This year's hard-to-find plants

Most of the things I've either planted or bought to plant this year were available from lots of different sources. But there were two that were actually quite hard to track down, for reasons that I don't really understand. This year's hard-to-find plants were:

Hablitzia Tamnoides 'Caucasian Spinach'

This plant is a relative of the goosefoot family, and is therefore related to food plants like Good King Henry. Its supposed advantages are that it grows rapidly, producing lots of edible leaves early in the season, it's relatively shade tolerant, and it's perennial. See here for an article written by a fan.

But while growing Good King Henry from seed is easy, this plant is an odd combination of popular and impossible to obtain. On the one hand, it has a group of fans so keen that they've set up a facebook fan group called Friends of Hablitzia Tamnoides, the Caucasian Spinach. On the other hand, the RHS plant finder only knows of three places that sell the plant, and at least one of them no longer sells it.

Luckily, one of those places was Cool Temperate, which I've bought plants from before. Unluckily, when I contacted Phil he told me that the only plants he had had been waterlogged by the wet weather to the point of death. Since I had no other source, I bought one anyway, hoped, and this happened in the last few days:

Hablitzia Tamnoides 'Caucasian Spinach'

Aralia Cordata 'Udo'

Udo, also called 'mountain asparagus', is apparently a popular perennial vegetable in Japan. As the alternative name suggests, the shoots are eaten in spring. Despite its popularity there, and its shade tolerance (a rare quality in vegetables), it is almost impossible to buy here in the UK. And when it is available, it is only available in the form 'Sun King', a variety chosen to look nice in shady corners.

I eventually found a plant supplier called Norwell Nurseries within striking distance who sold the 'Sun King' variety. It's now started growing too, and I've got the perfect spot for it in the shady area north of the garage. I just hope that the ornamental 'Sun King' variety is as good for eating as the varieties grown in Japan.

Aralia Cordata 'Sun King'

Elaeagnus Multiflora - Goumi

Goumi is a medium sized shrub that produces small red edible fruits. Its main advantage is that it falls into the small class of shrubs that:

1. Fix nitrogen without growing too large

2. Also produce something edible

In a medium sized garden, there isn't a lot of space available to be devoted to exclusively nitrogen-fixing plants, so a multi-purpose plant is a great find. Most other fruiting nitrogen fixing shrubs are a bit on the big size - examples of larger plants would be other members of the Elaeagnus family (e.g. Autumn Olive), or Sea Buckthorn.

The problem is that, while better fruiting forms have been selected, getting hold of them in the UK is hard. If you google the most common improved varieties, 'Sweet Scarlet' and 'Red Gem', you'll find hundreds of sellers in the US and basically none in the UK. In fact, in the UK is hard to even find people selling unimproved varieties. This despite the fact that according to PFAF it will bear fruit heavily here. I guess that the mainstream has yet to be convinced about the benefits of nitrogen fixing plants.

The only seller of 'Sweet Scarlet' that I know of in the UK is Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust. And he obviously can't meet demand, since I tried to order 3 and he only had one left to send! Next year I might order another one...

The Goumi in my garden - guarded by mesh just in case!