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February 2007
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April 2007

March 2007

Top selling container and patio plants

Pelargoniumaristolavender One of Britain’s top suppliers of container and patio plants has released news of this years early season trends. Delamore Young Plants sell plugs to growers who grow them on and sell finished plants to retail nurseries and garden centers. So the trends in Delamore’s sales now will determine what appears on sale to gardeners later in spring.

After last summer’s drought in Britain, sales drought tolerant plants are on the up. Lavender sales are up 22%, with interest very strong in the newer introductions, and geraniums (pelargoniums, that is) are up an astonishing 34% with the Aristo Series bred by PAC-Elsner doing especially well. They also say that this the first year when sales of zonal pelargoniums have overtaken sales of ivy-leaved types. Sales of impatiens are down 5%, consistent with the drought theory.

Basket plants are up 25%, with bacopas, diascias, nemesias and torenias up while petunia sales are down slightly. Callibrachoas are still selling well, but the well-established Million Bells are now being overtaken by the impressive new Noa Series, bred by Danziger in Israel.Callibrachoanoaorangeeye

Delamore also sell perennials which are still on the rise, especially the more expensive varieties from tissue-culture. Amongst climbers passion flowers and honeysuckles also selling well.

The surprise, given the drought theory, is that sales of fuchsias are up 23% with ‘Lady Boothby’, the “new” “climbing” fuchsia selling especially well. Just to be clear, ‘Lady Boothby’ was first introduced in 1939, it was named for the founder of the British Fuchsia Society.

Fuchsialadyboothby And it doesn’t climb, like a clematis or morning glory, it’s just unusually vigorous and has often been trained on a wall in a greenhouse or conservatory. It’s also one of the hardier fuchsias, though it was not considered though sufficiently good to receive an award in either the Royal Horticultural Society trials of 1978 or 2005.

Just shows what some inspired marketing of an old plant can achieve!


Snowdrops escaping from gardens – in the UK and USA

Snowdropsditch500 A friend in England has sent me this lovely picture of some snowdrops which she came across – let’s just say somewhere in eastern England. For while most snowdrop enthusiasts have impeccable ethics, such is the lure of the snowdrop these days that there are one or two fanatics who, if I gave the location, would be down there with a trowel in no time.

This mossy ditch is on a rather run down country estate where the huge house is falling into disrepair. Snowdrops have, at some point over the last few hundred years, been discarded from the garden – that is to say, thrown over the fence – and have settled down comfortably alongside the road and hybridised with each other to create a fascinating range of types: tall and short, early and late, large-flowered and small and with a wide variation of foliage and flower shapes.

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Hellebores from Marietta O’Byrne

Helleborusballerina Marietta O’Byrne is known the world over as one of the most meticulous of hellebore breeders and one who has created many stunning plants. You can see them here. But, until now, her plants have only been available in limited numbers to callers at the nursery in Eugene, OR.

This season, for the first time, they’re being marketed to growers via TerraNova Nurseries and so before long, when growers have turned the seedlings into flowering plants, they’ll find their way into nurseries where we can all buy them.Helleborusbrushstrokes_1

There are three available so far. Brushstrokes is a single flowered mix in a wide range of colors, many beautifully spotted, painted or blotched. Mellow Yellow is a mix of primrose and buttercup yellow shades, with a few lovely surprise apricots, many spotted or picoteed.

And finally, Ballerina is a mix of double flowered plants from almost black to pure white with every possible hellebore color in between – some spotted, some picoteed and some in pure shades.

Helleborusmellowyellow It’s a great treat that at last plants from one our great hellebore breeders will be more widely available. Look out for them. When I find good mail order suppliers selling them, I'll let you know. And don’t forget, we all love them but the deer don’t.


The ice storm cometh…

Icestorm3500I looked out of the window a couple of hours ago this morning, back here in Pennsylvania, and every twig, every leaf was covered with ice. The temperature was just below freezing and it was raining steadily. The frozen rain covered everything - including our three 30ft birch trees.

The weight of the ice has arched the trunks so that the top of one almost touches the ground.Icestorm2500 The other two are arching over the single storey house, just touching the roof. They will never be straight again. And the area of garden which they shade will change this season as who knows where they will lean as they recover.

Icestorm4500 It’s now just after 9.00am and the temperature has crept above freezing, so the dripping as begun and the load is lightening, ever so slightly, every second. All the shrubs, weighed down in the same way, are also inching slowly back towards normal. And perhaps the phone lines – also, of course, encased in ice, - will be spared collapse under the weight.

The garden will certainly be different this season.


Tulip tree, Hemingway and six-toed cats in Florida

Spathodeacampanulata500 A brief dash to the Florida Keys for some sun (60F warmer than Pennsylvania) and relaxation brings us to Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West. (For the benefit of Brits, Key West is the southernmost point of Florida, just 80 miles across the sea from Cuba, at the tip of the long string of islands – The Keys - extending in a westerly curve from just south of Miami).

The Hemingway House is where Death in the Afternoon, Green Hills of Africa, To Have And Have Not and For Whom The Bell Tolls were written and is well worth a visit. Not only to see the writing studio and the wonderful house - his wife had the ceiling fans taken out so she could display her collection of chandeliers – but also to see its population of 49 six-toed cats – all named. (There's a live Cat-Cam on the website but it doesn’t always seem to work.)Gingersixtoed500

However, this is a horticultural blog and one of the striking things about the grounds is that many of the more significant trees, like this African tulip tree (Spathodea campanulata), are labeled. And not with hand-written tags but using sturdy an easy-to-read engraved labels.

This African tulip tree is higher than the house and although battered by hurricanes still makes a fine show, its red or yellow flowers opening for a few days each all the year round. Originally from Tropical Africa, the tree has been planted in Florida as a shade or street tree and its wind blown seeds have allowed it to become established in the wild. It’s considered invasive in Hawaii. One odd thing about this tree: the banana-shaped flower buds are filled with water and can be made to squirt like a water pistol.

Oh… and we’ve been out fishing of course with yellow tail snapper, Spanish mackerel, blue runners, all getting past the log-size barracuda as they waited for us to provide them with dinner . And there was the grouper that got away after a twenty minute battle – there’s always one.