After the excitement of the Chelsea Flower Show, it’s time to get back to reality in the garden. British gardeners need rain to revitalize their beds, and those who suffered winter losses are still searching for replacements. As for me, I lost so much on my terrace last year that I’m looking for harder alternatives. Fortunately, Raymond Evison’s Guernsey nursery (raymondevisonclematis.com) offered excellent solutions at the show. Evison’s exhibit won a gold medal and showcased a variety of clematis options for pots and containers. His new Clematis Tumaini, for example, is just 2ft tall and covered in rose-mauve flowers. This is the first in a line of new clematis from a breeding program that Evison began in 2014, set to offer much to gardens in small spaces.
Parisienne, a fine lavender blue, and Nubia, a dark velvety red, are two other options that have been top tips at recent Chelsea shows. Evison has even bred clematis that fit in window boxes, including mid-blue Bijou, deep rose-pink Elodi, and dark violet Edda with a matching stripe. These were on display at the Chelsea exhibit and are invaluable for balconies, courtyards, or terraces left with empty pots after the February massacre of marginally hardy plants.
When planting these new clematis, be sure to buy a bag of John Innes no 3 compost and another of horticultural grit (not gravel) from a big garden center. If possible, consult Evison’s brief handbook on the cultivation of clematis, available on his website. It explains that clematis in boxes or containers need plenty of water during the growing season, but they also need good drainage during cold winters. Hence, the grit: if the compost is too wet when a hard frost arrives, the roots of a potted clematis are likely to freeze and die.
I managed to keep my Niobes alive last winter by turning their big pots on their sides from early December. You may prefer to pull them under cover when severe frost looms or at least into a position less exposed to the cold. Window boxes will probably be made of wood, which is a good option for winter as it absorbs excess water and reduces the damage frost will do to roots inside it.
Moving from clematis to begonias, Blackmore and Langdon showed an impressive display at Chelsea. I have always liked begonias with massive flowers for old times’ sake, and Golden Hind is a good choice. But surprisingly, at the exhibit, I enjoyed the lemon scent of Begonia Jennifer Wilson’s huge flowers of salmon pink.
Burncoose nurseries in Cornwall had an excellent choice of shrubs to offer for those who suffered losses, including my salvias. Salvia confertiflora caught my attention, as it is a fast-growing red velvet sage from Brazil that bears long spikes of red-orange flowers up to 4 or 5ft high from late summer.
Salvias are great plants to play red, white, and blue games. Burncoose listed a fine French hybrid, Salvia greggii Blue Note, with broad-lipped flowers of deep blue and Salvia jamensis Hot Lips, each flower combining a scarlet lip with a white upper section.
David Austin roses won a gold medal for their Chelsea exhibit, earned by beautifully arranged bushes of flowers in formal beds. I recently lost an elderly musk rose Felicia after 37 years of loyal service, and the deep rose-pink, heavily petalled and scented Gertrude Jekyll is an obvious choice. However, at Chelsea, David Austin Jr suggested Rose Kew Gardens, a single white-flowered variety on sale since 2009. Its fans, including David Austin, praise it for its wide heads of flat single white flowers opening from tightly rolled apricot buds between early June and October.
From Bijou clematis to this flat white, Rose Kew Gardens, I will progress beyond recent loss, building on what Chelsea showed us. Replacement does not have to be reinstatement.
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