Salvia pachyphylla and chamaedryoides

Salvia pachyphylla

A sub-shrub from the south-western USA with very pale foliage and heads of violet flowers emerging from red tinted bracts on slender stems in summer. 

Needs a hot sunny spot very well drained soil, ideally dry in summer, and with protection from winter wet.
£8

Salvia chamaedryoides

An absolutely gorgeous little Salvia from Texas and thereabouts, sprouting spikes of intense indigo violet over low ash-white bushes. 

It will, like so many species from this area, need the driest sunniest site you've got but is fairly cold tolerant and can eventually make quite a sizeable patch.
£8

Talbotia elegans

A bit of an obscurity this one - this is a member of the southern hemisphere family, the velloziaceae, and is probably the hardiest of them. They are particularly known for being among those plants that look dead during the dry season but miraculously revive when the rains come. (Sometimes included in the genus Xerophyta, meaning 'dry plant'.) 

This is a dense, tussock-forming plant with rather fibrous leaves – green above, purple under. Pretty white flowers appear on fine hair-like stems in summer. Probably best in an unheated greenhouse, but I've tried it outside with a canopy to keep it dry in winter, and although the leaves look dead they revive in spring, so don’t cut them off unless they get really tatty. For well-drained soil in sun.

£12

Osmanthus fragrans

An unremarkable looking evergreen shrub with the most heavenly scent – something like sweet apricots – fresh and light. The flowers though are small and white and not produced in great numbers but somehow manage to fill the entire greenhouse with perfume. The foliage looks a bit like a Citrus. 

Near-hardy here in Sussex - undamaged in my unreliably frost-free greenhouse. 

Rarely offered and much sought-after.

£18

Photinia glomerata

This looks a lot like what Hilliers manual describes as ‘Formosan form’, and for a while I was offering it as P.prionophylla, but I am assured that this is the correct identification. It’s a very gorgeous shrub nevertheless - more rounded and compact than P.serratifolia, with broad rounded leaves (to about 3ins across) opening a rich mahogany in early spring, with a soft downy white covering. 

The flowers are the normal type. Easy and adaptable and tolerant of heavy and wet soils.
£18

Euonymus clivicola rongchuensis HIRD 103

A very slender graceful evergreen Asian species related to cornutus with delicate brownish flowers giving way to strange narrow lobed fruits holding the usual orange seeds. 

Adaptable but especially suitable for dry woodlands. Very choice.

£18

Buddleja curviflora

 
A very attractive and non-suckering relative of B.lindleyana with similar curved violet flowers but more attractive grey fawn felted foliage.

Hardy and adaptable.
£16

Asclepias speciosa

A stunning perennial with soft silky white foliage and showy heads of intricate rosy flowers. This has a long history of cultivation in the UK and is fully hardy, so its rarity here is a mystery. 

In the wild it is found on both dry poor soils and moist marginal conditions so should be highly adaptable. It does however need plenty of sun. It's only disadvantage perhaps is that it runs about pretty freely underground, so best with other vigorous hardy perennials and low shrubs. 

At the nursery it is competing with another vigorous spreader - Euphorbia sikkimensis. 

£16