Ranzania - Salvia

Ranzania japonica £10
A famous berberidaceous rarity, needing a humusy soil in light shade, with protection from cold spring winds - in other words, it's your classic Japanese woodlander. Delicate textured, divided leaves with a lavender (soft lilac? - you get the idea) flower in the fork of the stem very soon after it emerges in spring. You can think of the plant structure as being half way between Podophyllum and Epimedium. Deciduous. Loveliness itself, but don't mess with it until you have the right place. We propagate it ourselves, and there is a message implicit in the price (and it's not that we're profiteering!) Few, inevitably.
Rheum kialense £4
Big needn't be best in the rhubarb world. This dinky species rarely gets above 40cm in height, is always pretty, but I love it best just before the flowers open in spring: the inflorescences look like white sausages dotted with red. Sun, reasonable drainage: and don't put it in a crumble.
Rodgersia aesculifolia AGM £5
Splendid horsechestnutty foliage, white flowers. To 1.5m when established. Moist soil.
Rodgersia 'Buckland Beauty' £5
Big bold leaves, flowers a strong clear pink, going over to dark red. One of the very best.
Rodgersia pinnata 'Jade Dragon Mountain' £6
Spinners' selected clone from Roy Lancaster's collection L1670. The flowers are in a dense head on really dark stems, and age from cream as the buds open through pink to red. Is it the best Rodgersia we've ever seen - probably.
Rodgersia pinnata 'Superba' AGM £5
Bold foliage, bronzy pink when young, red tinted later, and bright reddish pink flowers on red stems. Very lovely, for moist soil in sun or part shade. Take note, ye who care, these are divisions, not the variable seedlings so commonly offered.
Rodgersia podophylla 'Rotlaub' £5
This species is valued for the distinctive large leaves, with 5 to 7 big, blunt ended, jaggedly toothed leaflets arranged almost as a circle. It spreads freely in moist shade to form dramatic clumps. 'Rotlaub' is an Ernst Pagels selection with red tinted leaves.
Rodgersia podophylla 'Smaragd' £5
As above, but with dark green leaves and airy inflorescences of white flowers. Pagels' again.
Rohdea japonica 'Talbot Manor' £5
Thick, upstanding evergreen leaves in Aspidistra fashion, rather variably white striped. For humusy shade. Reputedly capable of producing boring flowers and nice berries. Some plants, as Sarah says, are rare for all the right reasons. I reckon it's a man's plant…
Romanzoffia tracyi £3.75
Tidy cushions of dark, shiny round green leaves all through winter and spring. Lots of pure white flowers in spring. Summer dormant. Easily spread by lifting its small tubers when dormant. It comes from moist cliff habitats on the Western seaboard of the USA, and appreciates a moist, well drained soil in at least partial shade. Easy, and like nothing else.
Romulea bulbocodium var. leichtliniana £3.50
Shamefully neglected little Mediterranean irid, flowering in spring and increasing at the corm. This form has yellow centred white flowers, dark veined on the backs (important since the flowers open only in the sun). Summer dormant of course.

Roscoea
Splendid, fully herbaceous members of the ginger family, from the Sino-Himalayan region. Grow them in a humus rich acidic soil in part shade, and don't let them dry out when in growth. They spend an extended winter underground. All ours are propagated by division. They may not come into growth until May, so do not panic!
Roscoea auriculata 'Floriade' £5
Rich purple flowers in July, with a sharply contrasting white bit in the middle (there's technical for you). In a species which varies a great deal in colour intensity and impact of the flowers, this cultivar stands right out.
Roscoea x beesiana Cream Group £5
Strong growing, to 40cm. Lots of big creamy flowers over an extended season. Large. To my mind, the best of the creamy yellows. The naming of these hybrids has, at long last, been sorted out (see The Plantsman, June '09 - well, you ought to see every issue, really).
Roscoea x beesiana 'Monique' £5
White, not cream flowers on a vigorous plant. Variable purple veining on the lip. Long season.
Roscoea cautleoides 'Early Purple' £5
The first to flower here, short and stout, a nice soft purple.
Roscoea cautleoides 'Kew Beauty' AGM £5
Particularly fine pale yellow flowers, taller and more slender.
Roscoea 'Long Acre Sunrise' £5
Another pale yellow, not the earliest. The look of the plant owes a lot to humeana; Nigel Rowland, who selected it, tells me it's a hybrid involving that species and cautleoides.
Roscoea purpurea 'Brown Peacock' £6
Purple flowers, in later summer as usual for this species; brown-tinted leaves and dark pseudostems.
Roscoea purpurea 'Purple Streaker' £5
A splendid short stocky plant with big flowers shockingly bicolored purple and white. Probably the same as 'Wisley Amethyst', or at least a seedling from it: while that name is an upstart, it is a Wisley plant.
Roscoea purpurea 'Red Gurkha' £8
The one everyone's been asking for. The flowers really are red, large too, on a short stout plant with dark red pseudostems. It's very late into growth (mid-June, so mark the place and be very patient!) and late flowering too (mid-August -September). If delivered in spring, keep in its pot until well into growth.
Roscoea scillifolia f. atropurpurea £4
The mini-roscoea, in its black form….
Roscoea scillifolia f. scillifolia £4
…and its soft pink form.
Rudbeckia triloba £4.50
A much branched plant covered in small yellow, brown centred daisies in late summer to early autumn. Sometimes short lived, keep seed.

Salvia
Salvia clinopodioides? ('Michoacan Blue') £4
Rather dense cylindrical heads of smallish, rich blue flowers in whorls, from September. Cut back by frost, but can sprout from underground. Best in a pot with winter protection, but survived last winter without heat. Imagine our surprise… This Mexican plant first went around in Salvia circles as 'Michoacán Blue': the identification as clinopodioides is, I think, still tentative.
Salvia greggii , microphylla and x jamensis (their hybrid) forms - all £4.50
These share the familiar wiry bush form, eventually topping 1m, quite hardy (certainly up to bad winters in the Cotswolds - that makes Sunderland look subtropical,  you Northern cynics) given sun and perfect drainage. Tidy them up in spring, once you know what's what. A few cuttings as an insurance are always wise.
Salvia greggii 'Desert Blaze' £4.50
Cream-edged leaves and red flowers.
Salvia greggii 'Stormy Pink' £4.50
Dusky pink flowers from dark calyces, quite the best pink we've seen.
Salvia microphylla 'Newby Hall' £4.50
Scarlet flowers, combining brilliantly with the pale green leaves, and has a good hardiness record.
Salvia x jamensis 'Hot Lips' £4.50
White with red tips to the lower petal, but is temperature sensitive, sometimes veering off into all white or all red for a few weeks.
Salvia x jamensis 'La Luna' £4.50
Cream flowers.
Salvia x jamensis 'Sierra San Antonio' £4.50
Floriferous; large rich cream lower lip, pink tube and red upper lip and throat - the colour scheme is sliced strawberries with clotted cream. Very pretty indeed.
Salvia x jamensis 'Dysons' Orangy Pink' £4.50
The name says it all, really.
Salvia involucrata 'Hadspen' £4.50
Proves hardy in a sheltered position in southern English gardens. Makes a big clump of stems to 1m or more, topped in autumn by spikes of deep red-pink flowers, larger and darker than in 'Bethellii', with a tuft of pink bracts at the tip.
Salvia aff. lavanduloides BSWJ 9053 £4
Dense spikes of little blue flowers in autumn. Can reach 1m, despite the collection being from a 30cm plant in Guatemala. Needs winter protection, unheated here.
Salvia nemorosa 'Carradonna' £4
Superlative form of the classic smaller herbaceous species. Good purple flowers on very dark stems. 60cm.

Salvia pratensis forms
A tough, hardy, floriferous, entirely herbaceous species; all these forms are by division.
Salvia pratensis 'Lapis Lazuli' £4
Clear pink flowers, despite the name!
Salvia pratensis 'Indigo' AGM £5
Dark violet blue flowers.
Salvia pratensis 'Albiflora' £5
White flowers, very rarely offered.

Salvia 'Silas Dyson'  £4.50
A twiggy, fairly hardy maroon flowered hybrid from the excellent Dyson's Nursery in Kent. Looks quite like a microphylla or jamensis.
Salvia 'Silke's Dream' £5
First-rate recent hybrid (darcyi x microphylla) with long spikes of orange-red flowers, summer to autumn. Reasonably hardy given sun and good drainage.