My annual Far Reaches Farm order, and baby's tears

As I mentioned in Wednesday's post, when I saw the little pot of Soldanella alpina Tim had purchased from Far Reaches Farm I knew I had to have it, and now I do! Those little green leaves and the red stems, yep, they spoke to me. The description from the FRF website: Soldanellas completely bewitch us with their dual charms of excellent evergreen foliage and incredibly cute flowers.  When these little guys flower, we just smile because this is such a little overachiever with its lavender fringed flowers in April.  Reddish leaf petioles and leaf undersides are subtle allure. 

The flowers really are pretty cute, click on over to their website to see them for yourself.

Last year's Far Reaches order was all about the Polygonatum, aka Solomon's seal. I bought three, sadly one didn't return after winter. The survivors are Polygonatum vietnamicam and Polygonatum mengtzense. I thought I'd add to that collection with a false Solomon's seal; Maianthemum tatsienense.

It's looking pretty sad now, but I have high hopes for the future, here's what they have to say about it: False Solomon Seal. This Chinese species is one of our favorites in the shade garden and we delight in its ribbed leaves with elegantly understated small violet daubing at the base of each leaflet followed by the precise detail in the small greenish flowers. In the late summer into fall, it has strut-your-stuff full heads of bright orange fruit that just makes us shake our heads in amazement. 

I borrowed this flower photo from the FRF website, they have another of the fruit, here.

As anyone who has mail ordered plants knows, you really need to order more than one or two plants to make the shipping charges work for you, so I didn't stop at just two. Meet Leuzea conifera...

Now click here to see it's freaky little cone flowers. I pray I can keep it alive and happy until I get those flowers in my garden: Pinecone Thistle.  Pretty cool 6"-12" tall plant from dry pine woods and wastelands in southern Europe and northern Africa.  The spineless gray-green, thistle-like leaves, are felted gray-white underneath and are a perfect accompaniment to the art project flowers.  Tufts of filamentous purplish flowers erupt from hefty cones of overlapping, feathered brown scales.  Beautiful conversation plant for the rock garden and while perennial, it is short-lived, so save some seeds.

Next up, meet Lepisorus cf. macrosphaerus MD 15-09...

Epiphytic fern did you say? I'm all over it, description: Fern fans we are, fern experts we are not, but we continue to chip away at the imposing taxonomic massif of Pteridphyta in hopes of becoming somewhat conversational in Fern.  Currently, we can ask the equivalent of where the restroom is and order beer when talking Asian ferns. This is a creeping fern with long, thin rhizomes ideally suited for weaving through shallow moss on shaded rock faces with small orbicular-ovate evergreen leaves.  This should be reasonably hardy as Acer griseum was growing a short distance away. Proceeds from this offering go to support the mission of Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.

I'm currently thinking I may expand this rocky, mossy planting to include the lepisorus but we'll see.

So what about those baby's tears? Well, Andrew and I recently spent several days at the beach, this sweet dripping patch of Soleirolia soleirolii (baby's tears) was growing right in front of where we parked and the steps up to our room. 

This was the second time we've stayed at this hotel, the first time being in April of 2022. I remembered the plant from that visit and wanted to nip a small chunk to take home with me, I have a spot for it where I think it might winter over (it's a Zone 9 plant, my garden isn't quite that warm). As confident as I was that nobody would notice a 2" clump missing I also didn't want to be that person, so I went into the hotel office to ask the owner if he'd mind. The next thing I knew he was digging out a plastic plant pot and a small yogurt container and potting up plants for me. Plant people are the best! (more photos from the beach next week)

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