Description
Rich pink turtlehead shaped blooms in fall
Showy rich rosy turtleheads top 2-3′ stems from late summer into autumn.
Rich pink turtlehead shaped blooms in fall
$12.75/bareroot
BuyPowder-blue flowers of terminal clusters in early summer; feathery, thin,”threadleaf” foliage turns caution-sign yellow in fall.
Size: 2-3’ x 2-3’
Care: sun to part shade in moist well-drained soil
Native: Central-So, US
Wildlife Value: attracts butterflies & bees
Awards: Plant of Merit, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Gold Medal
Collected in 1940 in Yell County Arkansas along a stream 3 miles west of Birta.
$3.75/pot
BuySmall purple flowers atop tall leafless stems from July to October. Great see-through blooms for growing in back, middle or front of the garden.
Size: 3-4’ x 8”
Care: full sun in moist, well-drained, fertile soil - self-seeder
Native: South America
Awards: Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit & Missouri Botanic Garden Plant of Merit.
Introduced to garden cultivation from its native Buenos Aires in 1726 by the Sherard brothers.
$9.95/bareroot
BuyViolet 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.
$12.75/bareroot
BuyBalloon shaped buds opening to white bells in mid-summer to early fall.
Size: 24" x 12"
Care: Full sun to part shade in moist well-drained soil. Heat and drought tolerant. Deadhead for rebloom.
Native: Eastern Asia
Wildlife Value: attracts hummingbirds, bees & butterflies
Awards: England's Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit.
Platycodon is Greek from platys meaning “broad” and kodon meaning “bell”, referring to the shape of the flower. Cultivated in China for hundreds of years where it is called Jie-geng. Chinese used the root boiled to cure a chill in the stomach. Mentioned in Man’yoshu, a Japanese anthology of poems written in the 8th century. German botanist Johann Gmelin (1709-1755) collected P. grandiflorus in Siberia in 1754. Gmelin’s Siberian mission, sponsored by Catherine the Great, took 10 years and nearly killed him. Gmelin introduced it to European garden cultivation by 1782. Robert Fortune found the white form in a nursery near Shanghai and sent it to England in 1845.