Angelica - Athyrium

Angelica gigas £4
Classic biennial monolithic umbellifer, with dark purple heads on dark, dark stems. Thanks to Matt Bishop for seed from the Garden House (again), where a good clump in evening light (photo on our website) rekindled our enthusism for the species. Easy from saved seed.
Angelica sylvestris 'Vicar's Mead' £4.50
An umbellifer with dark brown-purple foliage and pink flowers in summer. Not for dry soil. Sometimes dies after flowering, so save seed.
Anthericum liliago 'Major' AGM £4
Rather substantial spikes of white flowers, relatively early on a short plant make this for me the finest Anthericum.
Anthericum ramosum £4
Airy branched spikes of starry white flowers in early summer.
Aquilegia schockleyi £4
A Californian miniature, with long narrow nodding flowers of scarlet and yellow. 20cm. Very pretty, and seems not to outbreed in cultivation.
Aralia cordata BSWJ 5511  £5
With herbaceous aralias, you know you're going to get fantastically bold deciduous foliage, little round heads of ivy-like flowers followed by berries, and SIZE. This Japanese collection is no exception. The binnate leaves have big rounded leaflets, the flowers are white, followed by  black fruit, and the size - well, not as big as most, under 2m. For rich, not over-dry soil.

Arisaema - click here

Armeria 'Brutus' £4.50
Our own monster-thrift, a selected hybrid of A. pseudarmeria, with a long succession of  very large white heads on 50cm stems, surrounded in bud by smart bracts, fragrant in a carnation/garlic sort of a way, forming a very stout taprooted clump with broad leaves, so a devil to divide. Propagated very slowly by division and basal cuttings. For a sunny, well drained place. We're excessively proud of this plant, a single clone, and are horrified to see seed appearing as 'Brutus' in seed exchanges where doubtless over a few generations it will turn into some depauperate runt, full of genes from boring old maritima. Brian at Avondale, bless him, has taken us seriously and propagates it by basal cuttings. If you see any other nursery offering it, ask if it's from seed and give them what for if it is. Rant, rant, grumble, gripe.
Artemisia lactiflora 'Jim Russell' £5
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.
Aruncus 'Johannifest' £4.50
Interesting German hybrid. Fuzzy spikes of white flowers age pinkish; leaves finely divided. 60cm.
Aruncus 'Perlhuhn' £4.50
A little taller than 'Johannifest', with an indefinably different garden presence, and red tints in the foliage. The name means guinea fowl. I can't imagine why.
Asarum caudatum £4.50
Sinister purple flowers among dark green leaves; usefully spreading habit. A toughie for shade.
Asarum maximum 'Silver Panda' £4.50
Large evergreen, silver-marked leaves and lovely thick textured black and white flowers make this one of the coolest species.
Asarum splendens £4
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 
We persist in the folly of listing a few unfashionable 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' £4.50
A big shaggy double lilac-pink michaelmas daisy. Julian's Mum uses it as a very effective cut flower. 1.2m.
Aster 'Kylie' AGM £4.50
Loads of very small pale pink flowers on a bushy 1.2m plant. Lasts well when cut. A unique novae-angliae x ericoides hybrid which greatly impressed us as a brand-new cultivar in the erstwhile Wraxall National Collection, about 1990.
Aster 'Little Carlow' AGM £4.50
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 £4.50
Another floriferous hybrid, with slightly smaller pink flowers. Good bushy habit and strong constitution. 1.2m.
Aster 'Pixie Dark Eye' £4.50
Lots of medium sized rich purple, yellow eyed flowers on a compact (60cm for us) plant. Quite out of the ordinary.
Aster 'Sunhelene' £4.50
A new one, with semidouble soft blue flowers at the top of stout 1m stems. Somehow the buds are conspicuous and attractive. ''Marie Ballard' without the mildew', as Bob Brown perceptively puts it.

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' £4
Very attractive hybrid, with large pink and green flower heads - like all Masterworts, great on heavy ground.
Astrantia major Gill Richardson group £4.50
Dark red flowers on dark red stems. Divisions of quite a good form (I admit we've seen even better) in this sadly varied group, the result of seed raising by a nursery we shall not name here.
Astrantia major involucrata 'Shaggy' £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 (which may or may not be the original clone)…
Astrantia major involucrata 'Snape Cottage' £5
…and these are from Angela Whinfield's, which stopped me in my tracks when in flower in Ruth Boundy's Somerset garden. Like all these large bracted forms, it needs to settle down in good soil in order to look special. Thanks to the ever-generous Ruth and Angela.
Astrantia major 'Ruby Wedding' £4
A good red-flowered form, by division.
Astrantia maxima £4
Good pink flowers, three-lobed leaves. 60cm.
Athyrium 'Branford Beauty' £5
Beautiful hybrid Lady Fern, vigorous and with a grey cast to the leaf. Deciduous.
Athyrium filix-femina var. angustum 'Lady in Red' £5
Another good, distinctive Lady Fern, light green fronds with a red rachis (the stalk/midrib bit...).
Athyrium filix-femina 'Minutissimum' £4
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' £7
One of the classic rarities, we offer divisions of established tissue-cultured plants, 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. The divisions are paired on each side, making a cross. Undoubtedly weird and unnatural, but holds a peculiar attraction.
Athyrium 'Ghost' £6
On the same lines as 'Branford Beauty', but the metallic grey is more pronounced - stunning.
Athyrium niponicum var. pictum AGM £4
Classic easy silvery-grey leafed fern, with a mauve tint around the veins. Deciduous. 30cm.
Athyrium otophorum var. okanum £5.50
The dark red rachis and creamy yellow tint to the pinnae give a unique look. Deciduous, but retaining its colour long into autumn. For reasonably moist shade.