Fraser’s Thimble Farm 175 Arbutus Rd. Salt Spring Island, B.C. V8K 1A3 Canada Ph/ Fax(250) 537-5788 Specializing in Native, Rare and Unusual Plants at www.thimblefarms.com Hours of Operation: th February 12 Through June: Open 9am-4:30pm daily July through August Open 9am-4:30pm Tuesday through Saturday (Phone for Sunday and Monday openings during this time or check the website for closed days.) th September through February 12 : Open 9am-4:30pm Tuesday through Saturday Welcome to our 2013 catalogue. The hoarding continues and has reached new heights! 2012 was a great year for new plants and we have added extensively to our collections of Hardy Orchids, Hellebores, Ferns and Double Hepaticas as well as many other plant introductions throughout the catalogue for this year. We are growing more Hellebores than we thought we ever would with many new selections being so much better than we imagined hellebores could be. It is worth checking out our Hellebore image galleries on the website or on Facebook. We are madly getting ready for Spring and Helleborganza.Even now the number of flower buds pushing up out of the ground is exciting. We will have special hellebore draws available for groups, gardens clubs and bus tours from February 16th to March 30th. Please let us know if you have a group coming to the nursery. Once again we had to slash and hack to get our catalogue to fit into the magical 88 pages that it is. The weight of the catalogue is only a couple of grams away from the postage costs more than doubling which is why over the years, we have reduced the print size, removed many groups of plants and reduced the length of descriptions. With this in mind, it is likely that this will be the last year we offer a printed paper catalogue. By going strictly with the website we can offer a much wider selection of plants and have little restriction on the length of our descriptions or the number of images. We are also using Facebook as a way of offering an early look into what’s new and what’s coming in the future as well as what’s going on in the Nursery. So, we hope you will join us on facebookeven if you don’t use it yourself. We would like to offer a PDF version of the Catalogue via email as well as occasional emailsabout new offerings. If you would like to receive these emails please see the instructions on page two. New plants will be posted on our Facebookpage as well as a new page on our web site called ‘New Plants’ before being posted in the main listing of the website. This way we will be able to post new plants throughout the year. Our first major event in 2013 will be ‘Helleborganza’(Hellebores), February 16th-24 th. Helleborganza is our celebration of hellebores and other early blooming perennials including species snowdrops, winter aconites, adonis, double hepaticas and bulbocodium to name a few. We’ve clearly become hellebore crazy as do most people when they see the incredible diversity in both blooms and foliage at a time of year when we can all use more colour in our gardens. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the dedicated hellebore breeders around the world who have toiled over the last twenty odd years to bring us so many fine plants. Last year the display of blooms at Helleborganza was impressive and the event itself was a stunning success. We are extremely excited about the plants this year and our new introductions. We have more than doubled the number of bloom sized plants and display area. For the first time we will see many varieties bloom that we’ve only seen pictures of. The event will run over 10 days this year as every day more and more plants come into bloom. As we did last year, we will also offer an assortment of smaller and larger plant sizes. Please see our website, www.thimblefarms.com for mouth watering pictures. Our second event will be ‘Growing Native’(Native Plants), May 1st-7th and we will offer 20% off native plants during this week. This event is designed to feature and promote the use of native plants. We grow a vast array of pacific northwest and North American native plants. This year we’ll be hosting the event in our growing area and hopefully we’ve timed it to catch the peak of the blooming season for many of our favourite wildflowers. Check the events page on our website. Our third event held in conjunction with Growing Native is Orchidmania. The number of hardy ground orchids has exploded and we would like gardeners to become more familiar with these beauties. The hybrids are very easy to grow and make a valuable and unique addition to the garden. We also have many species for the purist, some of which are easy to grow and some are not. All ground orchids will be 10% off during this week. There are new plant introductions scattered throughout the catalogue in almost every group of plants we grow. In fact we had so many new plants, it was very hard to fit them in the allotted space. Please keep in mind we have thousands more plants available at the nursery, so if possible, come and visit us. We would like to thank our customers , staff and suppliers for another great year. Thank you, Richard and Nancy Fraser 1 Fraser’s Thimble Farm 175 Arbutus Rd. Salt Spring Island, B.C. V8K 1A3 Canada Ph/ Fax(250) 537-5788 Specializing in Native, Rare and Unusual Plants at www.thimblefarms.com Email list Get on our email list! This is likely our last printed catalogue. If you would like to receive our catalogue as a pdf via email, please send an email to [email protected] with ‘pdf catalogue’ in the subject header. If you would like to receive periodic updates on the new plants available, email [email protected] with ‘New plants’ in the subject header. The advantages to being on the email list is that you will be alerted to additions to our plant offerings. By changing to an email and web site only catalogue we will be free to offer more plants to our customers more often. Thank you, Richard and Nancy Fraser Coming to the Nursery? The fastest way is a ferry from Table of Contents Tsawwassen ( Near Vancouver) to Hardy Orchids ............................................................................ 3 Ferns ......................................................................................... 10 Swartz Bay( Near Victoria) then Perennial Plants......................................................................... 17 another from Swartz Bay to Fulford Grasses and grass like plants and Bamboo................................ 71 Shrubs ....................................................................................... 73 Harbour ( Salt Spring). This is not Vines......................................................................................... 80 your only option as there are three Helleborganza & all things Hellebore..………………………...39 ferry routes to SaltSpring Island so Deciduous and Evergreen Trees............................................... 81 Mail Order Information ........................................................ 85-88 for Ferry information phone Where is Thimble Farms? ...................................................... 1&2 1-888-223-3779 Spring Sale................................................................................ 80 Or go to www.bcferries.com What to do when my order arrives ............................................ 84 Native Plant Weekend and Orchidmania .................................. 84 Table I. Hardiness Zones used in this catalogue. Temperatures are average winter lows. Fahrenheit Zone Celsius ___________________________________ below -50 1 below -45 -50 to -40 2 -45 to -40 -40 to -30 3 -40 to -34 -30 to -20 4 -34 to -29 -20 to -10 5 -29 to -23 -10 to 0 6 -23 to -17 0 to 10 7 -17 to -12 10 to 20 8 -12 to -7 20 to 30 9 -7 to -1 30 to 40 10 -1 to 5 2 Hardy Orchids Bletilla `Penway Princess’ (formosana x yunnanensis) $15.99ea Hardy Orchids Z5-6. Light rose pink sepals and petals, darker on the reverse. Lip spotted red and yellow with purple red margin. This includes a diverse group of ground orchids from around the world. Some of these groups are relatively easy to grow like the Bletilla `Sunset’ (szetschuanica x ochracea) .......................$19.00ea Bletilla and Pleiones and some are more challenging like the Z 5-6. Light yellow petals and sepals, sometimes with pink on reverse. Cypripediums. The cultural requirements for most of these orchids are Lip yellow with light purple front margin. Tip of column also light similar. They require well drained but moist soil when in active purple. Few available for fall 2013. growth and excellent (almost dry) drainage in the winter when dormant. Light shade or partial sun works well. Bletilla are more Bletilla `Yokohama’ (striata x formosana)..........................$12.99ea tolerant of varying soil conditions and require more sun than other Z 5-6. Pale lilac petals and sepals, throat yellow with lilac markings. species. Makes a nice clump in only a few years. Amerorchis rotundifolia.. Round-leaved Orchis $29.00ea Bletilla Yokahama Kate .................................................... $12.00ea Native. Ht. 10-25cm. Z3. Lovely single rounded leaves. Produces Ht. 50-100cm. Z5. A vigorous selection with light pink flowers with flower spikes with white flowers with red-purple spots on the lip. yellow markings on the lips and a darker pink trim. Forms a colony over time. Plant in semishade with good moisture, usually grows on sphagnum or forest duff. Naturally small rhizome. Calanthe Bletilla This is a large group of hardy and semi-hardy ground orchids from This is a wonderful group of easy to grow hardy ground Orchids. Asia. Most can be grown in the garden but the frost tender species These are best planted 5cm deep in light shade to full sun in a well should be brought indoors.