Description
OUT OF STOCK
Note: This is a plant not currently for sale. This is an archive page preserved for informational use.CK
Up-facing blue-violet bells in early spring emerge from foliage decorated with silky hairs.
Very hard to find, native Pasque flower.
OUT OF STOCK
Note: This is a plant not currently for sale. This is an archive page preserved for informational use.CK
Up-facing blue-violet bells in early spring emerge from foliage decorated with silky hairs.
Alcea rosea Hollyhock BIENNIAL reseeds Z 4-9
Early to late summer spikes of single platters – mixed colors. The classic cottage garden flower.
Size: 5-8' x 24"
Care: Sun in moist well-drained to well-drained soil. Drought tolerant
Native: West Asia
Wildlife Value: Butterfly plant, host for Painted Lady butterflies
Cultivated in China for thousands of years where it symbolized the passing of time. They cooked the leaves for a vegetable and also ate the buds. Transported from Middle East to Europe by the Crusaders and introduced to England by the 1400’s. Culpepper, a 17th century English herbalist, claimed the plant could be used to cure ailments of the “belly, Stone, Reins, Kidneys, Bladder, Coughs, Shortness of Breath, Wheesing, … the King’s Evil,, Kernels, Chin-cough, Wounds, Bruises, Falls. . . (and) Sun-burning.” Both single and double forms grew in England by the time of Parkinson (1629). Parkinson said they came “in many and sundry colours.” John Winthrop Jr. introduced the 1st hollyhock to the New World in the 1630’s.
OUT OF STOCK
Reddish purple flowers bloom on cushions all summer and fall – “long and late season of bloom.” Foster
Size: 4-6”x 8”
Care: sun in well-drained soil
Native: European mountains - Alps and Pyrenees
Collected before 1753.
Common name for its aromatic foliage. It has been used to reduce excessive sweating and fever. Also, leaves may be brewed for tea.
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 region
Collected 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.
June thru fall bears 6” long spikes looking like bottle brushes.
Size: 2-3’ x 12-18”
Care: sun to part shade in dry to moist well-drained soil - tolerates dry shade
Native: Nova Scotia S to Virginia, W to ND and OK.
Wildlife Value: Birds eat seeds
Hystrix from the Greek (‘hedgehog’) meaning “with spikes” or “bristly” describing the flowers and patula means “spreading.” Collected before 1794. In 1913 L H Bailey wrote, “sometimes used for lawn decoration and for borders.”