It’s almost Plant Sale week, but we’re still adding a few plants.

Shrubs

We just found out we can get Yellow Horn (Xanthoceras sorbifolia).

Yellow Horn (S068B) is an upright shrub from northern China with lustrous pinnate leaves that turn yellow in fall. Edible nuts. Glorious in May when it covers itself with racemes of white flowers. Watch their centers changes day by day from green through yellow to pink to red, all seen together at once on the panicles. Shrub-form, but can be pruned into a multi-stemmed tree, adaptable to many sites except wet ones. In a 2 gallon pot, $25 (Photo courtesy of mobot.org)

Vegetables

We’ve added six new heirloom tomatoes to help make up for the crop failure of six other varieties. All the tomatoes are in 3.5″ pots for $1.50. They are:

• Black Ethiopian V129B — An odd name for a tomato that was originally grown in the Ukraine. Very productive with brown-red-bronze, 5-ounce plum-shaped fruits. Exceptionallly rich, tangy taste. Indeterminate. 81 days.
• Chadwick Cherry V137B — Mouth-watering one-ounce red cherry selected by the late horticultural genius Alan Chadwick. Large for a cherry, with sparkling, full-bodied tomato flavor. Six-foot vines are vigorous and highly productive. Indeterminate. 90 days.
• Dad’s Sunset V142B — Fruits ripen to a uniform golden orange like the setting sun. Very attractive round, 12-ounce fruits with zesty sweet flavor. A mainstay garden variety with three-inch fruits. Indeterminate. 75 days.
• Northern Lights V157B — Set apart from other bicolored tomatoes by its smaller size (8 to 12 ounces), making it a great choice for gardeners who want a more modest sized bicolored fruit. Luscious, sweet flavor and beautiful golden yellow exterior with a red blush on the blossom end that radiates to the center. Indeterminate. 75 days.
• Hawaiian Pineapple V161B — Very large, meaty fruits (at least one pound) with very few seeds. Tangy when raw, becoming sweet and melon-like with a little salt. Great for spaghetti sauce. A fairly contained plant size, so good for a smaller garden. Indeterminate. 90 days.
• Red Zebra V166B — Plant yields huge amounts of two-inch red fruits with light yellow striping (or as some say, yellow fruit with red striping). Same shape as Green Zebra with red-yellow flesh. Indeterminate. 80 days.

Late Additions — Succulents

Aeonium ‘Garnet’ A655B– This relative of hens and chicks forms a rosette of succulent leaves on a basal stem, resembling a miniature palm tree. Rose to dark red rosettes with some green. Happy in a sunny window all winter. 4″ pot, $5.00

Echeveria nodulosa V666B — Flamboyantly painted foliage with maroon streaks and sharply defined delicate outlines at the edges of each leaf. Fleshy, spoon-shaped leaves form handsome rosettes on branching 8-12″ stems. 4.5″ pot, $5.00

Pink Echeveria — Ruffly looking. So irresistable that Henry had to buy it. In two sizes, a 6″ round pot for $14, A668B.

Assorted cool Echeverias — in a small 2″ pot for $2.50, A668C.

Golden Barrel Cactus A661B Echinocactus grusonii — Native to central Mexico, it is a popular landscape cactus in the southwestern U.S. Young plants are different in appearance than mature ones, which have golden spines and prominent vertically arranged ribs. 4″ pot, $4.00

Annuals

Gray Hair Grass A235B — Corynephorus canescens ‘Spiky Blue’. Attractive gray-green/silver foliage with wine-colored sheathes. Prefers well-drained soils. Drought tolerant. Tussock forming. Annual. 4.5″ pot, $5.00

Perennials

Daylily, Kwanso Variegata P263B — Hemerocallis ‘Kwanso variegata’. A variegated daylily! Forms a clump of large green and white striped leaves with double soft orange flowers from white striped stems. Rare, but. easy. Click here for a photo. In a 5.5″ pot, $8.00

European Ginger P316B — Asarum europeum. A beautiful evergreen groundcover for moist, woodland gardens. 2-3″ leaves are leathery and glossy. Bell-shaped greenish purple or brown flowers are hidden beneath foliage. Blooms in early spring. Prefers slightly acid soil. 3.5″ pot, $6.00

Snowdrop P641B — Galanthus nivalis. Earliest of spring bloomers, the small white flowers hang down from the stalks like drops. Good for dry partial shade, as under a deciduous tree (since they bloom before the leaves come out). In a 3.5″ pot, $5.00

Several lily bulbs have been added:

Acapulco (Asiatic lily) P748A — Dark pink, very fragrant with very long bloom time, produces four to six flowers per stem. 14/16 cm bulbs. 44″ Three bulbs for $3.00

Tom Pouce (Asiatic lily) P763B — Each petal is outlined with hot pink and has a golden yellow midrib. Colors are darker at the points and lighter toward the center. Three to four flowers per stem. Mid-season bloomer. 14/16 cm bulbs. 32″ Three bulbs for $5.00

Uchida (Oriental lily) P773B — Also called the Rose Red Lily of Japan. Brilliant, dark pink, recurved petals with white trim and light speckles. Easy to grow. Light fragrance. During the 1940s, this wild lily was common on the land of a Japanese farmer named Hirotaka Uchida. He noticed that most of the flowers were pinkish or white, but he also noticed that some were almost pure red. Before and during the World War II, he collected the reddest ones and continued his work for several years. At the end of the war, the Uchida family was able to export 60 bulbs. 48″ Three bulbs for $6.00

1. One-stop shopping. Annuals and perennials, rare and native plants, vegetables and herbs, trees and shrubs, vines and water plants: you can make all your plant purchases for the year at once.

2. Useful catalog and new website. You will find more information in the catalog and on the website than on most plant labels in regular nurseries. Starting this year, we are doing our best to find as many color photos of our plants as possible for you.

3. Huge variety of unusual plants. To buy the out-of-the-ordinary plants we sell, you’d have to search local nurseries, dozens of different catalogs, and many Internet sources. For instance, this year we have 33 different varieties of stonecrop, 21 coral bells, 42 coleus, 42 hosta, and 47 heirloom tomatoes. Looking everywhere for that special plant? Let us know so we can try to find it for you.

4. Logical organization. The long straight tables with numbered signs mean you can both browse without worrying that you’re missing something and also locate the plant you need because it is right where it is supposed to be. Try finding a store with a system like that!

5. Local growers. Most of our plants are grown in Minnesota and its next-door neighbors (including Canada). Our growers can often grow otherwise unavailable plants from seed just for the sale!

6. Great starter plants. Stores tend to sell older, larger plants (which is great for instant gardening), but they do cost more.

7. Unbelievable prices. Even our larger plants are inexpensive — just check on the prices in a store or nursery and you’ll see! Also, compare our last year’s prices to this year’s — we try hard not to raise them, and sometimes manage to decrease them. On Sunday, everything is half price!

8. Profit goes to school scholarships. It’s just nice to know that your money is going to a good cause. The school kids, their parents (including parents whose kids graduated long, long ago!) and school staff all contribute their time and hard work to the plant sale.

9. Community project. Hundreds of volunteers, including several who work many hundreds of hours a year on the sale, make the sale both possible and enjoyable.

10. Once-a-year, awe-inspiring event. The Friends School Plant Sale is the largest plant sale in the Midwest. It’s exciting for beginning or experienced gardeners. Shoppers tell us that they find their hearts beating faster just driving past the State Fairgrounds in early spring. And, when the catalog is finally out, well, the only moment better than that is when you finally walk into the Grandstand and see 66,000 square feet of plants.

Local blogger Grace Kelly has written her take on the Friends School Plant Sale. Thanks, Grace!

Other bloggers having their say about the sale include Stuccohouse and the Whitely Creek Bed & Breakfast. Thanks for spreading the word!

Years ago, when we first moved into our house and I started gardening, I envied my neighbor’s clump of Trillium grandiflorum which she’d brought back from The Lake. Since I shared the shade and leaves of her oaks, I figured I could grow them too.

I bought one plant, chose what I thought was a good spot and waited. The plant did not thrive. I added two more plants in different spots the following year. They did not thrive.

Some years later I noticed a small clump of healthy trilliums growing out of the bottom of my stone wall. I knew I hadn’t planted them or even thought of cramming a plant into what looked to be an inhospitable site. Squirrels! They’d planted the fruit/seed pods in exactly the right place; I was suitably humbled. (I’ve since learned that the seeds of trilliums are attractive to ants, who help disperse them by leaving seeds in their tunnels, where the seeds germinate, so ants might deserve the credit.)

Now I have many clumps of T. grandiflorum around the garden, and my habit is to plant them amongst good sized rocks, where they seem to thrive.

T. grandiflorum is the most showy trillium, and in my garden it self-seeds. The seedlings don’t look like the parent plant but show a single leaf, somewhat like a lily seedling or a broadish blade of grass; the seedlings do not appear until the second spring after dispersal.

Trillium erectum (left) and Trillium luteum (right). Both images are from the Wikipedia’s entry on Trillium.

T. erectum’s flower is not as large as T. grandiflorum but it is striking, usually dark red, and the plant makes large clumps. It is propagated easily by division and will also seed (although mine hasn’t).

T. luteum has an unusual yellow flower and handsome mottled leaves.

All these trilliums grow in deciduous woods in neutral to somewhat acid soil. Dig in leaf mold when planting. I top dress with compost in the spring and add a light mulch of shredded leaves. Some growers use a liquid 10-30-20 fertilizer to get bigger blooms. This can be done twice a year, as the shoots appear and then as the flowers fade.

These trilliums are available at this year’s Friends School Plant Sale (T. grandiflorum in the Woodland Wild Flowers on page 33, T. erectum and T. luteum in the Garden Perennials, page 21).

Try some, and bring home a bit of The Lake.

Looking for the shopping list form? Here it is. It’s also on the Doing the Sale page.

Downloadable shopping list form (pdf, 12K)

We are always happy to see a new Cranesbill Geranium. This one is named ‘Orkney Cherry’ because it is from the small Scottish island and has bright pink flowers with cerise lines. A bonus is the bronze foliage. 10-12″ (P 244 p. 11)

As if Meadow Rue needed more drama. Black Stockings Meadow Rue (Thalictrum ‘Black Stockings’) has long, dark stems contrasting with its cloud of lavender blooms and attractive green foliage. 48-72″ (P 490 p.17)

‘Britt-Marie Crawford’ (36-40″) is the darkest-leaved Ligularia so far, more of a dark chocolate maroon than the purple of Ligularia ‘Desdemona’ but with similar flowers. Some gardeners, not fond of big gold daisies, cut these flowers off and use ‘Britt-Marie Crawford’ purely for its gorgeous foliage, but others welcome the cheerful, sunny blooms in their shade gardens. Ligularia ‘Britt-Marie Crawford’ (P 465 p. 17)

Does the cultivar name ‘Misty Lace’ help to soften the impression of the common name Goatsbeard? The photo shows how much more accurate it is! What doesn’t show is its pretty red stems, cold-hardiness, and heat-tolerance. 30″ (P 321 p.14)

New Zealand Flax, “grassy” but not really a grass, has beautiful stiff leaves almost like Iris leaves except they come in a variety of colors and often stripes. This is ‘Apricot Queen,’ shown with the flowers of an unknown Falling Stars (see three similar Crocosmia p. 41). Unless you bring it inside for the winter, ‘Apricot Queen’ will grow to about 24″ so it is a wonderful size for sunny containers and can be used instead of the more usual Spikes (Dracaena p. 46). (Phormium ‘Apricot Queen’ A 183 p. 42)

This yellow variegated Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa ‘Aureola’ G 030 p. 6) is one of the few grasses that will be happy in shade. 12″. Red Japanese Blood Grass (Imperata ‘Red Baron’ A 237 p. 42) needs full sun, where its leaves will become increasingly red all summer. 18″.
.

We did not at first order this annual Liberty Grass (Libertia ‘Goldfinger’ A 318 p. 44) for the sale, but when we visited the growers’ greenhouse ‘Goldfinger’ summoned us over for a closer look with its shiny gold, orange, and green variegation. Also “grassy but not really a grass.” If you wanted to plant it the way English gardeners do, you would pair it with shorter (not taller) flowers mingled in with it (not in front of it.) They like that “flowers hiding in the tall grass” look. 18″.

Flowers optional when you have foliage that’s tickled pink. Joseph’s Coat can always be counted on to give us leaves of many colors, and this new ‘Brazilian Red Hots’ doesn’t even bother to include green, just fuchsia and magenta. 12-18″ (Alternanthera ‘Brazilian Red Hots’ A 314A  p.43)

Another Joseph’s Coat, called ‘Partytime,’ gives us green with splashes of pink and magenta. 18-24″ (Alternanthera ‘Partytime’ A 313  p.43)

‘Midnight Rose’ is a Coral Bells whose burgundy leaves are sprinkled with little pink dots in the spring. For a bold look, put it next to a yellow or chartreuse plant. 10″ (Heuchera ‘Midnight Rose’ P 218  p.10)

First Blush Cushion Spurge (Euphorbia ‘First Blush’) shows its pink edges in spring and fall. Wouldn’t this be pretty with pink spring flowers? 8-12″ (P 651  p.20)

It’s always fun to see what new cultivars those busy plant-breeders have come up with. This annual Coreopsis ‘Limerock Dream’ offers us a new, blended citrus color scheme of apricot and soft gold. 16-22″ (Coreopsis ‘Limerock Dream’ A 141 p. 41)

Fiesta Time Hollyhock is a new compact biennial Hollyhock with large cerise-pink flowers that are ruffled like a Flamenco dancer’s petticoats. It will bloom for you this year. 36″ (Alcea ‘Fiesta Time’ P 357 p. 14)

Unlike the perennial Bee Balm flowers that you are familiar with, Bergamo is an annual and has a stacked spire of Bee Balm-like blooms in two shades of pinky-purple. A 2008 Fleuroselect Gold Medal winner, Bergamo flowers all summer and is mildew-resistant. 19-25″ (Monarda ‘Bergamo’ A 035 p. 39)

Here is a new Cockscomb called Star Trek Rose Pink. We do not know why “Star Trek” (it doesn’t look any more alien than any other Cockscomb!) but the flower is a rose-pink color. 40-48″ ( Celosia ‘Star Trek Rose Pink’ A 094 p. 41)