An unusual alpine, with dark purple thistle-like flowers some 3cm across and papery, purple-tinged bracts are displayed in August above a basal rosette of long, deeply lobed leaves with white woolly undersides. ... Learn More

Dense mats of medium sized, unusually narrow, lime-encrusted, silvery rosettes erupt with red-stemmed Inflorescences, 12-24cm high carrying branched panicles of small starry flowers with long yellowish-white petals. These superb alpines grow on the Eastern Alps, including the Dolomites, and also in northern Yugoslavia on limestone rocks. ... Learn More

This diminutive mat-forming, evergreen perennial bears small, dense rosettes of tiny, oval to oblong, lime-encrusted, silvery grey-green leaves and slender, red-flushed stems, bearing narrow, flat sprays of cup-shaped, white flowers in late spring and early summer. Perhaps one of the best 'encrusted saxifrages' the silver rosettes are very tiny and densely packed. A really choice alpine making a wonderful trough plant or for chinking into rock crevices. ... Learn More

Star-shaped, bell-like violet-blue flowers open over waxy, strap-like leaves in early spring. Endemic to central and southern Europe and Turkey. This heirloom is one of the most shade-tolerant bulbs, naturalising easily under shrubs or in grass where the massed heads can really create a purple haze. ... Learn More

This truly amazing plant, slowly creeping along like a dense and solid green rippling carpet, produces wonderful shapes and forms. Although related to our pinks and carnations, it is reputed to be the only Australian alpine totally hardy in the UK. ... Learn More

This most attractive, drought-resistant dwarf alpine makes a very low mound of radiating stems each of which is clad lengthwise with long-snouted yellow snapdragons. A perfect plant for the front of the rockery or in a small pot. ... Learn More

From the dry mountains of Iran comes this dwarf gem. Upwards-pointing, pale blue-violet tipped white flowers open from June until August on short stems above compact clumps of foliage. It is definitely a non-running plant and possibly one for the alpine house as it does self-seed. ... Learn More

Collected originally on an Alpine Garden Society trip to Ipiros in Greece, this rarely-seen, showy, hardy perennial opens bright heads of deep reddish-mauve flowers in loose sprays during summer, above the evergreen rosette of basal foliage. If grown in a very well-drained spot, this plant will slowly evolve into a tight rounded shrub, and considering its origin, it is very well adapted to a dry situation. ... Learn More

Neat, compact grassy tufts, massed into open cushions are covered with long-lasting white flowers on 6" stems all summer long. This seldom-seen alpine plant is native to high meadows and mountain slopes in Europe, and will make an ideal rock garden plant. ... Learn More

Small pink or white flowers with notched petals appear from mid to late summer either singly or in pairs dotted over clumps of extremely fine, feathery foliage. This delightful and rarely seen or offered gem is naturally at home on rock faces or mountain scree slopes, where it is exceptionally well suited to a rock or alpine garden setting. ... Learn More

From low clumps of thin, shiny, deep green leaves, arise erect, unbranched stems, on which compact bunches of deep pink flowers open. An uncommon and very lovely alpine plant, that in the wild lives on the cold exposed mountains of Norway and Sweden, but it is sometimes found near the coasts, and is also found in the Alps and the Pyrenees, Greenland and North America. ... Learn More

This famous plant is perhaps THE classic alpine plant, epitomising spring, as the delicately fringed purple bells push up through the snow with leathery dark green rounded leaves. This choice, very hardy and perennial plant improves yearly if grown in loose gritty soil, but produces very few seeds indeed. ... Learn More

The perpetual fruiting alpine strawberry produces a constant supply of small, but very sweet, bright red fruits, held dangling on long erect upright stems. This plant makes a solid clump and runs barely at all. Fruiting begins in early summer and often continues in a sheltered spot until the first frost of winter! Not to be confused with Fragaria vesca the "wild strawberry", both of which are good to eat! ... Learn More

This unusual strawberry, a rare variant of the alpine strawberry, bears beautiful golden ornamental foliage, which will brighten up the darkest spot in your garden. It will also produce a long succession of sweet, tasty fruits throughout the summer. ... Learn More

Strawberry 'Mignonette' is a wood alpine strawberry that produces masses of dainty red, sweet berries all summer. The plants are bushy and don't produce any runners, making them ideal for containers and hanging baskets. If treated like a half-hardy annual and sown early under glass, these strawberries should flower and fruit the first year from seed. Fruits are borne throughout the summer and autumn and, being a perennial, plants fruit again in future years. They prefer a moist and shaded position, an advantage in itself as most gardens have such a spot hidden away. ... Learn More