Canna x ehemannii

This is a wonderful plant - I normally find Cannas a bit too garish for my taste but this one has elegant and vivid cerise flowers in nodding sprays and on tall dark stems and broad lush green leaves, plus it's an enormous tropical looking banana-y thing to 10ft or more in full flower. Plus, it's been hardy here. All I've done is give it a thick pile of straw in winter. 

It dies down completely (the straw is held in place by the dead stems) but always reappears in May and is luxuriant and magnificent by August. A wonderful plant for anyone with a taste for the tropics. 

£15

Dactylicapnos scandens

A lightly-built but potentially quite large herbaceous climber with the typical light airy foliage of the family, strung with hundreds of golden yellow lockets in summer. Previously included in Dicentra.

Sometimes described as short-lived, mine have been going for some years now, going from strength to strength without any special care. It dies back to the roots in autumn and sometimes during hot dry spells too but always comes back. Excellent for clothing spring flowering shrubs or scrambling through other climbers.

£8

Anemone fulgens multipetala

A very generous gift from a customer. I'm not usually a fan of double flowers but this is something special. The normal single A.x fulgens is a garden hybrid of pavonina and hortensis and not too rare, but although this form seems to be in cultivation in France (where the original colony is naturalised in rough grass near a sports field), it seems to be largely unknown here in the UK.

It'll need a sunny well drained site, in a traditional cottage garden, and definitely best in rough grass.

£12

Unnamed Paeonia hybrid - single cream with cherry pink edge

This was given to me as a small bit of tuber about 30 years ago - I forget who from - and it has been with me ever since. 

I know nothing more about its origins but it's been a wonderful strong grower wherever I've had it, forming a dense, rounded clump. Unless someone can come up with a better suggestion I'm going to call it Cherry Pannacotta.

Many single rounded creamy flowers, edged in pink. The foliage is very glaucous grey green (a bit like mlokosewitschii - a possible parent - but the leaflets are narrower), and strongly tinted purple in spring. Does not set seeds.

Substantial newly potted roots, probably big enough to flower, in 3l pots.
£25

Chelone glabra linifolia

An upright perennial with narrow leaves and slightly green-tinged white flowers – very fresh and elegant in the autumn border. 

Any retentive soil in sun or part shade. 
£8

Berberis calliantha

The spiny edged foliage is glossy green above and white underneath and the flowers are lemon yellow – nothing unusual about any of that - except that the leaves and flowers are bigger than any similar species – the leaves up to 2ins long and the flowers an inch across, and all this on a low compact shrub not more than 3ft tall. At the same time this is as hardy and adaptable as any of the more familiar types. 

Many people dismiss Berberis as just a lot of dull scruffy spikey shrubs, too often planted around carparks (and full of litter) but there are quite a few good, interesting species for the more discerning gardener – and calliantha is one.  
£16

Weigela middendorffiana

An interesting alternative to the commoner Weigelas in cultivation, having soft yellow flowers in early summer developing orange markings inside. 

More compact than the others too at about 6ft x 6ft and may be pruned quite hard after flowering. Any situation except very dry, very wet or very shady.
£16

Specimen size plants - £30 - collection only