In general, gardeners have a very positive and appreciative feeling about delphiniums. Unfortunately, those decades of pleasure - centuries even - is often betrayed by the fact that most delphiniums found in garden centres and nurseries are so disappointing. The problem is that they’re raised from seed, and so few producers of delphinium seed are prepared to spend the time and trouble it takes to keep the quality high.

So we often find that plants of the old Pacific Giants Series (including ‘Blue Jay’ and ‘King Arthur’) and the dwarf Magic Fountains Series have gappy spikes, poorly formed flowers and may not even be true to colour. As I say, it takes a lot of time and effort to keep them true; this is expensive and when the cost is reflected in the price of the seed, many nurseries and home gardeners are reluctant to pay the extra. So we get what we pay for. The Guardian Series, in four colours, and the Centurion Series, in six colours, are more dependable than those old Pacific Giants Series and Magic Fountains but the seed is significantly more expensive.

In New Zealand, delphinium breeder Terry Dowdeswell has concentrated on quality. His New Millennium Series represents the best seed-raised delphiniums you can buy. They're outstanding in terms of the quality of the individual florets, the elegance of the spikes, and you can be confident that if they’re supposed to be blue, or purple, or white – then they will be, with none of the unexpected colors found in other varieties.

In the 2008 trial of delphiniums from seed at the RHS Gardens at Wisley, and in the earlier trial in 1994, the general quality of Terry Dowdeswell’s plants was very noticeably better than that of the more familiar Pacific Giants and Magic Fountains.So try them.

The easiest way for everyone to get hold of these New Millennium delphiniums is to order seed direct from Terry Dowdeswell.

* This is part of a piece entitled Buying Good Delphiniums which appears in the current issue of the Newsletter of the Ranunculaceae Group of the Hardy Plant Society. Anyone with an interest in hardy plants in the Buttercup Family (Ranunculaceae) should join. The second part, on delphiniums propagated from cuttings and tissue culture, will be posted here in June.