This is truly one of the most impressive plants you can grow in the UK if you can give it room. Candelabras of large mauve flowers open on much-branching white woolly stems which arise from a huge grey spiky rosette in spring. ... Learn More

From the high limestone cliffs of Turkey comes this rare little plant with pendulous clusters of palest yellow flowers from May to August. En-masse these resemble melting wax, and as they age they turn blue and pink. The foliage consists of a small cushion of bristly tufted stems, with densely hairy narrow spoon shaped leaves. This perfect plant for a sunny, well drained site in a crevice, wall, raised bed or a scree sets very few good seeds. ... Learn More

Superb, slow-growing, tight cushions of fine silver leaves produce tight buds with pale pink flowers. Preferring a dry sunny spot, this is a rare and unique plant only available in small numbers. ... Learn More

Three-foot-tall scapes bear large, waxy, white, green-striped blooms with yellow stamens in late May and June. This long-lived, easily cultivated and well-behaved, giant snowdrop relative is perfect for the sunny perennial border. On sunless days the blooms will remain closed, rendering them invisible, their petals blending in with the flower stalks. But as soon as the sun appears, a burst of brilliant white stars and bells will dazzle your eyes! A common name for these sun lovers is "Sleepy Dick" (?), referring to their usually late-in-the-day “awakening”. It is a complete puzzlement why th ... Learn More

Tall slender spikes of starry pale green and white flowers appear extremely early in the year, sometimes as early as Christmas. This rare and fascinating British native has the extraordinary quality of having young flower shoots which may be eaten as a vegetable, similar to asparagus. The common name "Bath Asparagus" comes from the fact it was once abundant near the English city of the same name. ... Learn More

An amazing, non-chlorophyll producing, parasitic plant, attaching itself to the roots of its host plant without actually harming it. Produces bizarely beautiful, orchid-like, purple-veined cream flowers on wax-like stems. ... Learn More

Resembling a giant sisyrinchium with large, dark inky blue flowers, this showy Mexican plant will show of its best in a hot well-drained position where it will slowly clump up giving reliable midsummer colour. ... Learn More

Incredibly lovely pale Wedgwood blue starry flowers appear above thin iris-like leaves. This plant was originally grown in a friend's Australian nursery, but grows and flowers unprotected here and produces a rare and valuable colour in the garden. ... Learn More

Brilliant, deepest cobalt-blue, large starry flowers adorn this beautiful iris-relative from Australia and South America. Hardy in a well-drained position and worth any effort for the colour alone! ... Learn More

Compact bunches of incredibly lovely pale Wedgwood blue starry flowers appear above thin iris-like leaves. This plant was originally grown in a friend's Australian nursery, but grows and flowers unprotected here, and produces a rare and valuable colour in the garden, where it is very long-lived in a well-drained spot. ... Learn More

A rare and lovely New Zealand foxglove relative making a spreading carpet of dark green, rounded, leathery leaves beneath dense sprays of white, tubular, mimulus-like flowers in candelabra-type whorls up the stem. This lovely plant is breathtaking in light shade in a moist spot when it will slowly spread to form a succulent carpet. ... Learn More

From the Andes east of Valdivia in southern Chile, in 1994, we collected this clump forming, very long-flowering, non-invasive plant. A rosette of trifoliate leaves is surmounted by a continuous succession of dazzling yellow flowers from spring until late autumn. ... Learn More

Common in the tundra of the Arctic grows this densely-tufted plant with flowers which are small and green, ageing to reddish, and grouped in an open upright cluster, before ripening to dense red tufts holding the seeds. This astonishingly hardy plant, to Zone 2 in the USA, has attractive, fleshy, kidney-shaped leaves which are very tasty. Indeed I have eaten these tasty leaves, high in vitamin C, high on the Scottish mountains in the UK where it maintains a foothold. ... Learn More

Tufted and stemless white to red-purple flowers open on upright stems above a compact cushion of ferny compound leaves growing from a persistent woody base. This alpine plant is found at high elevations in gravelly, well-drained locations, screes, bare slopes and alpine fellfields up to 4100m in California to Alaska and eastwards to Colorado and Quebec. It is unique within its genus by virtue of its viscid, 'sticky with glandular warts', bracts and inflorescence. ... Learn More

Superb, large, deep-rose blooms open like Meconopsis flowers, slowly flattening with age and displaying their centres as a golden boss of anthers, and as a bonus are perfumed like lily-of-the-valley. The stems of this rare Siberian species are clad in attractive leaves which are much divided with very narrow segments. ... Learn More