Thanks for the warning Lori . I was looking at the beautiful flowers of Stachys  lavandufolia in a catalogue .

It took me several seasons to get rid of Macleaya cordata

After a brief experiment with it in the garden, plume poppy (Macleaya cordata) has earned a place very high up on my Most Invasive Plant list!   I was aware that it was considered invasive but I thought I'd try one anyway and see for myself last summer.  It didn't do much of anything at all last year and this spring, I was even wondering if it had survived... but then yesterday I noticed the distinctive leaves coming up 1-2 feet away from the plant.  Upon starting to dig, I found the roots going out even farther - truly impressive!  I wish I had a confined space for it but lacking that, it's in the composter.

A similar story with Stachys lavandulifolia in the rock garden...  Though the flowers are very beautiful, it seems to have spent most of its energy sending shoots far and wide instead of flowering, so it's been turfed too.  The roots went extremely deep and it will no doubt will keep popping up for some time.

Todd

these are wonderful plants but very mixed up and I think that looks to have some delavayi in it. It should be easy to see when it flowers and the characteristics of those can be seen. There have been many discussions on the SRGC forum as to the identity of individual plants most of which have come via Chen yi. I have raised dozens of plants from different species and all of this group are spectacular. The only problem is they are not self fertile so two clones are needed.

The pleianthum with me grows about three feet tall with leaves two feet across.

That's a lovely plant Tony. Is it a difficult one ? Love the 'Vanilla  Ice Cream' colour.

We've recently made up a 'Terrestrial Orchid bed', especially for the easier grown of this group. This one should be in there  one day, so long as its not too tricky??

Claire

lovely to see most of mine are at an early leaf stage and will not flower until mid June.

here is Dactylorhiza sambucina yellow form in flower with me now. I saw hundreds of these last week in Greece.

Two years ago I picked up a Dysosma pleianthum X veitchii...it is doing very well and for the first time has buds this year.  Hopefully it will be open in the next 2 weeks.  Perfect camouflage foliage!

Great display Rick!  been a while since I've posted...been too busy on the alpine group of facebook.  Here are some shots taken in my garden this morning.  Dpahne retusa and Pieris 'Brouwer's Beauty'

Ditto!  I must move mine into more sun... maybe it can look like that one then!

Yes, I certainly will post photos of Astragalus loanus in bloom, when the time comes.  
Astragalus chloodes - what a strange astragalus!  I can't make out any leaves at all along the petioles. Wow, you have everything, Anne!  

Looking great, Rick!  I love Hacquetia epipactis - what an unusual plant.  Mine look like big green daisies now.  I'm going to start moving seedlings and/or divisions around... moved a seedling a few days ago and it looks fine.  What a magnificent stand of uvularia!

Lucky for you to get P. palmata, Lori.  I saw it in Sechuan in 2007 and wished I had it!  It grew in damp pine woods and lit up the ground.

Lori, your E. howardii is lovely.  If you got it from Beaver Creek you're halyway to success, because Roger's plants are always beautifully grown.
I promised Michael I'd take photos of my E. howardii self-sown seedlings.  I'm enormously pleased with them although I didn't do anything.  The first is three years old and was self sown into nearby tufa.  The next two I just noticed this year.  They're near the tufa but not in it.  The mother plants are in the tufa garden but not planted in the tufa itself.  Also self-sowing is Androsace villosa, just proving that if eventually you find a place where the plant is happy, it will do your work for you.