There’s been an burst of indignation this week on the Yahoo Group devoted to cannas. Nature Hills Nursery has a new “canna” listed – Canna ‘Heather Queen’; it appears amongst their list of other canna varieties. Trouble is, ‘Heather Queen’ is an agastache.

The problem doubtless arose because there’s an Agastache species called Agastache cana (with one n). At some point someone at the nursery probably mis-typed it and then their software has dumped it in with the cannas and no one has bothered to change it. What's more, 'Heather Queen' is not even a cultivar of A. cana, the latest thinking is that it's a hybrid of A. cana and either A. mexicana or A. pallida.

I know, a typing slip is easily made. But someone at a nursery with such a vast range of plants really should have spotted it. Come on folks, does it really look like a canna? Anyway, it’s sold out – so perhaps some canna enthusiasts are in for surprise in the summer. This is the sort of nonsense that puts people off mail order.

Well, there’s been quite a snowstorm in upstate New York this last week, the Weather Channel reported this morning a suspected record of 146in (that’s over 12ft, 5.8m) in Redfield, NY and yesterday the New York Times ran a report on the situation in Oswego, NY. And that’s right where our friends at Seneca Hill Perennials have their wonderful nursery. They’re right in the middle of it – as you can see – although you could say they’ve been let off lightly.

“Amazingly,” owner Ellen Hornig tells me, “the greenhouses are still standing after about 2m of snow... the best part has been the steady stream of inquiries and condolences from friends near and far. But,” she sighed, “I see it's snowing again...”

Have no fear, the nursery will be up and running for the spring shipping season. And, in the meantime, take a look at their smart new website – featuring an amazing 106 newcomers to their catalog. Specialist nurseries like Seneca Hill deserve our support - and especially in times like these.

I skipped over some of the more startling introductions to the new catalog from Wayside Gardens in my last post, so I thought I’d take a look at them now. Their cover plant, the rose Night Owl, is described as a “midnight purple version of the classic climber ‘Sally Holmes’” and it’s certainly a rich and sumptuous shade of purple. Not sure how it relates to the faintly blushed white ‘Sally Holmes’ (with its RHS Award of Garden Merit) though; ‘Sally Holmes’ is a Hybrid Musk of entirely different parentage. Said to be long flowering, disease resistant and clove scented – it sounds gorgeous.

There are two pages new and recent Big Sky echinaceas. We haven’t yet seen the best of these echinaceas in new shades; the coming years will, I’m sure, see them getting better and better. Summer Sky, with pale orange rays shading pinker at the base, is certainly impressive though when I grew it last year I found that it faded as the flowers aged. And at $14.95 for one plant in a 3in pot the latest varieties are not cheap. I’ve news of another stunning new echinacea in a day or two.

I grew Coreopsis ‘Jethro Tull’ last year and it was excellent. This is the best of the new style coreopsis with fluted petals, the edges are rolled together to make a tube. Very pretty, and delightful in small posies, it proved the most stable (others produced a mix of fluted and flat petals) and was long flowering and prolific.

I also like the look of Lonicera nitida ‘Lemon Beauty’, a gold-edged version of the invaluable little evergreen box honeysuckle and there’s nice group of new viburnums, selections of US native species. Viburnum nudum Brandywine, with red fall color and crowded clusters of pink and blue berries looks especially tempting.

There’s been discussion of Geranium ‘Sweet Heidy’ on the Wayside Garden Voices blog. This blog is essentially to let all of us in on the internal discussions of the staff at Wayside. They mention that Heidy is misspelled as Heidi in the catalog, that they have very limited supplies of astilbes this year and that the catalog description for Indigofera ‘Rose Carpet’ is a description of a completely different plant! ‘Sweet Heidy’, by the way, looks to be a pink-tinted variety in the Rozanne style – should be great in a large container.

Lots more goodies… no more time. Check out all the Wayside newcomers here.

British gardeners should start to look for these plants using the RHS PlantFinder online.

What does a garden writer do when he’s confined to bed with the mother of all sinus colds - apart from doze through re-runs of Bonanza and Gunsmoke? He reads. And what does he read? Mysteries and plant catalogs. I picked up a mystery last night – I won’t embarrass the author by naming it; let’s just say that when I came to the line “But Cressi was wrong about in whom the blonde was interested” that was enough…. “wrong about in whom”?! Can you compost paperbacks? His editor needs a little extra training, I think. Or a smack on the head,

So I tossed that aside and picked up the latest catalog from Wayside Gardens and amongst all the flash and colorful newcomers my bleary eye fell on two things: laburnums and orchids.

This year Wayside have added Laburnum anagroides ‘Fastigiata’, an upright form of the very familiar tree known in the US as the Goldenchain Tree and in the UK as the Golden Rain Tree (don’t ask, please). Now an upright laburnum reaching 20ft x 8ft would be great in small gardens or as a street tree and ‘Fastigiata’ is very rarely seen on either side of the pond. Slightly puzzling, though, that in a catalog dazzling with color their picture shows a tree with not a single flower.

Their website features a second, slower growing upright laburnum, Laburnum x watereri ‘Sunspire’, reaching 18ft x 8ft, shown in sparkling color. Not only is this cheaper, $39.95 for a plant in a mysterious “Trade Gallon” pot – a gallon which only contains three quarts! – but this hybrid produces very very few of the poisonous seeds produced by forms of L. anagroides. And ‘Fastigiata’ is listed at $69.95 for a bareroot tree. I know which I’d like to try.

And then there are the lady’s slipper orchids, they list two native US native Cypripedium species and they look absolutely gorgeous. But what, exactly, do you get for your $99.95 – apart from one bareroot plant? Well, C. reginae is one of the easiest lady’s slippers to grow and likes rich, damp soil with a little shade from the midday sun. The plants supplied are nursery-grown, from seed, and certified by CITES, the convention that oversees trade in rare species. Excellent.

They also list C. pubescens, correctly C. parviflorum var. pubescens, which is also relatively easy but needs more shade, takes a drier soil and likes good drainage. “None of those suspect field-collected Orchids here” the website says about C. reginae. Not so about C. pubescens. There’s nothing in the catalog or on the website to say that the plants are nursery grown or certified by CITES – so perhaps these are dug from the wild. If you want to spend a hundred bucks on a lady’s slipper orchid, and they do make spectacular garden plants, you know which one to choose.  British gardeners thinking about trying lady’s slippers should start at the Rare Plants lady’s slipper page.