Far Reaches Farm "Soft Opening"

When an email arrived in my inbox announcing that Far Reaches Farm in Port Townsend was inviting everyone to their soft opening with "limited offerings", a couple of weekends ago, I jumped at the chance to see what was happening in their spring garden.  There were also many treasures out on the sales tables. "Limited offerings" must have meant limited to the most fabulous and and hard to find plants.  As always, this place was definitely worth the drive, maybe even a flight... Here's a random sampling of some of my favorites.  See my previous posts about FRF here.   If you do a web search for blog post Far Reaches Farm, you'll find that garden bloggers love this magical place and have posted frequently about it.




Peonies look great from the time they emerge from the soil!  Foliage, buds, flowers, seedpods are all terrific!

Meconopsis 'Lingholm'  looking very fat and happy.  Doesn't everyone grow blue poppies? They're so easy here.



 Speaking of blue and gold, Clematis 'Stolwilk gold' has gorgeous gold foliage with these blue flowers.  Mine has yet to flower but the foliage alone has been exciting enough to allow it to stay for the last few years.

 Glaucidium palmatum was named by the Royal Horticultural Society as one of the top 200 plants of the last 200 years!  We are very lucky to be able to grow this woodland gem here! 

From the Far Reaches Website:  "This Japanese woodlander is among the very elite of all plants for shade. Slow to propagate and uncommonly beautiful, a well-grown mature plant is a prized trophy which marks you as a gardener of exquisite taste.  This plant is not often available.    Broad maple-like leaves are the foil for the large 3" light lavender crepe paper Poppy-esque flowers. Cool shade and a woodsy soil that doesn't dry out is ideal for this piece of living botanical art.










Spring is a special time in any garden but here, it's truly amazing.  Far Reaches is pretty much crack for plant addicts.

Where are the shovels?  Isn't this a dig your own sort of nursery? The deeply incised leaves of this Schefflera delavayi have me breaking the tenth commandment and contemplating relaxing number eight a bit, too.  Seriously, though, isn't this cool?



Grevillea australis.  See the description in the photo below.  Who needs T.V. with entertainment like this at one's fingertips?


Familiar cardiocrinum foliage but look at that purple veining... What up with that?  Read the tag below to see.
On the counter by the cash register is always some drool worthy and usually unavailable plant in full bloom or sporting outrageous foliage.  This is clearly there to draw your attention away from the whir of the cash register as your bill is being tallied.  It also refuels  plant lust and  gives you another  reason to return to the nursery many times through the season.  This weekend's siren was Pleione 'Vesuvius Phoenix.'  "Do you really NEED to pay the mortgage this month?' she sings seductively.  "I think you forgot to check out every single table in the shade house.  Maybe you should stay a little longer.  Have you seen how beautiful and unusual everything is here?"  Her dulcet tones - the beautiful surroundings, so tempting to stay...  It's all I can do to grab my plants and run for the car.