Asclepias tuberosa -- Perennial Plant of 2017 -- and much more!

Asclepias tuberosa -- Perennial Plant of 2017
And many other new picks at Arrowhead!

We've just added a bunch of new plants to the online catalog, including Asclepias tuberosa, voted 'perennial plant of 2017' by the Perennial Plant Association.

You can check out our complete listing over on our shopping cart. There's guaranteed to be something new and interesting you don't have yet! Here's a little picture-tour of some of what's new for this fall:

Asclepias tuberosa will get quite large in the garden

Asclepias Tuberosa (click to view on our store)
Voted perennial plant of 2017 by the PPA

I expect a flood of new coverage on this perennial in gardening and horticulture magazines this year. Place an order soon if you want to ensure you can get one!

A. tuberosa closeup

A. tuberosa is a must have if your tastes run to the bright colors. Tops out at about 18 inches, with masses of warm-colored flowers in late Summer from orange, orange-red to buttery yellow. As we said, one of the favorite food plants of the Monarch butterfly -- if you grow it, the butterflies will come. Like any milkweed, A. tuberosa is not particularly hard to grow. We recommend good drainage and full sun, but a little bit of shade won't kill it either.

A. tuberosa's range of colouring

Asperula sintensii (click to view on our store)

Asperula sintensii

Wonderfully compact rock-garden plant with soft pink flowers. Don't think you can go wrong with this one.

Asperula sintensii closeup

Dracocephalum austriacum: (click to view on our store)

Dracocephalum austriacum in our trial beds

Dracocephalum austriacum is a very rare species growing in rocky habitats. Foot high with scapes whorled in blue violet dragonheads. The general area of distribution includes alpine ranges from central to south-eastern Europe, down to Turkey and Greece where it is considered an endangered species.

Dracocephalum austriacum

Dracocephalum austriacum

Dracocephalum ruyschianum: (click to view on our store)

Also known as Nordic Dragonhead, grows between 16" to 24" tall, and forms neat bushlets of attractive foliage. Strikingly blue flowers and very tidy, easy to take care of. Hardy up to zone 5. Can't go wrong with this one.

closeup of Dracocephalum ruyschianum

Lindera benzoin: (click to view on our store)

Lindera benzoin

Just like the Asclepias, we have another wonderful butterfly plant here in L. benzoin. Commonly called Spicebush, this is the main food plant of the Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly (some pictures are here on the blog). The promethea silkmoth will also flock (literally) to L. benzoin. Wonderfully fragrant yellow flowers that open early in spring to welcome the butterflies, before even having fully leafed out, and in autumn the Spicebush produces eye catching scarlet berries. Easily growable across zones 4 to 9.

Lindera benzoin, autumn

Lindera benzoin closeup

Swallowtail larva, easily attracted by growing Lindera benzoin

More Spicebush Swallowtail larva

The above caterpillars are those of the Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly. These caterpillars absolutely love to eat Lindera benzoin, as if it wasn't a cool enough shrub already!

Origanum sipyleum: (click to view on our store)

Origanum sipyleum

Collected in the Sultan Dagh mountains (Turkey) at 2000m, with cushions of bluish aromatic leaves and sprays of semi-pendant greenish bracts that encase the pale, long-tubed flowers.

Origanum sipyleum

Scutellaria alpina: (click to view on our store)

Scutellaria alpina closeup

Scutellaria altisima: (click to view on our store)

Scutellaria altisima

Scutellaria alpina 'Arco-Baleno': (click to view on our store)

Scutellaria alpina 'Arco-Baleno'

Scutellaria alpina 'Arco-Baleno' closeup

That's just the tip of the iceberg, more new additions this year include:

• Penstemon arenicola
• Penstemon caryi
• Penstemon albidus (lavender)
• Campanula persicifolia wild form
• Scutellaria alpina 'Arco-Baleno'
• Clematis integrifolia lavender
• Clematis integrifolia pink
• Draba brunifolia
• Dianthus freynii
• Carex berggrenii
• Jasione orbicularis
• and many more on our website!

Click to visit the Arrowhead Alpines online store for all these listings and many more. The weather is beginning to cool and the fall nursery season will be upon us shortly!

Speaking of which, don't forget to check out our BULK woodland wildflowers this upcoming fall. We always have a huge selection of rare trilliums, and many other native wildflowers that are usually hard to buy in large quantities. If you need to cover a wide area with hundreds of wildflowers, we've got you covered. Click the link above for more!.

If you're out of ideas for what to plant this season, we can help. Ordering one of our plant collections can help take some of the work out of planning your next garden project. We've got a wide range of categories to choose from, and will further specialize our picks based on any conditions you can give us.

Here's a look at some of our collections:

Shade Garden Collection: (click here for more details)

Shade gardens make for some of the most special, relaxing spots you can create. Ferns, Hellebores, wildflowers, all necessities for the understory of a shade garden -- and we have quite the selection. We can make some great choices for any low-light environment you may have. Available in quantities of 12, 24, or 36 shade plants.

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Sun Garden Collection: (click here for more details)

If you have a particularly sunny spot in the garden in need of some help, we've got what you need. Place your order and leave some notes for us in the comments, and we can make some great picks while you can enjoy the fun parts -- planting and enjoying the results. Available in quantities of 12, 24, or 36 sun-loving plants.

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Trough Garden Collection: (click here for more details) 

Troughs are always a treat to plant. Much like a miniature rock garden, but one big plus is you have complete control over the soil, positioning for light, drainage, and other environmental variables. If a stone trough is hard to come by, don't forget wood makes a fine material for troughs too. Available in very small, small, medium, or large.

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Rock Garden Collection: (click here for more details)

This is a great choice if you're interested in getting started with rock gardening, or for the experienced as well. We can tailor our picks to each gardener either way. If you can find a good source of tufa, or limestone, or any number of beautiful choices for rocks, stones, and boulders, it can be a very rewarding experience to start to fill in the rock garden. Comes in quantities of 18, 36, or 54 plants.

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Primula Collection: (click here for more details) 

If you want spectacular flowers look no further. These are some of the P. allionii hybrids that have popped up at Arrowhead, and they come in a fantastic range of colors. Excellent tolerance of the summer heat and non-fussy plants overall. Comes in an assortment of six or twelve Primulas.

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Sempervivum Collection: (click here for more details)

There's something very simple and lovely about Sempervivums. There is the rather fascinating evolutionary trait in the arachnoideum species that scares off insects by imitating the look of spider webs. For the rock garden, they're certainly among the most frost tolerant succulents (the name itself is a reference to how relatively indestructible they are). Comes in quantities of 6, 12, or 24, but as they spread they're extremely easy to divide and you'll almost certainly have more then you know what to do with.

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Crevice Garden Collection: (click here for more details)

32 plants designed to fill vertical crevices in a rock garden. Rock gardens built on a slope, with long crevices provide the best environment for this collection.

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Fairy Garden/Miniature Landscape: (click here for more details) 

Selected to create the illusion of size in a small package. Includes a bunch of miniature alpines with either a dwarf conifer or small shrub. Your choice of small, medium, or large quantity.

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Tempted by any of these collections? Want to place an order? Visit our online store. If you have any questions about our collections, or anything else, please email us here.

Rare Woodland Wildflowers available now - extremely limited supply

We've got our hands on some exceedingly rare woodland wildflowers for sale -- all native to the eastern US. These are first come, first serve, in limited supply! Many of these species have rarely seen widespread circulation in the nursery business before.

Our supply is limited, so if you like what you see here, head on over to our shopping cart and snap yours up before someone else does!

Click picture to view on our store.

Trillium pusillum:

An extremely rare species of Trillium with flowers in white to soft pink and flowing, undulate petal margins. For as rare as this Trillium is, it's very easy to grow, and germinates easily from seed, reaching maturity quickly.

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Click picture to view on our store.

Actaea pachypoda:

In late summer this easy-to-grow, deer resistant native woodland perennial produces big clusters of beautiful, long-lasting (if the birds aren't too hungry) white berries each with a small black spot on them which gives them the slightly creepy, but descriptive, common name of “Doll's Eyes.”

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Click picture to view on our store.

Goodyera pubescens:

One of the most unusual and beautiful of our native orchids. The flowers aren't much to write home about – small, white, but the evergreen foliage is absolutely gorgeous, dark green overlaid with a network of bright white veins. Easier to grow than many orchids, best in shaded woodland conditions.

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Click picture to view on our store.

Cyprepideum aucale:

The iconic and elusive pink lady slipper. Not easy, but growable in the right conditions. Acidic, humus-rich woodland soil will be your best bet. Very rare.

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Click picture to view on our store.

Trillium wallpolei/billingtonii:

These are seed grown plants from a population collected here in Michigan years back. The land was slated to be cleared for a parking lot, but this selection was collected first. A very unique flower that loves to form strong clumps in the garden -- and something I don't think you'll ever find at another nursery. As for the name, the taxonomy is a little grey but it's now considered to be a hybrid between the northern T. flexipes and T. erectum.

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Click picture to view on our store.

Panax quinquefolium:

American Ginseng, much in demand for use in herbal medicine, and well worth growing for the very show bright red berries in the late summer and fall. Becoming rare in the wild due to unscrupulous collecting, and very rarely available in nurseries because it is slow to propagate, so if you want it, snap it up, as this will be one of your few chances.

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All of these beautiful, rarely seen species are available here, at the Arrowhead Alpines online store. Spring is nearly here, and that means the time to get your wildflower orders in is now! We can guarantee that what we have on sale today, you won't find in your neighbor's garden, nor at any local garden center.

Don't forget, while checking out these new specials that the deadline for placing an order for any of our BULK woodland wildflowers is rapidly approaching -- if you require Spring delivery especially. Orders for Spring delivery on the BULK wildflowers must be placed before March 7th! It's a great time to bundle together an order for some of our bulk wildflowers and some from our rare limited wildflower sale.

Click here to shop at Arrowhead Alpines!