Neat plants in coloured pots with labels as big as postcards? Don't get Jane Powers started
At this year's Kildare Growers trade show, at Punchestown last month, the award for best new plant went to Sorbaria sorbifolia 'Sem'. The compact shrubby perennial grows to about one metre and has pretty, serrated foliage, flushed red when young and ageing to green. One of the judges, Gary Graham of Bord Bia, said that it won not only because of its good foliage but also because it resisted pests and diseases and was "hardy up to the North Pole".
The runner-up was Odorella, which is a trademarked name for a scented cyclamen that blooms from spring or early summer until first frosts. In mild climates (such as Ireland's), it can continue to flower throughout the winter. I'm not sure how I feel about a cyclamen hanging around for months and months, like the house guest who arrives and forgets to leave. I prefer plants to change with the seasons, departing gracefully underground before I get tired of them. But for gardeners who want reliable summer flowers for a shady spot, this pinky-mauve cyclamen may be the answer. It's coming to a garden centre near you, soon.
Both of these winning plants look good in their pots, being of neat habit (with no straggly bits that might make transport or display difficult) and long shelf life. They are model products for the busy garden centre of today. But the trend for such prim, buttoned-up plants sinks my heart deep into my boots. Nowadays, if a plant won't behave in its container, many of the big nurseries won't grow it. And as some garden centres order only from such outfits, the customer (that's you and me) is being deprived of a whole section of the vegetable kingdom: the province inhabited by plants that are disorderly, dishevelled or ungainly when imprisoned in their pots. The more leggy perennials (agastaches, monardas, phloxes and ornamental grasses, for instance) can look pretty scrawny when containerised. But let them put their feet into the ground and get a couple of weeks' growing, and they loose their gawkiness. A good plant isn't necessarily the one that sits nicely on the shelf, with tidy manners, a coloured pot (don't get me started on coloured pots) and a picture label as big as a postcard (ditto).
It's worth pointing out that we are living in an age when technology, science and fluid international trade should allow us to have the greatest range of plants ever in our gardens. Yet every season large nurseries drop the more troublesome species in order to streamline their businesses. If it weren't for the small nurseries and growers who care less about marketing, and more about plants, every garden centre in the land would have identical stock. So, fellow gardeners, if you value choice, give the little producers your support.
The Kildare trade show, now in its 20th year, hosted more than 200 exhibitors, from Ireland, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany. It caters for the whole horticulture industry, so potting machines, dibble stations, label printers, lawnmowers and irrigation systems are side by side with the standard garden-centre fare. The latter, incidentally, along with plants, pots and composts, now includes Christmas decorations and life-size effigies of GAA players - to take the bare look off the end of the lawn.
Among the new plant introductions was the extraordinary euphorbia 'Diamond Frost'. Unlike any other euphorbia I've ever seen, this one is airy and covered with a flutter of tiny white bracts, like minute bits of confetti. As it is not reliably hardy, it is grown as an annual and propagated by cuttings. It is protected by plant breeders' rights, though, so in theory you must pay a fee for every new plant you make.
Ajuga 'Black Scallop', another new plant, is probably the darkest bugle (ground-cover plants with small blue spires) available. Its shiny, near-black leaves add another inky element to the fashionable palette of black plants. The lovely dark-red fountain grass Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum' (not altogether new, despite purporting to be, on a couple of stands) also supplies good dark foliage - and deep pink flower heads.
Heucheras are still in vogue - although more so in North America than here (Dan Heims of Terra Nova Nurseries, in Oregon, has bred many of them). Three recent introductions at the Kildare event were the lime-green 'Key Lime Pie', the dusky 'Liquorice' and, from Heims, the nearly orange 'Crème Brulée'. Sedate, green heucheras seem to be largely a thing of the past, as breeders concentrate on fruity-toned foliage. Whatever the colour, though, their roots are prone to attack by vine weevil, so keep an eye out for the crescent-shaped larvae and the dark, ribbed adults, with their characteristic pointy noses.
David Austin is continually developing his "English Roses": repeat-flowering varieties with an old-fashioned flower shape and shrubby habit. Two new ones, launched at this year's Chelsea Flower Show, are the rather orange Lady Emma Hamilton and the pink Wild Edric. The latter, according to wholesale sales manager Luke Stimson, is "our first completely eejit-proof rose". It contains a good dollop of rugosa rose (as can be seen from its open-faced flowers and crinkled foliage), and is thus fairly diseaseproof. Both are available here in October, from Mr Middleton. Hughes Roses, meanwhile, of Garristown, in Co Dublin, have entered into a partnership with David Austin roses and will be supplying garden centres throughout Ireland with these very desirable plants.
Fern man Billy Alexander attended with a small but select bunch of southern hemisphere frondy species. Among the evergreen hard ferns (Blechnum) were the Amazonian B. brasiliense, which has red juvenile foliage, and the Chilean B. magellanicum, which grows a bit of a trunk as it matures. New to me was a delightfully hairy tree fern from New Guinea, Cyathea tomentosissima, which, says Alexander, is "almost hardy".
Winner of the best-product award was an electric patio heater, with running costs at 10 per cent of those of a gas-fired heater - available as a free-standing model (€299) and in a table-top version (€199). Stockists include Atlantic Homecare, Johnstown Garden Centre, Gardenworks and Powerscourt Pavilion. And as summer has taken its holidays at the time of writing, this might be just the thing to warm us all up.
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Tomorrow, at the Tullamore Show, in Charleville Estate in Co Offaly, don't miss the All-Ireland Garden Club of the Year Competition, sponsored by the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland and Coillte. Six garden societies - Ballinasloe, Delgany and District, Dublin 5, Galway, Rush and Tullamore - will battle it out in the horticultural marquee. Members' gardens will be plundered for produce, precious plants and cut flowers, all to be arranged on a four-foot-square table. Other hotly fought all-Ireland championships include potatoes, collections of vegetables, single roses, garden design and professional floristry. There are 95 other show classes in horticultural and farm produce, and 920 classes in all (including animals, cookery, crafts and inventions) in Ireland's biggest one-day show.