Brewin Dolphin Chelsea Garden to showcase new varieties

Sandy Felton checks out the new introductions planned for the Brewin Dolphin Garden at the 2016 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show has always been the place to showcase new, rare and beautiful plants and t2016 will be no exception.

The Brewin Dolphin Garden, ‘Forever Freefolk’, designed by eminent nurserywoman Rosy Hardy, will launch four new varieties of herbaceous perennial.

All four are destined to arouse great interest in show visitors, particularly an unusual new white form of Cirsium rivulare Atropurpureum – Cirsium rivulare Frosted Magic. (pictured left). This plant is a sturdy, easy to grow perennial with a long flowering season in summer, perfect for the garden or a landscape with “prairie-style” planting.

With an upright habit and growing approximately 120cm with lovely white flowers in summer, I can see this being highly attractive to all lovers of the more classic Cirisium.

Another newcomer, Nepeta x faassenii Crystal Cloud sports super pale lilac flowers which is an exciting new colour break in this species. The plant is compact, neat and bushy with an upright habit. (pictured below right)

It’s as easy to grow as other varieties and makes a great partner for darker coloured plants like Geranium midnight Reiter which has dark purple leaves and dark blue flowers. This Nepeta grows to a height of 45cm and flowers from May to August with grey-green foliage and the bloom is pale lilac with matching calyx.

Plant aficionados will also be introduced to the new Veronica Mountain Breeze and Gaura Rosy Shimmers – the latter bred by Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants will be a contender for the Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Year.

The Veronica (pictured centre below) is mid blue and a repeat flowerer while the Gaura is tall and will grow to 3 feet with reddish pink leaves and large pale pink petals.

This easy to grow plant makes a great partner for darker coloured plants like Geranium midnight Reiter which has dark purple leaves and dark blue flowers.

Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants are growing around 6000 plants for the Brewin Dolphin Garden which will feature four distinct planting zones; shady, dry chalk grassland, part shade/damp and lush damp.

The Brewin Dolphin garden will invite visitors to consider the fragility of chalk streams, a rare and vital natural resource. A dried up chalk stream bed will be planted with a variety of plants including Achillea Moonshine, Alchemilla sericata Gold Strike and Iris Jane Phillips.

Rosy Hardy is renowned for her plant knowledge and visitors to this year’s Show will delight in her choice of plants for the Brewin Dolphin Chelsea Garden (garden illustration in banner above).  There will be plenty to see, discover and explore and I have no doubt that there will be something of interest for every garden lover on this garden.

Picture credit: all flower pictures ©Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants