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

This true wild strawberry, one of the parents of all cultivated varieties, produces uncountable masses of small but very sweetly-flavoured fruits from early summer until late autumn. Making a very low, steadily-running carpet of fruit, is perpetual fruiting and gives a constant supply of fruits unlike the larger cultivated forms. For a never-before-experienced treat, collect a small bowl full, leave them for an hour or so in a warm place, then smell them. You will experience a perfume like no other! It may self-seed into places where it is happy ensuring fruit all summer long. In the wild it ... Learn More

An incredible form of the perpetual fruiting alpine strawberry which stays white when it is ripe, the numerous pure white fruits being held erect on long stems. This plant makes a solid clump and runs barely at all. Just as sweet and juicy as the red form, and no race with the birds, who usually get to the ripe ones first, because they just cannot see and eat them! ... Learn More

Shimmering heads hold countless flowers each of which has a bell-shaped calyx of green or purplish sepals bearing up to fifteen long purple stamens tipped with large yellow anthers. This plant has the most beautiful foliage of all of the Thalictrums with its incredibly fine "Maidenhair-like" delicate green leaves on purple shaded stems. ... Learn More

Very striking, violet or bright lavender-purple flowers open on this lovely spreading dwarf cushion plant. In the wild, flowering can be as late as July in the higher mountains, and as early as May in lower mountain ranges, such as the Tendoy Range. One of the loveliest high alpines, "Mountain Townsendia" may be found on dry open places, often in sand or gravel, among rocks or on cliffs, and can be found at elevations from 7000 to over 8500 feet. Very few good seeds collected. ... Learn More

Large single flowers are borne on short,upright stems in early summer, and consist of purple-blue ray florets and yellow disc florets. These plants slowly form solid clumps of hairy leaves and are one of the favourite scree, tufa and show plants. This alpine treasure comes from high elevations in western North America and will require good drainage, whether in the garden or in a container. ... Learn More

This rare high alpine flower is endemic to Colorado in the USA where it lives in the snow-melt area. Here it makes low, tight cushions of thick, glabrous, slightly hairy leaves, with golden-eyed blue flowers that hug the cushion, opening on the shortest possible stems. This gem is more easily grown in the rock garden than T. hookeri, and it needs good drainage. But to obtain a prize-winning specimen for a show it will do best in the alpine house. Few good seeds collected. ... Learn More

Very early in the year, upright-facing flowers of white or pale pink are dotted deeper pink and violet, the spotting concentrated towards the throat which is filled with bright yellow anthers. It starts into growth early in the year making short stems and three silvery-veined, embossed blue-green leaves. Probably the rarest, choicest and dwarfest of all trilliums, this outstanding super miniature, a rare native of Oregon, is tough enough for a select garden spot, or even pot cultivation in the alpine house or frame. Few good seeds collected. ... Learn More

The extremely rare and absolutely fabulous blue climbing nasturtium has thin twining stems which produce solid sheets of dazzling cobalt blue flowers from the leaf axils of delicate, attractively-lobed leaves. One of the most astonishing perennial plants of dry places in Chile, it dies down to deep resting tubers in winter which are best kept dry. It is one of the absolutely ultimate alpine house plants. We have been advised that this seed will possibly not be available after next year. ... Learn More

Very rarely seen and seldom offered is this lovely flower from the Mediterranean where it forms a neat rosette of wavy-edged leaves slowly spreading into clumps, and opening continuously over an all-summer-long period, gorgeous, black-eyed, soft lemon-yellow flowers, two inches or so across with beautifully and geometrically arranged petals and a ruff of hairy leaves half way up the flower stems. Although a rare alpine plant it makes a superb rockery or border specimen. ... Learn More

This dwarf mutant forms dense mats of very deeply divided, almost fern-like leaves, and short dumpy spikes of light blue flowers. It is perfect for growing in a trough or small alpine garden rather than a large rockery. ... Learn More

This diminutive, and rarely encountered gem lives in damp and even wet, boggy spots in moist meadows, marshes, and stream banks in northern parts of North America and Eurasia. In the UK it is confined to cold, high moorland areas where it displays its short-stemmed, pale lilac flowers over spreading mats of small cordate leaves. In the right spot it will slowly spread, stem-rooting, to make a low carpet of leaves and flowers. ... Learn More

A spectacular alpine viola which makes a low dome of branching stems and leaves densely studded with small bright yellow flowers all summer long. It will, if you are lucky, self-seed into cracks and unexpected corners. This is the plant that has occasionally found fame as a patio or basket plant. What a waste! ... Learn More

A rare and extremely beautiful plant bearing disproportionately large flowers which vary in the wild from pink to rose-purple. The leaves are long, spathulate, coarsely-toothed, and densely hairy, whilst the short stems are covered with an attractive grey-white downy pubescence. In the wild it is strictly protected and occurs in small populations in Colorado (western counties) and Wyoming (south-central counties) where the plant's existence is threatened, and where it grows in sub-alpine and alpine meadows. These very few fertile seeds were collected from un-hybridised, alpine-house and garde ... Learn More