This quaint and beautiful oddity has been with us since medieval times. In place of the normally insignificant flowers, are neat posies of bracts constructed just like expanding emerald green rose flowers. Another 'expert baffler' and it makes a long-lived cut flower too! ... Learn More

These popular relatives to the bell-flowers form a mound of green foliage, bearing inflated buds that open into large star-shaped blue blossoms that almost resemble sky-blue eggs. These are so unique that countless children have found themselves in serious trouble for 'popping' them before the flower opens! (They make quite a pop!) ... Learn More

These summer-blooming cousins to the more familiar Bellflowers form compact mound of green foliage, bearing inflated buds that 'pop' open into star-shaped, single, pink blossoms. Although the flowers are quite long-lived, you can remove faded blooms to encourage fresh buds to form. They appear quite late in the spring, so it is good advice to consider planting tulips or daffodils beside the clump to mark the location. ... Learn More

Platycodon grandiflorus 'Hakone Blue', commonly known as Hakone Blue Balloon Flower, is a compact perennial celebrated for its striking, balloon-shaped buds that burst open into starry, violet-blue blooms. This variety is known for its uniform growth habit and rich flower color, making it ideal for garden borders, rock gardens, or container planting. Its dark green, lance-shaped foliage provides a beautiful backdrop to the vibrant flowers, creating an eye-catching display throughout the growing season. Thriving in full sun to partial shade and well-drained soils, Hakone Blue is a low-mainte ... Learn More

One of the most beautiful, frost-hardy terrestrial and xerophytic (grows on tree branches ) orchids in the world. Very large pink and mauve, or sometimes pure white flowers, arise from plump pseudobulbs in earliest spring, the lanceolate leaves appearing later. Fresh seed collected here each year. ... Learn More

This very choice plant has marbled bronze, trillium-like leaves, which erupt through the ground like folded umbrellas. Crystalline white flower cups produce enormous brilliant-red fruits, as large as a bantam's egg. In good moist soil this treasure is spectacular and very long-lived but too rarely seen! ... Learn More

This is the rare, sugar-pink coloured form of this very choice plant which has crystalline cup-flowers opening over marbled bronze, rubbery, trillium-like leaves, which erupt through the ground like folded umbrellas. Later are produced the enormous brilliant-red fruits, as large as a bantam's egg. In good moist soil this treasure is spectacular and very long-lived but too rarely seen! ... Learn More

Attractive clusters of sizeable violet-blue flowers, each with a distinct golden yellow eye, smother the wooly, grey, compact-bushy foliage, their dwarf habit making them ideal in the front of borders, or even containers. This very rare plant is native to the high arctic, and in Greenland it is found only in a small area on the east coast. The whole plant is pubescent, with long woolly hairs. In the wild this gem grows on gravelly slopes and in crevices. It will do best on a sharply-drained bed or even in a pot in the alpine house. Few seeds collected. ... Learn More

An exceptionally vigorous "Jacob's Ladder", flaunting bunches of primrose coloured, and sometimes darker peach-coloured trumpet flowers on strong stems of finely-divided foliage. One of the most attractive and unusual flowers in this group! ... Learn More

The ever-popular and easily-grown "Jacobs Ladder" pushes up several stems clad in pinnate leaves topped by panicles of sky blue flowers. ... Learn More

Pure white flowers adorn this lovely albino form of the ever-popular "Jacob's Ladder". It comes quite true from seed and will happily colonise a dark corner. ... Learn More

Predictably from Kashmir comes this bushy form of "Jacob's ladder" with ferny foliage and solid clusters of large silky pale blue flowers in early summer. One of the best butterfly plants you can grow, it prefers fertile, well-drained soil which is not parched, in sun or semi-shade. ... Learn More

This extremely lovely plant opens attractive, bright blue flowers, which are produced from June to September on tall stems up to 1 metre. It flowers from June to September in forests, open slopes and damp places in the Himalayas, from Pakistan to West Nepal, at altitudes of 2400-3700 m. It does best in moist, well-drained soil in sun to semi-shade. Our plants were grown from seed collected by Chris Chadwell on his expedition to the Himalayas in 2013. ... Learn More

Long peachy trumpets with flared yellow ends and deep pink marking on the back, adorn this delightful, compact, front of border plant which has finely cut silvery-leaved foliage, and which flowers prolifically in its first year from sowing. ... Learn More

A delightful form of the North American miniature polemonium or "Jacob's Ladder", Polemonium pauciflorum. Silvery-leaved foliage adorns stems bearing terminal bunches of yellow trumpets, striped in brown, with flared mouths. ... Learn More