Do You Take Plastic?

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Three times in the spring, and once (or twice) in the autumn, the RHS hold small Flower Shows at their halls in London. Although the crowds are thinner these days, there are still some good plants to be had if you look carefully. I nearly didn’t go to the one today, but in the end decided to go and look at the small bulbs in flower, with a view to buying some more cheaply in the autumn. But then pots kept jumping off the tables and somehow followed me home.

First off was chrysoplenium macrophyllum. The leaves look a bit like those of a bergenia, but the flower is completely different. It should form a clump about two feet across in dry shade.

I first saw echium russicum at Inverewe Garden in 2010. It is a red-flowered relation of our native viper’s bugloss. It’s a biennial (or a short-lived perennial), and although hardy (it comes from Russia), it does need a well-drained soil in sun to help it through our wet winters.

I wasn’t going to buy any more hellebores – until I saw this one – it’s labelled as helleborus x hybridus dark shades. The foliage will take on more green hues as the season progresses, but the brighter the spot, the darker it will remain. I just need to decide whether to plant it with white-flowered hellebores, or beside a form with silvery leaves.

Next was a shrub, illicium simonsii. This is another woodlander with pale yellow flowers. I discussed this one for a long time with Sue Wynn-Jones from Crug Farm (who were selling it). Her label says it reaches two metres, but the one I saw at Plas Newydd, near her nursery, was closer to five meters. We decided it was a slow grower. This was a bit of an impulse buy, but by moving two other shrubs, discarding some crocosmia and an overgrown carex, I will have just the right spot for it. My only book that mentions it, remarks on the purple stems, but this was the only one with this attribute on the stand.

I am trying to build an assortment of lobelais in a damp spot in my front garden. So this one, lobelia x gerardii ‘Vedrariensis’, with blue/purple flowers was another good find.

Finally, another ground-cover plant from Crug Farm. This is pachysandra axillaris ‘Crug’s Cover.’ It has white, scented flowers, reminiscent of sarcococca. It likes shade but not dry (unlike pachysandra terminalis), and may prove invasive in ideal conditions.

With cold weather due to return, it will be a few days before these get planted.

• 19 Feb, 2013
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