Rodgersia - Salvia

Rodgersia aesculifolia AGM £3.50 / £4.50
Splendid horsechestnutty foliage, white flowers. To 1.5m when established. Moist soil.

Rodgersia 'Buckland Beauty' £3.75 / £4.50
Big bold leaves, flowers a strong clear pink, going over to dark red. One of the very best.

Rodgersia pinnata 'Elegans'  £3.50 / £4.50
Red-tinted foliage, red-pink flowers from dark stems.

Rodgersia pinnata 'Superba' AGM £3.75 / £4.50
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 pinnata L1670 £3.25 / £4.50
Roy Lancaster's Chinese collection, with typical pseudo-pinnate leaves (unlike the palmate leaves of  'Superba') yielded several subtly different seedlings at Spinners. Divisions of them all were at first circulated, before it was realized that one seedling had better colouration than the rest - it has now been named 'Jade Dragon Mountain': we have it, and it is truly excellent. The plant we offer this year came from one of the earlier distributions. It looks extremely similar, with red-pink flowers ageing to deep red on good red stems, but we can't be certain it's 'JDM', hence number only.

Rodgersia podophylla 'Rotlaub' £3 / £4.50
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' £3 / £4.50
As above, but with dark green leaves and airy inflorescences of white flowers. Pagels' again.

Romanzoffia tracyi £3 / £3.50
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.

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 'Beesiana' white £4
Strong growing, to 40cm. Lots of big creamy flowers over an extended season. Large. To my mind, the best of the creamy yellows.

Roscoea cautleoides 'Early Purple' £3.75
The first to flower here, short and stout, a nice soft purple.

Roscoea cautleoides 'Kew Beauty' AGM £3.50 / £4.50
Particularly fine pale yellow flowers, taller and more slender.

Roscoea humeana 'Rosemoor Plum' £3.75 / £4.50
Stocky, deep plum purple and clumping up well. May flowering.

Roscoea 'Monique' £4.50
White, not cream flowers on a vigorous plant. They may be veined a bit in purple until they settle down. Long season.

Roscoea purpurea £4
A nice tall (40cm) purple flowered form.

Roscoea purpurea 'Brown Peacock' £5
As above, with brown-tinted foliage.

Roscoea purpurea 'Purple Streaker' £5
A splendid short stocky plant with big flowers shockingly bicolored purple and white. Previously listed as a humeana, which it resembles.

Roscoea purpurea 'Red Gurkha' £7.50
Here at last, the one everyone's been asking for. The flowers really are red, large too, on a short stout plant. It's very late into growth (June - so mark the place and be very patient!) and late flowering too (mid-August -September). FROM SPRING 08; keep in its pot until well into growth please.

Roscoea scillifolia £3
A little plant, with very dark, almost black flowers on 10cm stems. Multiplies quickly by seed.

Rudbeckia maxima £3 / £4
Drooping yellow petals around a black cone - but there the similarity to more familiar rudbeckias ends. These flowers are very large and solitary, on stems to 1.8m, in late summer. The leaves are smooth, broad and notably blue-green.

Rudbeckia subtomentosa £3 / £3.50
Long narrow yellow rayed daisies, small brown centres. Open plant to 1m.

Rudbeckia triloba £3 / £3.75
A much branched plant covered in small yellow, brown centred daisies in late summer to early autumn. Sometimes short lived, keep seed.

Salvia aurea 'Kirstenbosch' £3 / £4
A bushy little shrub with smooth grey resin scented leaves. The big, shoe-polish brown, clove scented flowers are backed by large, long lasting calyces. Very, very different. This form reaches 1m in South Africa, less here. Best given a very sheltered spot in winter. Sun.

Salvia 'Christine Yeo' £2.75 / £4
Masses of little flowers in a strong purplish pink. One of the wiry-twiggy-bushy sorts, pretty hardy given good drainage.

Salvia concolor (not guaranitica!) £2.75 / £4
A tall plant, 2m+, with long showy spikes of bright blue flowers late in the year. The foliage is superficially patens-like, with distinctive blue petioles. Borderline hardy, best in shade. (A customer keeps it outside in sun, with a mulch, on heavy ground near chilly Grantham, Lincs.)

Salvia confertiflora £2.75 / £4
Red-brown hairy inflorescences of crowded orange flowers, to excellent effect, from late summer until the frosts. It's a tenderish plant from Brazil, best planted out for the summer and overwintered in the greenhouse from cuttings taken in summer. 1m.

Salvia corrugata £2.75 / £4
Dark green, tough, very deeply veined leaves, rusty beneath. Luscious dark blue flowers, best and earlier on plants overwintered, but needing protection in most areas. From Ecuador.

Salvia forreri £2.75 / £4
Deep sky-blue flowers from late summer, and a running habit. Hardyish, given sun and drainage.

Salvia greggii , microphylla and x jamensis (their hybrid) forms - all £2.75 / £4
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.
greggii 'Desert Blaze' has cream-edged leaves and red flowers. greggii 'Peach' is peachy-orange. Derry Watkin's greggii 'Stormy Pink' has dusky pink flowers from dark calyces, quite the best pink we've seen.  microphylla 'Newby Hall' has scarlet flowers, combining brilliantly with the pale green leaves, and has a good hardiness record. microphylla 'San Carlos Festival' from the USA is a warm purplish pink, hard to describe, but very pleasing. x jamensis 'Hot Lips' is 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. x jamensis 'Raspberry Royale' is raspberry red. x jamensis 'Trebah' is palest lilac, almost white.

Salvia aff. iodochroa BSWJ 10252 £3 / £4
A very interesting, recent introduction. An upright plant, 1m tall, with spikes of small pink and white flowers over a very long season. Middling hardiness we think, but still early days. From 2900m in Mexico. It may actually be S. carnea.

Salvia 'Mulberry Wine' £2.75 / £4
An involucrata hybrid, and much better. It flowers earlier, and while they lack the weird bract, the flowers are a warmer, redder colour.

Salvia pratensis forms all £3 / £4
A tough, hardy, floriferous, entirely herbaceous species; all these forms are by division.
'Lapis Lazuli' (clear pink),  'Indigo' AGM (dark violet blue), 'Albiflora' (white, very rarely seen).

Salvia semiatrata £3 / £4
We were surpised and delighted by this 1m wiry woody based species, a gift from Simon Young. The corolla is deep violet, white at the base, sitting in a pink calyx. Probably best in a container, where it will flower outdoors from high summer, then moved in to be given a little protection from cold and especially wet in winter.

Salvia 'Waverly' £2.75 / £4
Recent leucantha hybrid with bigger pale flowers, but less of the wooly purpleness.