The Paraná Pine

Araucaria angustifolia

We received a small bag of these this week, we were unsure if we should sow them or make a necklace out of them :^)...

Waking Giants

We are growing some small seed lots wild collected Pine seeds this year under contract. These Pinus sabiniana seeds were huge!

Caught in a spider's Web....

Fatsia japonica 'Spider's Web' 

In the garden growing under an Acer macrophyllum in 100% shade.

A Firebush Forest!

We sowed half our collected Embothrium coccineum seed at the usual time earlier this year but after 6 weeks nothing had come up so we sowed the other half! Both lots then germinated about 10 days later! Now we have a forest of the darn things :^).

(Sino) Calycanthus chinensis

Calycanthus chinensis 

We grew this plant under it's old name of Sinoclycanthus chinensis for many years but finally gave up due to lack of sales which is a shame as it's a truly wonderful plant. I think we are going to have to give it another go this summer!  Apart for a couple of hours of dappled morning Sun these plants are growing in complete shade under Acer macrocarpa.

Two Stewartia

Stewartia rostrata

One of our favorite Stewartia is Stewartia rostrata. Large flowers with ruffled edges & each flower has one petal with a blush of pink. We live in hope that one day we will find a seedling with all pink flowers! Another less commonly seen species is Stewartia sinensis with smaller but delicate white flowers.

Stewartia sinensis

Pileostegia viburnoides

Pileostegia viburnoides

We picked up this zone 8 evergreen vine in the Hydrangeaceae family many years ago from Heronswood Nursery. It's a lovely evergreen vine that never gets too big for it boots. This is our original one living in the corner of one of our greenhouses were it battles a Giant Gunnera for space &; water :^)...

The Fun House

We have greenhouses where we make money & greenhouses where we lose Money. The ones where we loose money are a lot more fun to hang out in :^)..

Vitis davidii

Vitis davidii

We love this Chinese Grape Vine with it's prickly stems & fantastic fall color, sadly it seems to resist all our attempts at propagating it!

A Maple Oddity!

Acer griseum x pseudoplatanus

We got this curiosity from Talon Buchholz about 10 years ago. I purchased it purely for it's oddity factor but after 10 years in the garden it's turned into a nice looking tree. So much so that we propagated some this winter & will have it available for sale this Fall. 

Schefflera delavayi

The new foliage on our Schefflera delavayi 

Potting is done (well almost!)

All potted by Chiyoko's fair hand, one house of Wisterias & one house of "other stuff"! Potting is never completely done as there always seems to be something that needs shifting up but we are declaring the 2012 potting season over! Now we just need to sit back & watch them grow (if only it were that easy :^)..

Fuchsia magellanica

Back in 2005 we received some Chilean wild collected seed of  Fuchsia magellanica. When our winter temps drop below 15F they freeze down to the ground but if we don't get that cold they don't freeze down & we are treated to Spring flowers..

Floating Clouds

Acer palmatum 'Ukigumo'

Our Floating Cloud Maple grows in full shade under some Doug Fir trees, this means it grows very slowly but has great variegation especially in the Spring.

Ulmus parviflora 'Seiju'

Ulmus parviflora 'Seiju'

This is one of our favorite dwarf Elms & we are happy to say it will be on our stock available list this Fall. This one is about 10 years old & 6' tall.

Elderflowers Cordial Anyone?

Growing up in the UK it's hard not to have an affinity with Elderflowers! We don't produce them for sale anymore at Plantmad but several are still growing in the garden. These are two of my favorite cultivars. Since I have a strong personal dislike of whole practice of plant name trademarking I'm only going to list them by their botanical names here :^)..

 Sambucus nigra 'Eva'

Sambucus nigra 'Gerda'