Omphalodes cappadocica seems to love it here. Seedlings pop up all over the garden in shaded positions. I have seen the fairly big seeds being dragged along by ants.
Sown ten years ago from wild-collected seed via the AGS, the extremely slow-growing
Rhodothamnus chamaecistus is finally showing its full potential. The flower buds are formed in the autumn and in previous years they would often fail to open in the spring. This winter I covered the plants with a pane of plastic and all the buds survived to open this month. To my delight, one of the seedlings that had always failed to flower turned out to have almost white flowers with faint pinkish stripes in the centre. The plant on the right has the more usual pink colour. Although this grows on limestone in the wild, it must be cultivated like a dwarf Rhododendron, in a well-drained acidic mix that should not dry out.
Shortia uniflora is a jewel among the woodlanders but not easy to keep going in the open garden (at least in my garden). It does better in a large pot with gritty ericaceous compost that is kept out of the sun but not in deep shade. The flowers are more pinkish than they appear to be in this photo.
