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Tuesday December 23rd, 2008
New 2009 Highlights, Part One
The new Heronswood Nursery year starts with 3 brand new Helleborus: the vigorous and free-blooming ‘Pink Tea Cup’; the exquisitely detailed ‘Raspberry Mousse’; and the alluring deep wine-red ‘Velvet Lips’.
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| Helleborus ‘Pink Tea Cup’ |
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| Helleborus ‘Raspberry Mousse’ |
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| Helleborus ‘Velvet Lips’ |
| Plus in response to the hellebore craze, we bring back an old-timer, ‘Mrs. Betty Ranicar’, a rare pure white double. |
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| Helleborus ‘Mrs. Betty Ranicar’ |
| We traveled the world to find over a dozen extremely rare and special cultivars that you won’t find in any garden center and very few catalogues. They include, in alphabetical order, beginning with Perennials A through I: |
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| ‘Angelica gigas’ – Deep purple, broccoli-like flowers perch atop six root burgundy stems. An exceptional and widely adapted accent plant. |
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| Bergenia ‘Lunar Glow’ – The first solidly yellow-leaf Bergenia introduced to us by Marco van Noort from Holland. A luminous, well adapted groundcover with dark pink spring flowers. |
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| Bergenia ‘Pink Dragonfly’ – Reddish bronze leaves on petite plants with tubular, bright cherry-pink spring flowers. |
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| Corydalis ‘Berry Exciting’ – and “berry” rare as well, with a vivid and exciting contrast of yellow foliage and purple flowers. A unique cultivar that reblooms in the South. |
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| Cypripedium reginae – A native Lady Slipper Orchid fit for a queen. The picture says it all. |
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| Cypripedium flavum – An exotic Chinese alpine slipper orchid close to our native. Rare colors range from brilliant yellow to pale yellow to pale green with maroon blushes and rust-colored spots. |
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| Dianella tasmanica ‘Variegata’ – Stunning and very unusual Australian native flax lily with broad and boldly striped leaves. In spring, pale violet flowers and in summer, electric-blue berries. |
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| Dahlia ‘Karma Amanda’ (Above) and ‘Gallery Leonardo’ (Below) – Two exceptionally rare, exciting new dahlias of European heritage with dazzling large flowers (Karma) and warm colored, nearly full doubles (Gallery). |
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| Dahlia ‘Gallery Leonardo’ |
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| Euphorbia ‘Jessie’ – a fiery new color from summer to late fall. Very exciting and unusual, plus deer-resistant. |
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| Eurphorbia Tasmanian Tiger – Originally from us in 1998, and brought back better than ever. Erect stems clothed in blue-green leaves edged with creamy white. Truly outstanding. |
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| Geranium himalayense plenum – Fully double, rose-like pinkish lavender flowers—larger than most geraniums—make a dramatic show. |
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| Geranium ‘Splish Splash’ – Extremely rare cultivar of cranesbill with white flowers splashed with a gorgeous sky blue. |
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| Helenium ‘Rauchtopas’ – Smoky or burnt topaz, indeed, this is one of the most uniquely colored heleniums we’ve ever seen and a well adapted introduction from Europe. |
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| Iris ensata ‘Kiyozuro’ (Above) and ‘Ruffled Dimitry’ (Below) – Two brand new Japanese water irises that feature contrasting details such as deep purple “petaloids” (Dimitry) and luminous tricolor markings (Kiyozuro). |
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| Iris ‘Ruffled Dimitry’ |
Next week, we’ll show exciting and rare new perennial highlights L through Y, as well as “unusually great” new shrubs, grasses, ferns, trees and vines.
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Some gorgeous selections, but will any of them “make it” in the shade or with only 3-4 hours of sun?
Love the pictures,would love captions that were large enough to read so I’d know what the names of the beautiful plants are.
Merry Christmas!
M. Whiting
Thanks, we’ll get right to work on it.
BRAVO! WELL DONE AND THANKS A MILLION!!!
I wish someone would work on iris that were beautiful and did not need to be in water or in extremely moist soil. I also wish they would work on poppies for zone 9. I love poppies but there are so few that will grow south of zone 7, other than the wild flower types.
In reply to Joy’s wishes about 3 hours of shade. I live in 90 acres of woods in the Berkshires of Mass. and have planted helleborus here and there along the edge of our woods -yes, a few from Herronswood – and they all are doing splendidly. Because some woods soils tend to be thin with lots of roots, we do enrich our soil with compost for each plant. I’ve found many plants that do well in 3-4 hours of sun. Try them, you’ll love them!
Thanks for the teaser- now i’m excited for the new catalog! I must get an angelica this year.
Happy New Year everyone!
Kim
It would be wonderful if you would include zone detail in your descriptions. I garden in zone 5B and often find plants I love that would not survive in my harsh PA mountain climate.
Dear Olivia,
Thank you for your great suggestion. Zone information is on the full description, after you click on the image. However, I shall put it on all the future “teasers”. Thanks again.