Rare Flowering Plants

Many plants chosen for this list are floriferous, compact selections that are well suited to container culture. Most of our plants are grown from cuttings or division, thus retaining the superior qualities of each variety, qualities that make many of these plants superior to those currently available in the mail-order trade.


Most of the plants listed in this section of the catalog are excellent indoor/outdoor and greenhouse plants; most are also fine outdoor plants here in Vista, California and other mild winter climates. Nearly all of our mail-order stock in this section is grown outdoors during the shipping season, so that they may be placed directly outdoors in summer without fear of "post greenhouse shock". Because they are mostly subtropical by nature, they are more tolerant of a variety of temperatures and humidity than true tropical plants, a fact that makes most of them good houseplants as well.

Indoors, they need plenty of light to flower well; outdoors, part shade is usually best, especially where humidity is low. Beyond that, they need only basic plant care, including regular feeding and frequent tip pinching to promote healthy, bushy growth and maximum flowering. The rewards are many, including the finest flowers in the world for floral arrangements.

In the listings that follow, the plant family is given. Cold hardiness may be listed in degrees Fahrenheit as a guide to outdoor growing. However, temperatures listed are minimums which plants can tolerate for a short time only, as very few subtropicals will withstand sustained hard frosts. Over much of the South and West, careful attention to basic frost protection measures on cold nights can make your garden much more subtropical than weather records might otherwise indicate.