A wonderful catalogue from Arrowhead Alpines

I’ve never ordered from Michigan’s Arrowhead Alpines, but if their plants are as good as their extraordinary catalog it’s clear that I should.

This is a very – how shall I put it – individualistic catalog. After all, few alpine nurseries would fill their front cover with the huge blue cones of a Korean fir hybrid (Abies koreana x A. lasiocarpa, no less).

Bob Stewart’s introductory essay rattles along on the subjects of why we garden, why Britney Spears wears no panties, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, North Korean missiles, creating antimatter pairs with lasers, gene splicing, and so on.

There follows a hundred densely printed pages packed to bursting with good plants, many wondrous rarities and many more familiar. There are conifers, shrubs, vines, perennials, wild flowers, bulbs and, of course alpines. You could spend thousands. But it’s not just the extraordinary collection of plants that make this catalog special, there are, I should mention, no pictures except on the cover. It’s the way Bob describes them: On the rarely seen Smilacina bicolor, the quotes the Google translation from the Korean: “The beard root to the genitals is born from the joint”, “both sides flow in lower part and becoming the short leaf sack”, and his favorite: “the flower stalk comes out from the armpit of the gun.” (Fortunately, there’s a picture here for those not sufficiently convinced by this description.)

Elsewhere he remarks: “If one more moron walks up to me holding a Dionysia (a notoriously difficult alpine) and asks “Is this a groundcover” we are going to feed him to the deadly attack vinca. It’s perfect for covering those unsightly disturbed areas where the bodies are buried…” I can see how this must be... exasperating.

And on pokeweed. “It’s my garden and if I want to grow a big ass weed that the birds poop everywhere leaving indelible stains that is my right. Besides, pokeweed is great, you an have lotteries to guess the day it collapses under its own weight.”

It’s all such fun… And running to over 100 pages and almost 200,000 words – for the cost of a free download it’s the bargain of the century. So many great plants: their variegated bramble, Rubus fruticosus ‘Variegatus’, I’ve had my eye on for years.

Please reward these mad people for offering such a great collection, and such great entertainment, by buying their plants.

[Coming up next week, Bob Brown’s equally eccentric, yet informative, catalog for Cotswold Garden Flowers in Worcestershire.]

Comments

[lee vossler]

I am a true believer in the Arrowhead Alpine experience. I look forward to this catalog and visit the nursery often. The amount of different plants at the nursery can almost be mind boggling and a worthwhile journey. My current knowledge of plants was inspired by the Arrowhead alpine catalog. If I wanted to know what I wanted and what would grow in my yard, I had to learn the latin names and my microclimate in order to make the best of my investment in my garden. I am a better gardner because of the Arrowhead Alpine nursery experience

[Tom the Engineer from Brighton]

The only thing I don't like about Arrowhead Alpines is the way time compresses while I'm there. Four or five hours pass by in minutes, and rather than narrowing down my list of likely plants for that spot in my garden I always manage to expand it several times over.

I always go armed with my best plant books (Dirr, Stills, etc) but it's like bringing penknives to a machine-gun fight. The place has been quite an education for me, and Bob, Brigitta and Dawn have been a great help.

I think I may run out there after work today.

[Graham Rice]

Well, Lee and Tom - Arrowhead have obviously had a great impact on your horticultural lives. I've never been there, only enjoyed the catalog, but I'd love to visit one day. It's only 620 miles - which I know is not far by American standards but by British standards it's a hell of a trek. I guess I'm not sufficiently Americanized yet!