Lupinus - Oenothera

Lupinus 'Thundercloud' £4.50
A clean old (pre-Russell) hybrid in a rather threatening purple. Scarce and in demand. Few.
Lychnis coronaria Gardeners' World £5
The double flowered prick-nose, (which doesn't, being sterile) has flowers of a rather deep, purplish pink. Good for it's different colour. The sterility is good if you want it to stay put, bad if you like rampant self-seeding (increase by spring division, incidentally).
Lychnis 'Hill Grounds' £5
A chance find in a Midland garden, this appears to be a hybrid between the two flannel leaved species coronaria and flos-jovis. The deep, loud magenta flowers continue for a very long season (it's sterile, also meaning that it doesn't seed around), and the plants have a good branching mutistemmed habit. A sound perennial which may well become one of the classics.
Lysimachia nemorum 'Pale Star' £4
Pale moonlit yellow to the usual sunshine of our native yellow pimpernel, a delicately textured but vigorously growing low woodland groundcover.
Lysimachia paridiformis ssp. stenophylla DJHC 704 £4
Short stems with crowded, juicy looking olive green leaves and bright yellow flowers. For shade.
Lysimachia yunnanensis £4
Rosettes of white-veined, grey-green leaves are very effective. Spikes of white flowers. Short-lived, but self-seeding benignly.
Lysionotus pauciflorus £4.50
This is a woody based, bushy, somewhat suckering evergreen perennial gesneriad for a sunny, well drained spot, covered in beautiful lavender flowers in autumn. It is hardy with us in Devon, and very slow-growing. Epiphytic in nature, it's fine in soil, but someone bought one to try in a tree fern trunk.
Maianthemum bicolor £4
A rather hairy North Korean, about 40cm, with greeny-cream flowers. Rare in gardens.
Maianthemum bifolium £4
A favourite woodland groundcover, related to lily-of the-valley. A forest of little bright green leaves spiking up from the dense rhizomes early in the year epitomizes spring. Small white flowers on 10cm stems in May. Ideal on heavy ground.
Maianthemum racemsoum 'Emily Moody' £5
Fluffy heads (bigger in this cultivar) of tiny, sweetly scented white flowers on slightly arching stems to 1m in early summer. Makes lovely solid clumps in moister soils.
Marshallia grandiflora £4.50
Having grown this little-known North American composite for a couple of years, we're quite impressed by its purple-pink, rather scabious-like heads, over apple green leaves. Mound to 40cm; sun.
Matteucia orientalis £6
A very substantial deciduous fern with a creeping rhizome. When well established, the fronds approach 1m long, broad and arching. The fertile fronds are reduced, and stick up stiff and twisted, rather Blechnum-style, from late summer. The reputation for being a bit tender refers, I feel, to young fronds being susceptible to late frosts. The smallest we sell are in 2 litre pots.
Matteuccia struthiopteris AGM £4.50
The Ostrich Plume fern is unmistakeble as the unfurling fronds make narrow, vertical plumes. Clumps up freely in moister soil.
Matthiola fruticulosa 'Alba' £4
White stock flowers with a heavenly scent, and rosettes of grey leaves. Perennial, given full sun and very good drainage.
Meehania cordata £4
The North American representative of this small genus of creeping woodland labiates has clusters of little lavender flowers in spring, and is perhaps even tastier for slugs than it is attractive to us.
Melianthus major AGM £5
Classic bold, glaucous foliage plant. In its native South Africa it is quite a large shrub, but in all but the mildest gardens it's cut to the base by frosts late in the winter. Fresh shoots come up from below ground soon after. Under this regime it reaches 1m or a little more, and always looks its best, but doesn't produce its strange brown flowers which would spoil the effect anyway. Leaves and roots smell of peanut butter...
Mellitis melissophyllum 'Apple Blossom' NEW CULTIVAR NAME £4.50
Our native Bastard Balm is a deciduous, tightly clumping hardy perennial, with fuzzy balm-like foliage. The flowers are sage-like, with a big lip and have a lovely lemony fragrance. This exceptional form, propagated vegetatively, is white flushed a beautiful clear pink, especially at the edges. Sold for a couple of years as 'pink form' until we realized that other pink forms around are seed raised, different and simply not as pretty. Thanks to Roy Lancaster for suggesting the apt name.
Miscanthus sinensis varieties -all £4.50
Great plants, but since nobody orders them, we'll shrink down to a list of names this year. 'China', 'Flamingo', 'Giraffe', 'Malepartus', 'Nippon'. Prettiest of all, the soft brown plumes of nepalensis, a different species.
Moraea aristata £3.50
Unlike the more familiar spathulata and huttonii from the summer rainfall area, this is a winter growing corm from the Cape Town area. The spring flowers are large and white with very conspicuous blue eyes.
Mukdenia acanthifolia £4
Does the same thing as the familiar rossii, but with different leaves. To me, it's the best.
Mukdenia rossii dwarf £4
Significantly smaller. (As you might have expected.)
Narcissus 'Cedric Morris' £4.50
Imagine a bog-standard yellow daffodil. Now shrink the whole plant to about 1/3 its previous size, and bring it into flower really early - sometimes well before Christmas. Rather charming.
Narcissus cyclamineus AGM £3.50
A lovely little species. The corolla segments ('petals') are swept right back 'like the laid back ears of a kicking horse' as Mr. Bowles put it. Narcissus romieuxii AGM £3.50
North African hoop-petticoat type, very short with big upfacing creamy white flowers, strongly fragrant, early in the New Year. Hardy, but best in a pot where you can keep it looking pristine and sniff it several times a day. The flower that makes January worthwhile.
Neomarica caerulea £4 FROM SPRING 2010
A fabuluous Brazilian irid with large, intense blue, (some would say intense violet) beautifully marked flowers on 1.5m stems in summer. Fans of broad blue-green leaves. Needs to be more or less frost-free during the winter, but certainly not a tropical subject. It can be flowered unprotected in coastal gardens round here.
Nerine bowdenii 'Mark Fenwick' £4
An intense magenta-pink, deciduous variety. Just like the familiar Nerines of the trade, but with the volume turned up high.
Nerine bowdenii 'Pink Surprise' £5
Large flowers, very pale pink with a darker median stripe. A very good plant, and as hardy as any other bowdenii. Clean looking and distinctive - they're sold within minutes of opening time at any autumn plant fair. Previously listed as 'pale pink striped darker'.
Nerina flexuosa alba £4
Large frilly white flowers in autumn; dark green leaves. A winter grower: except in the hottest sites it is best given winter protection.
Nerine 'Fucine' £5
A strong, deep pink evergreen variety, hardy here in South Devon. A bowdenii / sarniensis hybrid. It clamours for attention, quite irresistible.
Nerine 'Kashmir' £5
Another borderline hardy hybrid, this time pale pink. Thanks to Marion Wood.
Nerine 'Kinn McIntosh' £4.50
Hardy, and flowering around Christmas, this pink flowered plant is rather out of the ordinary. An outlandish hybrid, we suppose.
Nerine 'Lawlord' £5
A scarlet sarniensis type with dark green leaves.
Nerine 'Zeal Grilse' £5
One of the late Terry Jones' backcrosses of bowdenii x sarniensis back to bowdenii. The strategy was to combine the hardiness of bowdenii with the colour range of sarniensis. This one is salmon pink, and is proving a rather satisfactory plant all round.
Oenothera organensis £4
Large, butter yellow flowers over a long summer season. A compact bushy plant, to 75cm but often much less. Day flowering, and quite out of the ordinary.