Purple passions
Post categories: Sally Nex
| 11:01 UK time, Friday, 11 July 2008
I've been plant-hunting today - and there's no better place to do it than Hampton Court. With almost 100 exhibitors spread over , selling everything from acers to zebra grass, you're sure to find the perfect plant for your garden - and there are always new plants to discover, too.
I
'm planting up a jungle area in my garden at the moment, so I was on the hunt for rich colours and sumptuous leaves. First to catch my eye was Colocasia esculenta 'Black Leaf' on the silver-gilt medal winning Trevena Cross Nurseries stall - utterly gorgeous velvety near-black foliage with almost luminous bright-green veins.
Also on Trevena Cross's stand were some of the spectacular new strain of dahlias everyone's talking about this year. These have the sultry, dark foliage of 'Bishop of Llandaff', but with pale, clear flowers: Trevena Cross had 'Knockout' in clearest yellow, while I spotted the equally lovely 'Twyning's After Eight' in the charming mini-show garden from the Botanic Nursery in Wiltshire (also silver-gilt). On this stand I also loved the little marjoram tumbling along the pathways: Origanum 'Pagoda Bells' is a dainty thing, its large, flower-like bracts like petticoats tinted dusky pink.
There was a robust display of restios and other South African delights on silver-gilt medal winners Churchtown Nurseries' stall, and here the extraordinary Berzelia rubra really caught my eye. At first I thought it was a miniature conifer: it has needle-like foliage and there are cones nestled in among the branches. But then I touched it, and realised it was soft as a feather: a lovely, tactile plant with a graceful movement about it. Nurseryman Christopher tells me it's a new addition to Churchtown's range, but is looking really promising - it's evergreen and its only special requirement is for a damp soil.
Back to my passion for purple, though, and I was very taken with the Perilla frutescens var frutescens stealing the show at Jekka McVicar's stand. This packed display won gold and best exhibit this year, and it was doing a roaring trade with eager customers snapping up everything from purple basil to one of the dozens of different thymes on display. Perilla is a Chinese herb, used against bacterial infections in Chinese medicine, but you can grow it just for its wide, generous deep green leaves, deeply textured with purple undersides.
Other plants I added to my 'must-have' list: Heuchera 'Mocha' from Solva Plants, with the most truly bronze-coloured leaves I've ever seen; the glorious purple grass Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum', to be found at Foxgrove Plants; and the fabulous dark purple-leaved chilli, 'Chill Out', on the Cuckoo Box Nurseries stall. This had black fruits and red ones on the same plant, making a gorgeous contrast with the leaves: Ali, from Cuckoo Box, tells me the secret with chillis is to treat them mean - don't water them till they're wilting, keep them potbound and don't feed them too much. That's another great thing about the floral marquees - you're talking direct to the experts, and they really know their stuff.
'm planting up a jungle area in my garden at the moment, so I was on the hunt for rich colours and sumptuous leaves. First to catch my eye was Colocasia esculenta 'Black Leaf' on the silver-gilt medal winning Trevena Cross Nurseries stall - utterly gorgeous velvety near-black foliage with almost luminous bright-green veins.
Also on Trevena Cross's stand were some of the spectacular new strain of dahlias everyone's talking about this year. These have the sultry, dark foliage of 'Bishop of Llandaff', but with pale, clear flowers: Trevena Cross had 'Knockout' in clearest yellow, while I spotted the equally lovely 'Twyning's After Eight' in the charming mini-show garden from the Botanic Nursery in Wiltshire (also silver-gilt). On this stand I also loved the little marjoram tumbling along the pathways: Origanum 'Pagoda Bells' is a dainty thing, its large, flower-like bracts like petticoats tinted dusky pink.
There was a robust display of restios and other South African delights on silver-gilt medal winners Churchtown Nurseries' stall, and here the extraordinary Berzelia rubra really caught my eye. At first I thought it was a miniature conifer: it has needle-like foliage and there are cones nestled in among the branches. But then I touched it, and realised it was soft as a feather: a lovely, tactile plant with a graceful movement about it. Nurseryman Christopher tells me it's a new addition to Churchtown's range, but is looking really promising - it's evergreen and its only special requirement is for a damp soil.
Back to my passion for purple, though, and I was very taken with the Perilla frutescens var frutescens stealing the show at Jekka McVicar's stand. This packed display won gold and best exhibit this year, and it was doing a roaring trade with eager customers snapping up everything from purple basil to one of the dozens of different thymes on display. Perilla is a Chinese herb, used against bacterial infections in Chinese medicine, but you can grow it just for its wide, generous deep green leaves, deeply textured with purple undersides.
Other plants I added to my 'must-have' list: Heuchera 'Mocha' from Solva Plants, with the most truly bronze-coloured leaves I've ever seen; the glorious purple grass Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum', to be found at Foxgrove Plants; and the fabulous dark purple-leaved chilli, 'Chill Out', on the Cuckoo Box Nurseries stall. This had black fruits and red ones on the same plant, making a gorgeous contrast with the leaves: Ali, from Cuckoo Box, tells me the secret with chillis is to treat them mean - don't water them till they're wilting, keep them potbound and don't feed them too much. That's another great thing about the floral marquees - you're talking direct to the experts, and they really know their stuff.
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