RHS London Show: Shades of Autumn

Today was the last day of the RHS London plant show, and I was impressed coming away with a  good plant haul. It was a lot of the usual stands but in general the show was well laid out between the two halls with some good quality displays.

Rudbeckia 'little henry'

After not buying any plants for ages, the plant buying juices were flowing strongly. Mainly I seemed to be attracted to unusual edible plants buying a wasabi, edible ginger (zingiber mioga), black raspberry and seeds of Tamarillo and Achocha vine

Coming right Achocha...a new one to me, an annual vine growing to 5-6m with these odd fruits which can be eaten raw, stuffed or stir fried

I also was rather enamoured with this Tierella 'Emerald Ellie' which I think will look rather exotic when it bulks out a bit. As usually I was drawn to the Polypody ferns, and as usual when I found one I liked I had no idea if I had already bought one.

Today's haul

I was also enamoured by a Petrocosmea, which was new to me but wonderfully exotic looking, and as a I have a new office with space for plants I can grow more houseplants, yay!

Then in terms of other things which caught my eye....

A fabulously coloured Dahlia, nice leaved Rubus and rather erect grass

The February RHS Show

Yesterday I went to the first London RHS Show of the year and was impressed! It was busy, things felt different to last year and there were a lot of extras going on. There seemed to be two places where talks were going on, you could do potato print art works and even make a sculpture out of mashed potato!

There were of course lots of things to buy...I had my annual thoughts of 'oooh, perhaps this is the year that I start my Arisaema collection' however in a moment of sensible clarity I realised how a) I couldn't remember which species I had actually already bought and b) perhaps I should try and perfect the growing of the ones I have already before killing new ones. This clarity was not shared by my companion whose new tact was to simply buy all the most expensive things on offer...

I am however more drawn to start a polypody collection...these ferns are very reliable, cope well with drought (you commonly see them growing in walls) and also appeal to my botanical urges as there is often a lot of Latin going on 

The sharpest elbows at the event were all around the potatoes as there were lots of opportunities to buy your stock for the year.

Why am I always drawn to the snowdrops that cost £20 a bulb???

I do like a nice neat line of Hepaticas

 

mmm nice big fuzzy tropical leaves

 

 

Yeee Ha! it was potato skittles rather than a barn dance, but who knows what happens after closing?

Chelsea: people and plant watching

Wednesday saw my first proper foray to the mythical Chelsea Flower Show where in return for a 3 hour shift helping out on the NGS stand I got a free ticket. Many great things come from volunteering......

I had been once before as a naive teenager where I helped out on the Carnivorous Plant Society stand, however had been rooted to the spot and not wandered much. I also remember feeling that it was small, there were far too many people and general frustration at not being able to buy plants.

This year the crowds were still the same, armies of people with razor sharp elbows trying to push their way to the front of the stands however you weren’t constantly tripping over wheely trollys full of plants which was a definite bonus over Hampton Court.

There were also less show gardens than I had thought, and they were harder to see into as there are hoards of people pressing up against the barriers,  and you can of course not actually go into the gardens. In this respect TV has worked a lot of magic, and you do get a better picture of what they are like from the comfort of your own home.

My favorite was the Help for Heroes one...good naturalistic and accessible planting

However I loved the marquee and this was probably my favourite bit...I did spend a long time as the sky had turned black and we had the loudest and heaviest thunderstorm I had heard in a long time which caused almost the whole show to squeeze into the marquee. The sky went dark, queues ground to a halt, old people looked grumpy and sat on hitherto out of limits dry stone walls surrounding stands, not moving when asked, and  excitable people with umbrellas ran out to see the show gardens alone.

Volunteering on the NGS stand was a treat and made for good people watching. There were lots of interested people who had been to NGS gardens and wanted to go to more. There were also lots of people that looked terrified when I asked if they had considered opening their own garden...that vision of scary NGS inspections looking for perfect horticulture still reigns supreme!

I also got access to the exhibitor’s restaurant, and it was funny to see how haggard and tired exhibitors looked when out of the ‘smiley smiley’ public gaze. There were even a couple of people snoring on some giant pillows!

What amused me most was how about 5-6pm the clientele changed a bit and it was more City than out of town with lots of sharp dressed people emerging from the hospitality areas clutching Pimms/Champagne. I had wondered if they had been there all day and were emerging from hospitality as they realised how they should look at some of the plants before going out for the evening....

Anyway, an amusing day...I think overall I still prefer Hampton Court as it has the luxury of space and plants however Chelsea was a great treat.

Anyone ever fancied a giant T-Rex made of shells?

Lots of people..

Now I know what to do with all my wire coat hangers

Moss a go go

The wool gorilla modeled on Boris Johnson

Army of metal frogs? 

There were loads of Arisaemas which was bliss to see so many different species together

I love a bit of Thai magic... however not the best time to be promoting tourism..

all absolutely bonkers!

Need I say more?

Loads of hardy orchids *swoon*

More Arisaemas...

Tree ferns to die for....

Everyone needs a robot....

The RHS Great London Plant Show

This week saw the second RHS Great London Plant Show which also featured an evening opening on the first day which apparently went down very well bringing in a plethora of the under 70’s to drink and be merry amongst the flowers.

I went first thing on Wednesday morning with my good friend Peter who was like honey to the bee whenever he saw something labelled as ‘rare’ as he has so much space to fill on his terraced Kings Cross garden.

Going early was actually really nice as we were the first people in the second hall and had a nice long peruse of the Jaques Amand stand which was heaving my 11am...I like them as they have lots of unusual things and the hardy orchids that I bought last year is still alive so I must be doing something right. The Arisaema fetish is also lurking in the back of my mind and I bought 2 more, A. Concinnum and A. propinqum with a vision of a well watered collection in pots.

For the first time I sat in one of the talks on the upstairs landing on unusual fruit and veg (I had thought this was just a place for ladies to dose after a hard mornings plant hunting). I was actually inspired and went out to buy a Yacon straight afterwards....this is a South American tuber, looking much like a sweet potato but tasting a bit pear ish. I am more excited about the foliage as it gets to about 4ft and has big exotic looking leaves...apparently it is closely related to Helianthus. I also learnt about how Szechwan pepper can grow in the UK which was quite exciting (I still remember my numb mouth from a plate of Szechwan pepper and chilli with chicken garnish in Hong Kong.) However the plant grows to be a large bush/6ft shrub and I don’t have the space.  

Overall I thought that it was a good show and I loved the daffodils which I could see myself collecting in later years. I seemed particularly drawn to the expensive ones with flat coronas however hate the ruffled salmon pink split corona ones which just seem monstrous.  I didn’t feel there was much new there and a lot of the regulars were present from Chrysanthemums (I tend to smell petrol when I walk past this stand) to Agapanthus however it was nice to see the London Beekeepers have a stand. Alison, the regular who I usually never see although thought it wasn’t that exciting but Peter and I had a good morning. I also think that the RHS is still going in the right direction with the shows late opening and also things like putting the exhibitor lists online which is really helpful. Thank you RHS, keep it up!

 I always like a restio and had fantasies of lots of big pots with huge fountains of them, however my reality is more like a graveyars

We were rather taken by this Coryalis

Step away from the hosta display......Peter already has hundreds of hostas as he keeps them looking nice by dosing his whole garden in DDT every year, mine look nice as they shoot then get mauled by slugs.

 UG: Im not a fan of these monstrous beasts...you?

I do love a Puya in a pot

This was my one big discovery...Euphorbia doniii...has fabulous foliage a bit like meilfera however is herbaceous. Sadly they didn't have any for sale, however I will hunt this one down 

Spiky plant

Coral flower

This one perplexed Peter and I as a great plant or just a novelty? it is actually a clematis which is really small

I was rather taken by the color of this Kale as it was really interesting, could make quite a feature if planted on mass

Jeffersonia: another new one to me

*Love* these...but I would feel bad killing it

mmmmm

mmmm snakes head fritillaries....I once saw a field of these in the wild near Reading and it was so exciting

Finally an orchid we didn't know about....Peter went a bit gaga for it but on mass they don't look that special