HARDY’S COTTAGE PLANTS – NEW PLANTS FOR CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 2012

NEW PLANTS AND PLANS FOR CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 2012

www.hardys-plants.co.uk

Robert and Rosemary Hardy’s Hampshire nursery continues to flourish despite the tough financial climate and unpredictable weather patterns. Plans are now well underway for the 2012 Chelsea Flower show exhibit, currently 3000 plants are being grown for their own display and a further 2500 for show garden clients such as Flemons Warland.

The stand will be10 metres by 10 metres and will take on a slightly more organic, free flow form than recent years. There will be a pathway and a water feature but the planting will be in more open beds, creating a different feel.

New releases for 2012 include Osteospermum ‘in The Pink’ from Fairweather’s Nursery, being showcased by Hardy’s for the 1st time ever. This is a new hardy variety with masses of daisy-like bright pink flowers that are produced on short upright stems in June and July. Otherwise known as African or Rain Daisies, these plants will continue to produce flowers throughout the summer if they are dead headed regularly. They will form a low evergreen mound and are ideal for planting in patio containers or in the front of beds. This hardy perennial is notable as it can survive temperatures as low as minus ten degrees Celsius.

20 pence from every plant sold will be donated to Breast Cancer Care, a charity very near to Patrick Fairweather’s heart as his wife recently battled with the disease but is currently in good health. The Chelsea display will make maximum use of this striking plant alongside other varieties suited to her sunny border/ partial shade section.

The other new plant is Leucanthemum ’Freak!’ bred by Har Stemkens of Syngenta in Holland. This plant is pure white with yellow centre and boasts lovely compact, shapely daisy flowers. A magnificent hardy perennial, perfect in its simplicity, and blends effortlessly with any planting scheme. The added bonus is that unlike other Leucanthemums it blooms from the end of April / May and continues throughout Summer into early Autumn.

L ‘Freak’! will grow to 9 inches in a container and up to 13 inches in its second year in the garden, with a spread of 21 inches In short, it’s a showstopper with lots of 2- to 2.5-inch flowers and white, fluffy layered petals, long blooming and with a compact habit, perfect for containers and happy in full sun. Rosy will work swathes of this fabulous new plant into her striking planting scheme in the area that showcases plants that suit sun or semi shade. This plant is also great as a cut flower.

Both new plants will be entered into the RHS Plant of the Year Award which Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants won in 2011 with Anemone ‘Wild Swan’.

In addition to these new plants visitors to the show can depend on Hardy’s pulling together a show stopping stand in a bid for another RHS Gold Medal. The new stars will be planted up alongside lots of cottage garden favourites in realistic positions, reflecting how to plant herbaceous perennials for the best results in one’s own garden situations, the mantra ‘right plan, right place’ is one that Rosy Hardy continues to adhere to and for that reason she is one of the most respected and accomplished plants women in the country.