Description
ARCHIVED
Note: This is a plant not currently for sale. This is an archive page preserved for informational use.
Up-facing blue-violet bells in early spring emerge from foliage decorated with silky hairs.
Pulsatilla patens syn. Anemone patens Eastern pasque flower Z 3-7
Up-facing blue-violet bells in early spring emerge from foliage decorated with silky hairs.
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Alcea rosea Hollyhock BIENNIAL Z 4-9
Early to late summer spikes of single platters - mixed colors. The classic cottage garden flower.
Early to late summer spikes of single platters – mixed colors. The classic cottage garden flower.
Size: 2-5' x 2'
Care: Sun in well-drained soil.
Native: West Asia
Wildlife Value: Butterfly plant, host for Painted Lady butterfliesHollyhocks have been cultivated in China for thousands of years where it symbolized the passing of time. They cooked the leaves for a vegetable and, also ate the buds. Transported from Middle East to Europe by the Crusaders and introduced to England by 1573. Grown in the Eichstätt Garden, the garden of Johann Konrad von Gemmingen, prince bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria, c. 1600. Culpepper, a 17th century English herbalist, claimed the plant could be used to cure ailments of the “belly, Stone, Reins, Kidneys, Bladder, Coughs, Shortness of Breath, Wheesing, … the King’s Evil, Kernels, Chin-cough, Wounds, Bruises, Falls. . . (and) Sun-burning.” Both single and double forms grew in England by the time of Parkinson (1629). Parkinson said they came “in many and sundry colours.” John Winthrop Jr. introduced the 1st hollyhock to the New World in the 1630’s. Grown at America’s 1st botanic garden, Elgin Botanic Garden 1811.
In the 1880’s Mr. W. Charter of Saffron Walden in England cultivated frilly doubles, now known as ‘Charter’s Doubles.’
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Schizachyrium scoparium syn. Andropogon scoparium Little bluestem Z 3-9
Wispy, feather-like seedheads atop blue-grey foliage that turns plum-orange-red in fall.
Wispy, feather-like seedheads atop blue-grey foliage that turns plum-orange-red in fall
Size: 18" x 12"
Care: sun in well-drained soil.
Native: all No. America, Wisconsin native.
Wildlife Value: leaves are food for Skipper butterfly caterpillars and seeds food for songbirdsComanche used it to remedy syphilitic sores. Lakota made soft, wispy seedheads into liners for moccasins. Collected by French plant hunter André Michaux (1746-1802) in America’s prairies c. 1790
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Anchusa capensis Cape forget-me-not, Cape bugloss Z 6-9
Truest of blue flowers from summer through fall
OUT OF STOCK
Truest of blue flowers from summer through fall. Do you need to know anything else?
Reseeding annual in colder zones.
Size: 8” x 8”
Care: sun in well-drained to moist well-drained soil
Native: So. Africa.
Awards: Plant Select® Central Rocky Mountain regionCollected and introduced to Europe in 1794 by von Thunberg (1743-1828). Carl Peter von Thunberg, student of Linnaeus at Uppsala University in Sweden, made three trips to the Cape of Good Hope 1772-1775 where he collected about 1000 new species, Java and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 1777 and 15 months in Japan where he befriended local doctors who gave him hundreds of plants new to Western horticulture. He succeeded Linnaeus as professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala and King Gustav beknighted him. Young Cape forget-me-not plants were eaten as a vegetable, Annals of the South African Museum, 1898. Louise Beebe Wilder loved this plant, effusing, “One of the prettiest (blue annuals) is the Cape Forget-me-not. Not one of its cerulean family boasts a purer blue and its summer-long period of bloom and indifference to drought make it a really valuable annual. It has also a sturdy habit of growth and sowing its hardy seeds freely it does its best to become a permanent resident.” Robinson called it “Remarkably fine…” The Garden 1873. The name Anchusa from anchousa paint used on skin.
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Baptisia leucantha syn. Baptisia lacteata, Baptisia alba White Wild Indigo, Prairie wild indigo Z 3-9
Towering creamy white flower spikes in May & June followed by dark seed pods.
Towering creamy white flower spikes in May & June followed by dark seed pods.
Size: 3-5' x 2-3'
Care: full sun to part shade in rich well-drained soil.
Native: Wisconsin native – from Minnesota to Texas.
Wildlife Value: food source for several caterpillars and nectar and pollen for a number of butterflies and bees. Deer resistant.Winnebago (HoChunk) mashed cooked root to make a poultice applied to remedy inflammation of the womb. Baptisia is Greek meaning to dye referring to use of Baptisia australis as a substitute for indigo dye. Leucantha means white flowered.
