having already received at least six, seven, eight new plant and seed
catalogs , yesterday's perennial catalog from a nice little nursery from the
Ohio valley area was nicely appreciated. Bluestone Perennials is always a
bit more affordable than the more expensive plants and bulbs and what not
from White Flower Farm and Wayside Gardening and Heronswood.

That's not to say I'll never be able to buy anything from WFF, or WG or H.
(and their selection is incredible as they trek into Asia in search for
seeds and cuttings of new varieties and I believe that if they ship to
Canada and British Columbia, they might be able to ship elsewhere) I keep
some of the better catalogs. Especially the ones that are entertaining,
educating and informative in regards to my passion with horticulture. I am
proud of my six years of Heronswood Nursery catalogs, and only hate that
I've missed 14 years past inspirational reading and discovering and
learning.

In the flavor of the season, I will quote a passage out of the 2005 catalog,
page 148, at the top of the page under Corydalis:

"If one would might convey the effects brought to the garden from the genus
of Corydalis, I would consider bejeweled. With spurred and scented flowers
of sapphire blue, topaz, pearl and tourmaline, they provide the garden a
rarified fihish and finess without the demands their delicate appearance
might suggest. Nor is it just within the confines of the benign gardening
climate of the Pacific Northwest that these baubles shine, but across much
of North America including the blazingly hot challenge of the high plains.
For the trough, full-sun border or woodland, they are indeed the treasures
of the spring and summer garden.

P.S. Want Richness? Plant Corydalis. Want More? Make Diane Laird's
Baccardi Rum Cake: 1 cup chopped pecans, 18.5 oz. yellow cake mix, 3 1/4 oz
package vanilla instant pudding, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup Wesson or good corn
oil, 1/2 cup Barcardi dark rum, 1 diet coke or coke for rum with coke while
making cake. Mix it all together, except your drink. the Glaze: 1/4 cup
butter, 1/4 cup cold water, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup Barcardi dark rum. Freshen
drink. Bake this in a bundt pan at 325o F for 1 hour. Pour another drink.
Cool and infert on rooling crack. Trick the pop with a poothtrick to make
dure it's shone. Fizzle the fraze over the sop and tides and until the gaze
is all long. This is the darn bestest cake. I could just eat the whole
thang ding."

and to tease you as much as it teased me....underneath that, past five
different types of Corydalis, there was this one: Corydalis leucanthema
'Silver Spectre' DJHC 752 zone 5 depth 2" $10
"My collections of a very pretty, perennial species with large, fretted
copper-green, silver-mottled leaves from which are produced elegant spires
of very fragrant light lavender flowers, each with a deep purple-lavender
lip and throat in very early spring. I found this frowing in a rocky bank
along a creek in Sichuan Province, at 6400' in 1996. This departs the scene
in early summer and will return in autumn for a brief visit in foliage, or
longer if mild temperatures prevail. Papaveraceae W. China "

Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, and Happy Boxing day to all my friends on
the newsgroup across the pond.

marilyn "madgardener" up on the ridge, back in Faerie Holler, overlooking
English Mountain with a crystal blue Douglas Lake just visible at the base
shining upwards, in Eastern Tennessee