Plant of the Year goes worldwide
Last year at Chelsea, Anemone ‘Wild Swan’ launched by Hardy’s Cottage Plants, won the title of RHS Plant of the Year. The success that followed was simply amazing...
RHS Media team
Thursday, May 10, 2012
It's been an amazing 12 months for the nursery that launched the Chelsea 2011 Plant of the Year. International publicity instantly followed success and worldwide orders flooded in.
So how did Anemone 'Wild Swan' come to take centre stage?
It takes a very long time to produce a new plant cultivar: this particular anemone, launched by Hardy's Cottage Plants, took more than 10 years of growing and trialling, but when nursery owners Rob and Rosy Hardy saw it, they knew it was a winner.
“The plant is just so different, purple at the back and white at the front and it flowers for such a long time. It’s just a brilliant garden plant and that’s why we entered it into the RHS Plant of the Year Competition,” says Rosy.
An award-winning plant has to stand out from everything else it’s related to. “It’s got to really show itself off and the people presenting it have to be very convincing that it should win!” Rosy agrees.
It’s not just about looks though, the plant must have other attributes, for instance, long flowering period, improved disease resistance, or a perfume that other cultivars haven’t manifested.
A flood of worldwide orders
Winning the title had an immediate impact: “The publicity was absolutely incredible, everybody knew about it, and not just in this country, we have had enquiries from all over the world. Pre-order sales are phenomenal; it seems that people can’t get enough of it.”
Sales are the final endorsement and it seems that financially for the breeder, it really makes the time, effort and expense spent on the plant more than worthwhile.
“To get this award is a really big accolade,” says Rosy, “I was very happy that I was able to put forward a plant that I thought was exceptional and have other people realise it was as well!”
Rob and Rosy Hardy are launching two new plants at Chelsea Flower Show this year, Osteospermum ‘In The Pink’, which is long-flowering with seriously brash pink flowers, and Leucanthemum ‘Freak!’, a dwarf plant with frilly petals. Watch this space!