Perennials & Biennials

Showing 297–304 of 511 results

  • Linaria alpina Alpine toadflax Z 5-8

    Purple snapdragon-like petals bloom all summer and  show off golden-orange lips

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    Purple snapdragon-like petals bloom all summer and  show off golden-orange lips

    Size: 4-6” x 6-12”
    Care: sun in well-drained soil
    Native: Mountains of central and southern Europe

    Listed in Gardeners Dictionary, 1768.  Wm Robinson in July 1872 issue of The Garden: “The alpine Linaria is never more beautiful than when self-sown in a gravel walk.” January 1876 bloomed for 4+ months in the rock garden at Edinburgh Botanic Garden.

  • Linaria purpurea Purple toadflax Z 5-9

    Violet racemes all summer July to September

    $9.95/bareroot

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    Violet racemes all summer through fall

    Size: 36” x 12”
    Care: Sun, well-drained soil
    Native: Southern Europe

    Both the Latin and common names are related to flax.  Linaria comes from “linum” which is Greek for “flax” and toadflax includes the word “flax.”  The leaves of Linaria purpurea resemble flax leaves.  According to 17th century English herbalist, John Parkinson, the plant “causes one to make water.”  Grown by English plantsman and explorer, Tradescant the Elder, 1634.

  • Linum alpinum Alpine flax, Mountain flax Z 4-9

    Compact blue flax, perfect for the rock garden or in a sunny border. Bushy mound of small soft-blue saucers for weeks in late spring & early summer.  Reblooms if you cut it half way back in late June

    $12.95/bareroot

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    Compact blue flax, perfect for the rock garden or in a sunny border. Bushy mound of small soft-blue saucers for weeks in late spring & early summer.  Reblooms if you cut it half way back in late June

    Size: 8-12” x 10-12”
    Care: sun in well-drained soil
    Native: mountains of Europe

    Published as a separate species in 1925.

  • Linum perenne ‘Lewisii’ Perennial flax, Prairie flax Z 4-8

    Sky blue flowers closing by afternoon all summer

    $12.95/bareroot

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    Sky blue flowers closing by afternoon all summer

    Size: 24" x 12"
    Care: Full sun in well-drained soil.
    Native: Wisconsin west and south

    Linum is Greek for “flax,”, a different species grown for centuries as the source of linen cloth.  This variety was named for Meriwether Lewis who found this plant on July 9, 1806 near Great Falls, Montana. Western Natives used the seeds in cooking; Navajo for heartburn; Okanagon as a shampoo; Sioux ate the leaves to cure poor circulation, fever, cramps. They added it to a mixture for smoking.

  • Lobelia cardinalis Cardinal flower Z 3-9

    Ruby, cardinal red tubes with an upper lip split in half and a lower lip like a pixie’s apron encircle the spike up and down from August to October beckon hummingbirds to feed.

    $10.95/bareroot

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    Ruby, cardinal red tubes with an upper lip split in half and a lower lip like a pixie’s apron encircle the spike up and down from August to October beckon hummingbirds to feed.

    Size: 3’ x 12”
    Care: sun to part shade in fertile, moist soil. Moist soil important
    Native: Canada to Texas, Wisconsin native.
    Wildlife Value: attracts hummingbirds
    Awards: Received England’s Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit & Missouri Botanic Garden Plant of Merit.

    Lobelia is named for Matthias L’Obel (1538-1616) French expatriate who immigrated to England and became physician to King James I. Cherokee cured stomach aches, worms, pain, fever, nose bleeds, rheumatism, headaches, colds and croup with Lobelia.  They used the root to treat syphilis.  In 1749 Swedish botanist Peter Kalm wrote that Indians used five species of Lobelia to cure venereal disease, “an infallible art of curing it.” Other Natives and colonists used the plant to induce vomiting. At the end of a funeral, Meskwaki Indians threw the dried and pulverized plant into the grave.  Meskwaki also chopped the roots and secretly put it in the food of “a quarrelsome pair.”  Allegedly “this makes the pair love each other again.”  Tradescant the Younger (1608-1662) introduced this to European gardens when he sent it to England in 1637.  Offered for sale in Bartram Garden’s 1783 Broadside. Grown by Washington at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. Pressed specimen in Emily Dickinson’s herbarium.

  • Lobelia siphilitica ‘Alba’ z 4-8

    Striking, erect spike of pure ivory blossoms opening from bottom up. On top club-shaped buds, below trumpet-shapes made of a tube flaring open at the ends with the top of the flare looking like a quarter moon with the circle at the bottom and the lower divided into three, each segment pointed at the ends. Its fresh white blooms stand out in late summer to early fall.

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    Striking, erect spike of pure ivory blossoms opening from bottom up. On top club-shaped buds, below trumpet-shapes made of a tube flaring open at the ends with the top of the flare looking like a quarter moon with the circle at the bottom and the lower divided into three, each segment pointed at the ends. Its fresh white blooms stand out in late summer to early fall.

    Size: 2-3’ x 1-2’
    Care: sun to part shade in moist or moist well-drained soil
    Wildlife Value: Deer resistant, attracts bees, hummingbirds and some butterflies.

    This white one is “An albino of occasional occurrence.” Britton, Nathaniel Lord “On the Naming of ‘Forms,’ in the New Jersey Catalogue” Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 17: 121,125. 1890. This may, therefore, be native in the same locations as the blue species or it may not.

  • Lobelia siphilitica Great lobelia Z 4-9

    A striking, erect spike of sky  to blueberry-blue blossoms. On top club-shaped buds, below trumpet-shaped, open flowers,  made of a tube flaring open with the bottom divided into three, each segment pointed at the ends. From late summer to early fall.

    $12.75/bareroot

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    A striking, erect spike of sky to blueberry-blue blossoms. On top club-shaped buds, below trumpet-shaped, open flowers, made of a tube flaring open with the bottom divided into three, each segment pointed at the ends. From late summer to early fall.

    Size: 3' x 12"
    Care: Full sun to part shade in moist to moist well-drained soil
    Native: Connecticut to Wyoming, south to Texas then east to Georgia and all states in between, Wisconsin native.
    Wildlife Value: attracts bumble bees, hummingbirds and some butterflies

    Lobelia is named for Matthias L’Obel (1538-1616) a French expatriate who emigrated to England and became physician to English King James I. Oneidas considered this good medicine for distemper. Sioux treated bloat, diarrhea and dysentery as well as a love charm by adding powdered root to the food of the intended.   Cherokee used the root to treat headaches, stomachaches, worms, nosebleeds, colds and syphilis.  1st collected by Rev. John Banister (1649-1692) who moved to colonial Virginia in 1678.  A gunman mistakenly shot and killed him while he collected plants.   In 1749 Swedish botanist Peter Kalm wrote that Natives used five species of Lobelia to cure venereal disease, having “an infallible art of curing it.”  According to John Bartram (1699-17760) “The learned Pehr Kalm (who gained the Knowledge of it from Colonel Johnson, who learned it of the Indians, who, after great Rewards bestowed on several of them, revealed the Secret to him) saith, That the Roots of this Plant cureth the Pox much more perfectly and easily than any mercurial Preparations, and is generally used by the Canada Indians, for the Cure of themselves.” (Better than mercury!) Offered for sale in Bartram Garden’s 1783 Broadside, America’s 1st plant catalog.

  • Lunaria annua Money plant, Honesty, Silver dollar Biennial Reseeds Z 5-10

    Mauve phlox-like blooms spring to early summer turn into silvery, translucent seedpods.

    $9.95/POT

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    Mauve phlox-like blooms spring to early summer turn into silvery, translucent seedpods.

    LIMITED QUANTITIES AVAILABLE, LIMIT OF 1 PER CUSTOMER PLEASE.

     

    Size: 1'-3' x 1’
    Care: Full sun to part shade.
    Native: mountains of Italy
    Wildlife Value: attracts bees and butterflies

    Old-fashioned heirloom. Silver dollars are perfect for dried bouquets! Popular in winter flower arrangements since colonial times. Introduced to England from Germany in the late 1500’s and carried to America by the Puritans as a reminder of home.  Grown at America’s 1st botanic garden, Elgin Botanic Garden 1811.

    **LISTED AS OUT OF STOCK BECAUSE WE DO NOT SHIP THIS ITEM.  IT IS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AT OUR RETAIL LOCATION.