Perennials & Biennials
Showing 25–32 of 471 results
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Allium tuberosum Garlic chives
August & September bright white balls on erect stems. Pretty in fall gardens & delicious too.
Allium tuberosum Garlic chives Z 4-8
August & September bright white balls on erect stems. Pretty in fall gardens & delicious too. Ornamental in gardens and in arrangements, both fresh and dried, delicious edible – both leaves and flowers taste just like garlic.Size: 12-18” x 8”
Care: Full sun or shade in any soil
Native: Southeast Asia
Wildlife Value: nectar source for many butterlies including the Tiger Swallowtail.Used medicinally in Asia as a remedy for incontinence, bladder weakness, and kidney trouble and knee injuries. Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners made a powder from the seeds called Jiu Cai Zi used for numerous ailments.
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Althaea officinalis Marshmallow Z 4-9
Tall spires of small pale pink mallow-like blooms
Althaea officinalis Marshmallow Z 4-9
Tall spires of small pale pink mallow-like blooms from July to SeptemberSize: 5-6’ x 3’
Care: Full sun moist to moist well-drained soil. Drought tolerant
Native: Central, south and east EuropeAlthaea is Greek meaning “to cure.” More than 2000 years ago ancient Egyptians added honey to the cooked root. Ancient Romans used leaves and flowers as a strewing herb to repel lice and fleas. Emperor Charlemagne (742-814) cultivated the marshmallow in his gardens. According to Nicholas Culpepper, 16th century English herbalist, marshmallows were a medicinal candy. The plant eased pain, helped bloody fluxes, the stone and gravel and gripping of the belly. Considered an herb of Venus, it voided offensive humors, made milk for nursing, cured bee stings, dandruff, balding and coughs. The French concocted the fluffy white confection in the mid 1800’s “from a decoction of marshmallow root, with gum to bind the ingredients together, beaten egg white to give lightness and to act as a drying agent, while sugar was incorporated to make the whole palatable.” American gardens since 1700’s when John Bartram received seeds from Europe. Jefferson grew it at Monticello.
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Alyssum wulfenianum syn. Alyssum ovirense Alpine alyssum, Madwort Z 3-9
Spring to early summer, clumps of sunny yellow blooms over gray foliage
OUT OF STOCK
Spring to early summer, clumps of sunny yellow blooms over gray foliage
Size: 4-6” x 12-18”
Care: sun in well-drained soil
Native: GermanyDescribed in Willdenow’s Enum. pl. suppl. Before 1814. Grown at the Agricultural Center in Beltsville Maryland in 1897.
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Amsonia hubrichtii Thread leaf amsonia Z 5-8
Blue spring flowers, feathery green summer foliage and golden fall color
Amsonia hubrichtii Thread leaf amsonia Z 5-8
An erect, clump-forming plant that is primarily grown for its blue spring flowers, feathery green summer foliage and golden fall color. Powdery blue, 1/2″ star-like flowers appear in late spring atop stems rising to 3′ tall.Size: 2-3’ x 2-3’
Care: full sun to part shade in well-drained soil
Native: Ouachita Mountains in central Arkansas.First recorded in the 1770s as A. angustifolia, but later named Hubricht’s Amsonia, after Leslie Hubricht, an American biologist who re-discovered it in the 1940s.
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Amsonia orientalis syn. Rhazya orientalis European bluestar Z 5-8
Purplish blue flowers that are larger and longer lasting than other Amsonia. Yellow foliage in Fall.
“Immensely tough and useful filler” “100 Plants Every Gardener Should Grow,” Gardens Illustrated No. 231
Purplish blue flowers that are larger and longer lasting than other Amsonia. Yellow foliage in Fall.Size: 12-20” x spreading
Care: sun to light shade in moist well-drained soil
Native: TurkeyDeer resistant, salt and heat tolerant. Classified as critically endangered as it is losing its native habitat and was over harvested. Collected before 1844.
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Amsonia tabernaemontana Willow bluestar Z 4-10
Sky blue star shaped panicles
Sky blue star-shaped panicles from May to June. In fall foliage turns sunny yellow.
Size: 24”x 18”
Care: full sun to part shade in moist to moist well-drained soil. Drought tolerant
Native: Pennsylvania to FloridaAmsonia named for 18th century colonial physician Charles Amson. Tabernaemontana named for a physician who lived in the 1500’s, Jakob van Bergzabern who changed his name to Tabernaemontanus! Listed in The Wild Flowers of America, 1879. A 1910 book describes the “leaves are willow-like, the flowers small bluish bells in terminal panicles.”
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Anchusa azurea Dropmore Alkanet, Dwarf wild indigo
June-July true blue flowers
June-July true blue flowers, or all summer if deadheaded
Size: 2-3' x 12'
Care: full sun in moist well-drained to well-drained soil. Drought tolerant
Native: Mediterranean region“Lovely rich gentian blue flowers, freely borne from May to August.” H.H. Thomas 1915. Recommended by Gertrude Jekyll, mother of today’s perennial gardens, in 1908.
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Anchusa capensis Cape forget-me-not, Cape bugloss Z 6-9
Truest of blue flowers from summer through fall
OUT OF STOCK
Truest of blue flowers from summer through fall. Do you need to know anything else?
Reseeding annual in colder zones.
Size: 8” x 8”
Care: sun in well-drained to moist well-drained soil
Native: So. Africa.
Awards: Plant Select® Central Rocky Mountain regionCollected and introduced to Europe in 1794 by von Thunberg (1743-1828). Carl Peter von Thunberg, student of Linnaeus at Uppsala University in Sweden, made three trips to the Cape of Good Hope 1772-1775 where he collected about 1000 new species, Java and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 1777 and 15 months in Japan where he befriended local doctors who gave him hundreds of plants new to Western horticulture. He succeeded Linnaeus as professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala and King Gustav beknighted him. Young Cape forget-me-not plants were eaten as a vegetable, Annals of the South African Museum, 1898. Louise Beebe Wilder loved this plant, effusing, “One of the prettiest (blue annuals) is the Cape Forget-me-not. Not one of its cerulean family boasts a purer blue and its summer-long period of bloom and indifference to drought make it a really valuable annual. It has also a sturdy habit of growth and sowing its hardy seeds freely it does its best to become a permanent resident.” Robinson called it “Remarkably fine…” The Garden 1873. The name Anchusa from anchousa paint used on skin.
