Scientific Name (Genus/Species): Nigella damascena Red Pod

Family: (Ranunculaceae)

(A) to 18″.  Love-in-a-Mist.  South Europe.  This selection of Love-in-a-Mist has white, many-petalled flowers surrounded by curved, feathery bracts.  Upright stems, covered with delicate, fern-like foliage, make the blossoms appear to be floating on a misty green bed.  The pièce de résistance are the seedpods; inflated capsules with persistent, horn-like styles, ripening to an attractive rich, dark red.  Fabulous dried.  Self-seeds.  Sun.  3 & T2

Scientific Name (Genus/Species): Nicotiana glutinosa

Family: (Solanaceae)

(A) to 2.5′.  An unusual Flowering Tobacco from Peru and Bolivia.   Large, pale green, sticky, hairy, ovate-cordate leaves.  Elongated spikes of gorgeous antique rose-pink , wide-mouthed almost bell-shaped, five-petalled flowers displaying creamy white throats.  Blooms all summer long.  Sun.  4 & T2

Scientific Name (Genus/Species): Delphinium requienii

Family: (Ranunculaceae)

(A/B) to 3′.  Requin’s Delphinium.  Southwest Europe.  A vigorous, erect annual or biennial with glossy, lobed, dark green leaves divided into five to seven, narrowly lance-shaped, pointed lobes.  In summer, branched spikes of orchid-like flowers are uniquely attractive, in shades of blue-grey to mauve.  Well worth growing.  Sun.  PC-2 weeks, 3 & T2

Scientific Name (Genus/Species): Verbascum bombyciferum

Family: (Scrophulariaceae)

(B) to 5′.  Giant Silver Mullein.  Asia Minor.  A bold, architectural plant that forms large rosettes of silvery-grey, heavily felted leaves in their first year. They send up tall, branched, woolly, silvery spikes adorned with five petalled, saucer-shaped, sulfur yellow flowers with orange anthers during the second summer.  Sun and well-drained soil.  4 & T1

Scientific Name (Genus/Species): Salvia horminum Mix (syn. Salvia viridis)

Family: (Lamiaceae)

(A) to 2′.  Annual Clary.  Mediterranean.  Upright, spikes of flowers with colourful bracts in dense verticillasters rise above the pale green, rugose, oblong leaves.  These colorful bracts are the main show; they have prominent dark venation and almost hide the tiny two-lipped flowers, which are cream-colored, with the upper lip tinged with purple or rose, reflecting the bract color.  We offer a mix of blue, white and pink.  Stunning en masse.  Sun.  4 & T2

Scientific Name (Genus/Species): Oenothera glazioviana

Family: (Onagraceae)

(B) to 4′.  Redsepal Evening Primrose.  Northwest Europe.  This Oenothera is roughly hairy in texture with wrinkled basal leaves up to six inches long.  The inflorescence is a showy spike, attractive in both bud and bloom.  The calyx surrounding and protecting the bud is comprised of four, showy red sepals which open, bending fully backwards to reveal four, bright, lemon yellow petals up to two inches long.  The petals fade with age from orange to red, along with the fallen red sepals, making a colourful display. The fruit is a one-inch long, lance-shaped, ridged capsule.  Sun.  3 & T2

Scientific Name (Genus/Species): Lunaria annua

Family: (Brassicaceae)

(B) to 3′.  Honesty, Money Plant.  Central and southern Europe.   Medium green leaves are heart-shaped, serrated and pointed at the tip.  Racemes of four-petalled purple flowers bloom above the foliage in spring.  Flowers give way in mid-summer to flattened, paper-thin, silver-dollar sized fruit which become translucent with maturity; an added delight and great in dried arrangements.  Sun/partial shade.  3 & T1

Scientific Name (Genus/Species): Ipomoea lobata (syn. Mina lobata)

Family: (Convolvulaceae)

Annual vine to 10′.  Spanish Flag or Firecracker Vine.  Mexico.  An excellent, vigorous, twining vine with attractive, tri-lobed leaves and single-sided, six-inch long racemes of tubular flowers held on slender red stems.  The flowers gently arc upward and outward, away from the vine, and mature from red to pale yellow, creating a gradient from the top to the base of the raceme. Blooms freely from mid to late summer until frost. The flowers are highly attractive to hummingbirds, butterflies, and other pollinators. A show-stopper on a tripod.  Sun.  1, 2B, 3 & T3

Scientific Name (Genus/Species): Centaurea cyanus Mix

Family: (Asteraceae)

(A) to 3′.  Cornflower, Bachelor’s Button.  Europe.  Many petalled, predominately blue “button” blooms on grey-green slender stems, though there may be a bit of dark maroon, light blue, pinkish red and white.  Blooms mid-summer to frost.  Butterflies adore this flower.  Deadhead often for continued bloom.  Great in the border, cutting garden, and for dried arrangements.  Sun.  3 & T2

Scientific Name (Genus/Species): Catananche caerulea ‘Alba’

Family: (Asteraceae)

(A/P) to 2′.  White Cupid’s Dart.  Southwest Europe.  Grey basal rosettes of toothed, linear leaves.  Upright, wiry stems with flowers one-inch across with transparent, papery white petals and dark purple centres.  Great looking pointed, globose buds with overlapping bracts.  Delightful long bloomer.  June to August.  Sun.  3 & T2