Description
Sweetly fragrant, honey-scented, chalky white flowers cover the plant in late May and early June. Ornamental, bluish crinkled foliage all season.
Very sweetly fragrant, honey-scented, chalky white flowers cover the plant in late May and early June. Ornamental, bluish crinkled foliage all season.
Sweetly fragrant, honey-scented, chalky white flowers cover the plant in late May and early June. Ornamental, bluish crinkled foliage all season.
OUT OF STOCK
Rosettes of succulent leaves
Size: 4” x 4”
Care: sun in well-drained to moist well-drained soil
Native: Alps & Pyrenees Mountains
Grown in gardens for thousands of years. Sempervivum means “live forever.” Romans planted Hens and chicks on their roofs to ward off lightning. As a succulent it holds water and is probably more difficult to catch fire. “This practice was preserved for historians when Charlemagne (720-814), first Holy Roman Emperor and unifier of a large part of northern Europe, ordered that all villagers within his crown lands plant houseleeks on their roofs, presumably as a safety measure. He decreed: Et ille hortulanus habeat super domum suam Iovis barbam. (And the gardener shall have house-leeks growing on his house. Capitulare de villis, about 795, LXX.)”
OUT OF STOCK
Outfacing, white, waxy cup-shaped flowers resembling single roses in late winter, evergreen leaves.
Size: 12-20” x 12”
Care: part shade in moist well-drained soil
Native: rocky places in Europe
Awards: Received Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit.
The name Helleborus is Greek from hellein meaning “to kill” and bora meaning “food” referring to the plant’s poisonous qualities if placed in food. This species is ancient – known as long ago as 300 BC in Greece where it “purged and cured the mad or melancholicke daughters of Praetus with the roots thereof.” (Parkinson, 1629) Grown in the Eichstätt Garden, the garden of Johann Konrad von Gemmingen, prince bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria, c. 1600. In Middle Ages petals thrown on floor to drive out evil and ward off power of witches. English herbalist John Gerard (1545-1612) strangely recommended it for curing poisoned animals. Sorcerers made themselves invisible by tossing the powdered plant in the air.
$12.95/bareroot
BuyDark pink-purple flowers from late spring to mid-summer
Size: 32” x 18”
Care: full sun to part shade in moist well-drained soil
Native: Europe
Wildlife Value: a favorite of Bumblebees
In Greek mythology Silene was a companion of Bacchus who was covered with foam. Dioicus means that male and female plants are separate. Described by 1750’s. Grown in American gardens since 1800’s
$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.