Finding Flowers With Flair
Garden long enough, and you may tire of common flowers and gravitate toward the unique and unusual. Although local nurseries carry offbeat flower plants at times, they don’t have the space or staff to consistently stock a wide variety.
Open up one of the many mail-order garden catalogs, however, and you’ll discover a whole new world of plants with captivating blossoms. There are flowers in just about every color and shape--and many you never dreamed existed. Your only difficulty will be choosing which ones to grace your garden.
Here are eight mail-order companies that offer a good selection of unusual and often hard-to-find flowers.
* Canyon Creek Nursery, 3527 Dry Creek Road, Oroville, CA 95965, (530) 533-2166. Catalog $2.
This small, family-operated mail-order nursery carries a variety of uncommon perennial flowers.
They have a wide selection of abutilon (flowering maple), including ‘Victorian Lady,’ a double-flowered type that they think may be a reintroduction of an 1800s abutilon called ‘Lady,’ which has been absent from cultivation for many years. It was found growing in an old nursery in Adelaide, Australia.
The flower is a soft shade of pink with outer petals encasing gathered and pleated inner petals. It grows upright with deep green, heart-shaped leaves.
They also have a variety of yarrows, including ‘Moonshine,’ which has long-lasting bright lemon-yellow flowers. The foliage is soft and silvery, and the plant grows to more than 2 feet high.
Ornamental oreganos are sought after as long-lasting dried flowers. They carry a variety, including ‘Kent Beauty’ (Origanum rotundifolium), which has trailing stems of plump, light green bracts tinged with pink.
* Digging Dog Nursery, P.O. Box 471, Albion, CA 95410, (707) 937-1130. Catalog $3.50.
Another family-run nursery, it carries many unusual flowers, including the drought-tolerant rock jasmine (Androsace lanuginosa), which has woolly, silver-green leaves and cascading clusters of delicate pink and white flowers with eyes of crimson or green. The campanula collection is extensive, including ‘Elizabeth Rose’ (C. punctata). This has bell-shaped, rosy-purple flowers with white and purple-spotted throats.
Jerusalem sage (Phlomis) may be a member of the mint family, but unlike its relatives, it is drought resistant and thrives in a warm, dry, sunny spot. In summer, its erect stems are set with whorls of tubular flowers in purple, pink, yellow or white. They make long-lasting dried flowers.
* High Country Gardens, 2902 Rufina St., Santa Fe, NM 85705, (800) 925-9387. Free catalog.
This nursery specializes in unusual drought-tolerant plants. Veronica ‘Blue Reflection’ is a hybrid developed at the nursery. It is a vigorous grower with profuse true blue flowers.
‘May Night’ meadow sage (Salvia nemerosa) has deep-purple flower spikes and blooms continually, if dead-headed.
‘Missouri Evening’ primrose (Oenothera missouriensis) has 4-inch yellow flowers that open each afternoon and close up the following morning. It is a long-bloomer and cascades well over rocks and retaining walls.
* The Natural Gardening Co., 217 San Anselmo Ave., San Anselmo, CA 94960, (707) 766-9303. Free catalog.
Another Northern California nursery, it offers a variety of unusual flowering plants. The columbine ‘Nora Barlow’ makes an eye-catching addition to bouquets. It has a double flower that comes in pink with white tips. It also has a variety of lavenders available by plant as well as by seed, which is rare.
French lavender (Lavandula dentata) blooms longer than most lavenders. It has narrow, gray-green leaves in short spikelike clusters and lavender-purple flowers.
‘Blue Star’ morning glory is an improved selection of the popular ‘Heavenly Blue.’ Each flower spreads 5 inches, with a background of crystal white and radiating stripes of sky blue. The throat is tinted a soft lemon yellow. It grows rapidly to 15 feet or more with heart-shaped, tropical-looking foliage.
* Shepherd’s Garden Seeds, 30 Irene St., Torrington, CT 06790, (860) 482-3638, https://www.shepherdseeds.com. Free catalog if Department 91031 is mentioned.
This company has added 23 flowers to its extensive collection of the hard-to-finds. The ‘Blue Lace’ flower (Trachymene coerulea) is a native of Australia that has umbel-shaped flowers resembling a finely cut Queen Anne’s lace. They hold well in arrangements and do best in the cooler weather of spring and fall.
New this year is ‘Bonita,’ a red and yellow zinnia mix that produces unusually tiny buttonlike flowers in faded brick red and a rich golden color. In the unique sunflower collection, there’s ‘Inca Jewels,’ a South American sunflower that comes in a range of colors, from bright yellow and gold to orange, burgundy and bicolored bronze.
* Thompson & Morgan, P.O. Box 1308, Jackson, NJ 08527, (800) 274-7333. Free catalog.
This nursery carries a wide variety of unusual flowers, including Campanula takesimana, a perennial from Korea with glossy green foliage and creamy, bell-shaped flowers that are faintly speckled with purple and pink on the outside and spotted maroon within.
For a different kind of celosia, there’s ‘Flamingo Feather’ (C. spicata). This has 4- to 5-inch rose and deep pink flower spikes atop 24-inch-tall stems. It also carries a variety of passion flowers, including ‘Wing-Stem’ (alata), which is a climber growing up to 15 feet. The sweet-scented 4-inch flowers are purple, white and crimson and flower spring through autumn. It produces edible fruit.
* Wayside Gardens, 1 Garden Lane, Hodges, SC 29695, (800) 845-1124, https://www.waysidegardens.com. Free catalog.
This garden company offers a wide variety of stunning flowers. Among their early spring-blooming Oriental poppies (Papaver oriental), you’ll find ‘White King,’ which has large white flowers and a black and maroon center.
‘Indian Pink’ (Spigelia marilandica) is a rare plant with dainty, tubelike red flowers topped by yellow stars that sit atop 15- to 18- inch stems. The miniature hollyhock “Elsie Heugh” is rare. It has delicate fringed shell pink flowers from early to midsummer on 2- to 2 1/2-foot-tall plants.
* W. Atlee Burpee & Co., Warminster, PA 18974, (800) 888-1447, https://www.burpee.com. Free catalog.
This company may be well-known for its vegetable seeds and plants, but it also carries a wide variety of stunning flowers, including some heirloom varieties, to which an entire catalog is devoted.
The cosmos ‘Pied Piper’ has an unusual red-fluted flower with a yellow center. It grows to 3 feet.
Clianthus formosus is a spreading Australian native that makes a good plant for edging or hanging baskets. It has stunning red and black flowers and looks very tropical.
The euphorbia ‘Golden Spurge’ is a drought-tolerant plant with bright yellow bracts in spring that turn to a glowing bronze-red come fall.
