmarked leaves and yellow flowers

Impatiens sp. DJHC 98415 £3.25 / £3.75
A little smaller, without the mass of rhizomes and with pretty pink flowers at the end of summer.

Imperata cylindrica 'Rubra' £3 / £3.50
The classic, vivid-red leaved Japanese Blood Grass.

Inula oculus-christi £3 / £3.50
Big, beautiful, very very fine rayed deep yellow daisies in summer. Height only 50cm. My favourite species in this sometimes dull genus.

Ipheion 'Alberto Castillo' £3.75
Very large, pure white flowered form of this well known clumping bulb for a sunny site. Found in an old garden in Buenos Aires by its namesake. The species of lpheion and Tristagma (which arguably should be a single genus) are poorly known and deserve more attention from gardeners and botanists.

Ipheion 'Rolf Fiedler' £3 / £3.50
An intense blue with rather rounded flowers. Less hardy, and perhaps an unknown species.

Ipheion uniflorum 'Charlotte Bishop' £3 / £3.50
Pink, quite large flowers.

Ipheion uniflorum 'Froyle Mill' £3 / £3.50
Purple flowers.

Ipheion sp. £4
A very exciting winter grower which we've spent more than 10 years building up. Solitary goblet shaped buttercup yellow flowers on 10-15cm stems in winter, narrow green leaves from almost spherical small bulbs. We grow it in pots with a little winter protection. Thanks to Mike 'Monocot' Salmon.

Iris chrysographes black form £3 / £4
Beautifully shaped flowers on delicate 50cm stems over dense tufts of leaves in early summer; sun lovers. So dark a purple it looks black.

Iris confusa 'Martyn Rix' £3.25 / £4.50
Unlike anything else, unless you've seen the tender I. wattii which is even more extreme. Bamboo like stems to 1m topped by fans of pale green leaves, with branched inflorescences of many flat faced clear blue flowers. Grow it in a shady spot in moist soil; cut out the flowered stems after the flowers finish in early summer. Forms a biggish clump, so give it space somewhere it will blend into the scenery until flowering time.

Iris fulva £3 / £4
Flower colour a highly unusual terracotta. One of the easiest Louisiana Irises, needing a rich moist soil, in a warm sunny spot. They have fat creeping rhizomes just at ground level, much like the bearded irises but further spreading and vigorously clumping when suited. Best avoided in very cold areas. Height 50cm in flower.

Iris x fulvala AGM £3 / £4
Rich purple flowered hybrid of fulva.

Iris histriodes 'Major' £3.25
One of the early spring (winter, really) flowering bulbous sorts, with flowers of a very deep blue, marked white. A lovely thing which cheers us up when we come upon it on a miserable winter day.

Iris x robusta 'Gerald Darby' £3.50 / £4
A stout clumper with striking purple bases to the leaves and nicely formed violet flowers on 1m+ stems. For moister (or downright wet) soils, in sun.

Iris sibirica 'Mrs. Rowe' £3 / £3.50
An older variety with plentiful, smaller flowers of a pale grey blue, earlier than most.

Isopyrum nipponicum £3 / £3.50
We have a soft spot for Ranunculaceous freaks. This is a soft leaved woodlander, pale yellowy leaves purple tinted when young,  whose little flowers have a strange fleshy yellow corolla inside the purple calyx - for a parallel, think the reduced 'nectary' petals of hellebores. Very unlike I. thalictroides, but if you said it was I. ohwianum I wouldn't argue the toss. Seeds around amiably.

Jaborosa integrifolia £3 / £3.50
Probably the only growable species of an interesting South American genus in the Solanaceae. A runner, alarmingly so on light soils, it throws up big white soapily fragrant flowers at ground level among leathery dark leaves. South-of-England-hardy. Someone told us its French name, so now it's The Devil's Turnip.

Juncus effusus f. spiralis 'Unicorn' £3 / £4
One of those freaky spiral rushes, this one short, stout and very spiral.

Kalimeris mongolica £3 / £4
A real beauty in a weedy, often thuggish genus, this has big neat astery heads in a clear lilac, facing the sky on top of erect, self supporting stems to 1.2 m or so. Makes a decent clump of interesting, pinnately lobed leaves in a sunny spot. It's like the golden syrup tin, 'out of the strong came forth sweetness'. Hmm, maybe I'd better stop writing for tonight.