A couple of interesting sweet pea developments to tell you about.

First of all, the hybrid made by Keith Hammett between the familiar sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus, and L. belinensis (click to enlarge), discovered in Turkey in 1987, has been formally named by RHS botanist Dawn Edwards – Lathyrus x hammettii.

Keith worked for many years using L. belinensis with its yellow and orange flowers, to create a yellow flowered sweet pea – he started by crossing it with ‘Mrs Collier’ - and that work continues. But along the way it has, rather surprisingly, led to the development of some impressive reverse bicolours, sweet peas with the standard paler than the dark wings; ‘Erewhon’, which I discussed here a couple of years ago, is perhaps the best example so far. A full account of these hybrid and their origins was recently published in the Royal Horticultural Society magazine The Plantsman.

The other, perhaps even more startling development, relates to sweet peas as cut flowers. As you can see from the picture (click to enlarge), a Japanese grower has managed to create sweet peas with extraordinarily long stems. I’ve yet to find out quite how they did it – not being fluent in Japanese is, of course, an impediment. But whether it’s new breeding or new growing techniques it would be interesting to know quite how they did it.

Had a jolly time at my niece’s wedding on Saturday up in Woodstock, New York (where the festival famously wasn’t) and, as ever, spotted something of horticultural interest. The bold floral displays at the ceremony featured gladioli in autumnal orange with purple amaranthus and all backed by – burning bush, Euonymus alatus. Click the image to enlarge it and see the foliage more clearly.

It’s not often that we see Euonymus alatus used as cut foliage. It makes a spectacular feature in the landscape with its brilliant fall color and is also being mentioned as a worrying invasive. But not many people have the bright idea of using it for cutting. And one of the appealing things about it is that the older leaves color first so that at along one branch the foliage color changes from purple-tinted green at the tips to puce or brilliant scarlet at the base and this creates possibilities of harmonies with a range of colors.

A feature worth keeping in mind is that many of the plants we grow are seedlings, so no two are exactly the same. The result is that different individual plants reach the peak of their fall color at different times. The foliage from two plants growing side by side in our Pennsylvania garden (right, click to enlarge) shows one at peak of color and one still some way off. This is a great advantage for cutting as it ensures that material is available over a longer period but in the garden, and especially when grown as an informal hedge, a mix of brilliant red and almost green foliage is much less effective than a continuous dazzle of scarlet.

Then, of course, there’s the issue of invasiveness. It grows naturally in China and Japan but planting burning bush is banned in Massachusetts and the plant is cited as invasive in Connecticut but I don't think it will ever be the menace of plants like Japanese knotweed because the deer eat it. The plants in the unfenced part of our garden ahave been eaten bare to about 5ft//1.5m and seedlings never grow more than a few inches before being eaten.

But, if you’d rather be cautious, there’s the varieties ‘Rudy Haag’ and Little Moses (‘Odom’) which set almost no seeds so are far less likely to spread. But, for cutting, they have the disadvantage of being dwarf and slow growing, as do most of the other named sorts including ‘Compactus’, ‘Fire Ball’ and ‘Timber Creek’.

But burning bush has two other attractive features, both more noticeable when stems are cut for the arrangements and after the leaves have finally fallen. The winged stems of mature branches are a striking feature and while ‘Blade Runner’ has broader wings than other varieties var. apterus and ‘Compactus’ are less noticeably winged. And then there are those reddish purple fruits which split to reveal orange seeds. They last well and line the branches in winter.

I couldn’t find any info on how to treat cut burning bush stems to ensure they last as long as possible in the vase. My usual bible on cutting woody material is the invaluable Woody Cut Stems For Growers and Florists by Lane Greer and John M. Dole (available from amazon.com and from amazon.co.uk) but it concentrates on evergreen Euonymus species. So if anyone has any thoughts on how to ensure the fall foliage of Euonymus alatus lasts well in the vase, please post a comment.

A month or two back I discussed American varieties of tomatoes that British gardeners can order from across the Atlantic. Time now to return the favor, and point out the British sweet pea specialists who will send sweet pea seed across to gardeners in North America. Many will only send to Europe.

But first, it’s only fair to point out that there are two US-based sweet pea specialists. Sweet Pea Gardens in Maine, who I visited when working on my book on sweet peas, have a good range. Enchanting Sweet Peas in California also specialize in sweet peas. Also, Renee’s Garden in California has listed a good range for many years, along with seed many other fine flowers.

So, I’ve checked all the British mail order sweet pea suppliers and these five specialists will send seed to North America and also have easy online ordering.

Eagle Sweet Peas
Carefully chosen Spencer varieties for the gardener and exhibitor, including a steady flow of varieties raised by at the nursery.

English Sweet Peas
One of the largest wholesale suppliers of sweet pea seed to retailers, they also have their own online retail site listing a large range of old-fashioned, modern Spencers and dwarf types.

Kings Seeds
Founded in 1888, they list a fine range of varieties although the website is a little clunky and old-fashioned.

Matthewman’s Sweet Peas
Thirteen consecutive Gold Medals at the Chelsea Flower Show, focusing on high quality Spencer sweet peas for the garden and showbench – including some excellent varieties that Dave Matthewman has raised himself such as 'Clementine Kiss' (right, click to enlarge).

Owl’s Acre Sweet Peas
I discussed Owl’s Acre in an earlier post and, in particular, their series of dwarf varieties for container. They also list a wide range of old-fashioned types, modern Spencer types and winter-flowering varieties.

A number of other suppliers are worth considering, but do not have online ordering; they need you to download and print an order form and send it in by mail.

Kerton Sweet Peas
Carefully chosen Spencer varieties for the gardener and exhibitor, including varieties raised by at the nursery.

Myers Sweet Peas
Carefully selected Spencer varieties for the gardener and exhibitor, including varieties raised by at the nursery including 'Deborah Devonshire' (left, click to enlarge), and some old-fashioned types.

Roger Parsons Sweet Peas
Large range of all kinds from the holder of Britain’s Plant Heritage National Collection of Sweet Peas (and other Lathyrus species)

Somerset Sweet Peas
Carefully chosen Spencer varieties for the gardener and exhibitor, including a fine selection of exceptional varieties developed by Keith Hammett including 'More Scent' (top, click to enlarge).

So many superb sweet peas, and some excellent, dependable British suppliers. And of course British gardeners can enjoy them too.

I’ve always been interested in flowers for cutting that are new, or a little out of the ordinary. So every now and then I turn up at Foxtail Lilly (the home-grown cut flower shop with its vintage home accessories, run by my friend Tracey Mathieson) with a few plants for her to try. Sometimes she looks at me a little doubtfully, sometimes she’s instantly enthused.

Plants of the all-green Dianthus ‘Green Trick’ were very favorably received last spring and later in the year I was pleased to pass on a few plants of that lovely new hybrid foxglove Digitalis ‘Illumination Pink’ for her to try as cut flowers – and see if they got through the winter.

First, the good news. Three groups of Digitalis ‘Illumination Pink’, in different parts of her garden, all came through the winter with no losses and they were just coming into flower for her very successful National Gardens Scheme open day in June (right, click to enlarge).

Later, Tracey made up some hand tied bouquets (above, click to enlarge) and they lasted well through five of the hottest days of the summer (no air conditioning) “Well, in this heat they lasted five days!! So, possibly much longer, if cooler! They stayed quite upright too!!” So many exclamation marks – she really liked them.

I also took her a few plants of the recently introduced all-green coneflower, Echinacea ‘Green Jewel’ (below, click to enlarge). Unfortunately, they were a big disappointment. They looked great when I took them round, in flower, last summer but none of the three plants survived the winter in her cutting garden. So that was that. Perhaps with extra crisp drainage…? We’ve had the same problem with ‘Green Envy’, with its green-tipped petals – gone. Good drainage in winter is definitely the key.

British gardeners can order a collection of all three Illumination foxgloves - ‘Illumination Pink’ and ‘Illumination Chelsea Gold’ and ‘Illumination Raspberry’ - from QVC. They will be available in North America soon. If anyone spots a US mail order supplier, please let me know.

British gardeners can order plants of Dianthus ‘Green Trick’ from Thompson & Morgan, the similar ‘Green Ball’ should be available in North America soon.

American gardeners can order plants of Echinacea ‘Green Jewel’ and Echinacea ‘Green Envy’ from Great Garden Plants. British gardeners can order from The Walled Garden Nursery.

For more on Foxtail Lilly take a look at their website or their Facebook page.

 

When a friend from near Rhinebeck, in upstate New York, mentioned that their local movie theatre was showing a documentary film about the huge violet growing industry in the area I thought: “What? ’ve got to see this.” It seemed such an odd place to be the violet growing capital of the world.

The film is Sweet Violets, written, produced and directed by Tobe Carey and it’s a fascinating look back at what was once a thriving cut flower industry – all centered on Rhinebeck and a few nearby villages.

“It has been remarked, jocularly,” said The Garden magazine in 1903, “that every second building in Rhinebeck, NY is a violet house, and that they are now beginning to build others between…. This aggregation boasts of upwards of sixty violet growing establishments… No healthier plants, finer flowers or heavier crops can be found anywhere in the world.” And then it turns out that just one company, Julius Vonder Linden, grew violets in sixty four greenhouses and that at one time there were four hundred violet houses in and around the small town Rhinebeck.

The usual size for a violet house was 24ftx200ft so that’s a lot of violets. Ten thousand flowers a week was reckoned to be an ordinary yield from one greenhouse and at peak season a quarter of a million blooms might be shipped by train from nearby Rhinecliff station to New York City in one day.

Interestingly, there seem to be divided opinions on which were the most popular varieties: ‘Marie Louise’, ‘Frye’s Fragrant’ and ‘Duchesse du Parme’ are all mentioned as the most widely grown.

The film features reminiscences by former growers and members of their families, some delightful old cards and posters featuring violets and many period photographs showing the violet houses and how the violets were grown.

Strangely, it’s left unclear why so much violet growing should be concentrated in Rhinebeck, in particular, and it’s sad to see such a thriving industry reduced, as the film shows, to one slender bed along the side of one greenhouse now filled with anemones.

But the beginning of the end came in 1926 when a very popular Broadway play, The Captive featuring Basil Rathbone and Helen Menken, used violets as symbol of lesbian love and this is association said to have set off the decline in the popularity of violets. “It just about killed the business,” says one contributor to the film. The rising cost of heating the greenhouses through the peak November to April season in a cold climate, along with changing fashions, hastened the decline.

Now most of the greenhouses are gone and there is just that one strip of violets in one greenhouse from which flowers are still picked for local sale.

In December 1901 the magazine Birds and Nature reported: “With the exception of the rose, no other plant is so widely distributed, and at the same time so universally admired, as the violet.” Sadly, not any more.

You can order copies of Sweet Violets from the Sweet Violets movie website.

Those of you who’ve been following this blog for a while will be aware that I’m a big fan of Physocarpus – ninebark as it’s known in North America – and especially of the variety Coppertina (‘Diable d’Or’). And it turns out that I’m not the only one. The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers has named Physocarpus Coppertina as one of its three Cut Flowers of the Year.

As soon as I heard this judy went out and cut eight or nine stems from the plant outside my window. OK, we let a few of the stems get dry when the water in the vase got low and we forgot to top it up. But even those stems lasted almost two weeks before they started to look sad – with no special treatment and no flower food. And those whose stems never got dry lasted almost three weeks and even then it wasn’t as if they were dead… just not really looking lively any more. They were in fairly good light and the only change was that they steadily became less bronze and more green. Later, I tried a couple of stems in very poor light – but they didn’t really like it.

Physocarpus Coppertina is a tough and resilient shrub which after a year or two in the garden produces so much growth that cutting shoots for the house won’t make it look thin. In the fall, after a shower, its bronze foliage gleamed beautifully and with Hosta ‘Christmas Tree’ at the base it makes a lovely picture.

But our Coppertina plants have never bloomed or fruited well. They’re in good light all the time but not in full sun for more than a few hours a day – perhaps it’s not enough. But, frankly, it doesn’t really matter. With their amber new shoots maturing to rich bronze and with its proven value when cut for the house, it’s one of the first shrubs I’d choose for a new garden.

The other winners of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers Cut Flowers of the Year award are:
•    Fresh cut flower: Lisianthus 'Mariachi Carmine'
•    Dried flower: Capiscum 'Nippon Taka'

But you know… I really don’t find them so very interesting.

Now that growing our own fruit and veg has swept the country in a surge of enthusiasm, it’s sparked a revival in the idea of growing cut flowers. But not just sweet peas, dahlias and all the old favourites.

Back in 2009 a book came out which takes the whole idea a big step farther. Woody Cut Stems for Growers and Florists by Lane Greer and John Dole (Timber Press) is a fat, comprehensive book on growing, harvesting and treating shrubs and other woody material for cutting. From Aucuba to Vitis, although this book is intended for professional growers and florists the fact that it gives detailed advice on such a wide variety of woody material makes the rest of us realise what a vast variety of woody cut material remains relatively undiscovered.

I should also mention that the book comes with a big dose of built-in reality. The first two sections of each entry are Why You Should Grow It followed by Why You Shouldn’t. It’s not one of those books bursting with unrelenting, but unrealistic, overenthusiasm. For example.

On Callicarpa: “All Callicarpa species offer fantastic shimmering purple fruit, the colour of which is absolutely matchless…”

And on Malus: “Crabapples are heavily disease prone. Most types need several years to get established. Flowers are short-lived. Fruits are favorites of bids.”

This real world approach is largely derived from then fact that the authors spoke to a wide cross section of commercial growers, many specialising in woody material, who are quoted throughout the book. So the advice on growing, pruning, selecting varieties, harvesting and how to treat the cut material to ensure the longest life is derived from the techniques of real growers.

Look up Cotinus or Hamamelis or Ligustrum or Physocarpus or Viburnum or one of the other hundred woody plants included and find out how to grow it, harvest it and treat it so it lasts. Suddenly the range of cut material you can grow is hugely enhanced.

             

There’s a great overview of sunflowers in the latest issue of The American Gardener, the membership magazine from the American Horticultural Society. It covers annual and perennial sunflowers but one of the pictures leapt out off the page.

The tall stems of Helianthus maximiliani ‘Santa Fe’, lined with bright yellow daisies look amazing (left, click to enlarge). In particular, I immediately thought this plant would make a superb cut flower.

I vaguely remembered that I’d included the species in my Encyclopedia of Perennials – and there it is. And I find that the daisies expert who helped with the Helianthus entry gives its height as 10ft/3m! (Always wise to start by looking things up in your own books, that's what I say.)

So I next took a look at the “bible” on less familiar cut flowers - Specialty Cut Flowers by Allan Armitage and Judy Lauschman. And to be honest the small entry was not very encouraging. “The very tall plants (up to 9ft, 3m) can be used to lengthen the season. They… can be invasive.”  See what I mean? Not exactly a vote of confidence. And at 9or10ft/3m, that is one hell of a cut flower – what am I supposed to arrange it in, a pond?

The American Gardener article illustrates ‘Santa Fe’ but doesn’t actually say how it differs from the usual species. So I had a look online.

High Country Gardens sell it and they say that ‘Santa Fe’ “is our superior cultivar selected for its incredible flowers, stunning foliage and mid-fall bloom time”. So I’ve happily arrived at the nursery who raised it! And they’re based in, need you ask, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

You’ll notice that their picture (left, click to enlarge) shows a rather shorter plant with spectacular stems crowded with flowers.I think I’m going to order ‘Santa Fe’, and the two other forms they list, and see how they all do here at the opposite end of the country.

I see from the USDA website that Helianthus maximiliani grows all over the country – including our corner of north east PA, though I've never seen it round here. And the High Country Gardens website says it’s hardy to zone 4 – that would be -34C (-30F)! Can’t wait.

And since I started working on this piece a couple of days ago – it’s gone on sale! I’d better get my order in.

I was at a funeral on Saturday and at the cemetery each of the mourners was handed a carnation to place on the coffin. The first thing almost everyone did was to the raise the flower and smell it. And the next reaction was almost always the slightest hint of disappointment. Perhaps it was more the absence of satisfaction at finding fragrance that I noticed, a kind of resignation.

One of the war cries of traditionally minded gardeners is that modern varieties have no scent. The truth is that some modern varieties of roses, sweet peas, carnations etc have no scent and some old and traditional varieties of the same plants are unscented.

One reason that modern varieties of roses and carnations developed as cut flower are often unscented, in spite of general opinion that scented flowers would bring higher market prices, is that there is thought to be a link between fragrance and short vase life.

Imogen Stone, the florist delivery service, reporting the Flowers and Plants Association, says: “The scent genes are very strongly bound up with those for vase life and flower size - stronger scent often means shorter life or smaller flowers.” However A.M. Borda, T.A. Nell and D.G. Clark in their paper: The relationship between floral fragrance and vase life of cut flower roses report: “…fragrance can not be directly related with short vase life of cut rose cultivars. As an alternative, postharvest factors such as ethylene synthesis or sensitivity, may be more important for influencing the postharvest performance of fragrant cut rose cultivars.”

The Imogen Stone article reports these cut flower carnations as having a strong scent: ‘Bagatel’, ‘Gipsy’ and ‘Candy White’. But the carnations with the most powerful fragrance of all the old Malmaison carnations, from as long ago as 1857, rescued from obscurity by Jim Marshall, former Gardens Advisor to the National Trust in Britain and now the holder of the British National Collection of Malmaison Carnations.

Unlike the familiar cut flower carnations, Malmaisons (four shown here) have a shorter season, the flower form is a little disorganised, but the colours are impressive and the scent can be staggering. And they’re being planted commercially again.

In Britain a good range of Malmaison carnations is available by mail order from from Allwoods. Anyone know an American mail order supplier?

And note for the far flung future: when my time comes, a few Malmaison carnations would be just thing thing.

Before I went over to England for the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show – on 21 June to be precise – we had some friends over for supper and I picked a bouquet from the garden which consisted entirely of foliage. Different shapes, different textures, different colors: there were all sorts of things including ferns, iris leaves, physocarpus, hostas, hellebores, vincas and lots more – including the leaves of two heucheras.

And here we are on the 27 July and those two heucheras still look great. The two varieties are ‘Citronelle’, about which I’ve bashed on here more than once before, and ‘Frosted Violet’. (The other plant peeping into the picture is Vinca minor 'Illumination' which has also lasted well.)

‘Citronelle’ is one of the new series of heucheras derived from H. villosa ‘Autumn Bride’ by the French plant breeder Thierry Delabroye. They come in all sorts of new colours but ‘Citronelle’ is the best of those I’ve grown. ‘Frosted Violet’ comes from the pioneer heuchera breeder Charles Oliver and I especially like it for its jaggedly edged foliage (so many heucheras in this colour range have rounded lobes to their leaves) and the especially smoky haze to its colouring.

I took a look in last year’s splendid book on cutting flowers and foliage from the garden, Garden to Vase by Linda Beutler, to see what she had to say about heucheras. “Leaves in vase arrangements can last more then ten days,” she says. Yes, three and a half weeks longer than ten days! Actually, this is a really useful book with bucket loads of good advice and none of it too technical for those of us – almost all of us at this blog (with two very honorable exceptions I know of)  – who are not professional florists although professionals will find it valuable too.

I especially liked her recipe for home made flower preservative. I’ll give it here as an example of the good practical advice you’ll find throughout the book. It’s so simple. Use it instead of plain water.

In Britain, where everything is metric, I’m sure you can work it out – just don’t use a larger proportion of bleach. You’ll need to get the book to learn about which flowers are especially sensitive to bleach.

And that’s one of my two criticisms of the book: for a book that’s sold in Britain as well as the USA, it’s simply perverse that no metric equivalents to the old Imperial measurements are given. The other problem is the fact that the author seems to have no knowledge of the research on hellebores as cut flowers published in a book from the same publisher the previous year. But if you cut flowers from your own garden, set that aside and buy the book anyway.

Buy Garden to Vase by Linda Beutler in North America from amazon.com

Buy Garden to Vase by Linda Beutler in Britain from amazon.co.uk