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New plants excite the senses at RHS flower show
A rose by any other name certainly does smell as sweet for all Romeos and Juliets at this year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Chocolate and Champagne combine in the Festival of Roses marquee and herald a host of new plant launches.
The ‘Rose of the Year 2006’, Rosa ‘Champagne Moment’, will be unveiled in the Festival of Roses marquee which hosts the largest annual gathering of roses in the world. The rose, introduced by Mattocks Roses of Suffolk, flowers profusely in the summer and boasts a sweet fragrance and glossy dark-green leaves. The blooms, borne in clusters, are a strong apricot in their centre, fading to a delicate pale pink on the outer petals. C & K Jones of Cheshire will be introducing Rosa ‘Hot Chocolate’, winner of the accolade ‘Novelty Rose 2006’ for its unique colouring. This fragrant rose has a glossy foliage and rusty-orange buds which open to a warm, velvet smoky-brown.
Winchester Growers will be introducing several new dahlias to tickle the taste-buds including D. ‘Twyning’s White Chocolate’, a beautiful new white collarette; D. ‘Twyning’s Aniseed’, an immaculate red single; and D. ‘Twyning’s Peppermint’, a strong growing white single.
Thorncroft Clematis Nursery will be introducing a number of new clematis and are exhibiting as part of the display celebrating ‘Horticulture in Norfolk’ alongside other Norfolk specialists. Look out for the new Clematis ‘Remembrance’, a plant of raspberry red flowers with a textured surface, and C. 'Night Veil', rich reddy-purple flowers that are semi-nodding and yielded freely on long flower stalks.
The world-class floral marquees at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show are some of the best places to catch new varieties and buy direct from the UK’s top nurseries. They sometimes house unusual and rare plants, such as Mendip Bonsai Studio making its Hampton debut with a 200-250 year old Chinese juniper. The rarely seen juniper was shipped to England in 1907. H W Hyde & Son, from Berkshire, also new to Hampton, will be launching a new Lilium Longiflorum X Oriental hybrid ‘Northern Lights’, plus six unnamed hybrids from the world’s top breeder, Vletter den Haan. This will be the first time that the classic, pure white ‘Northern Lights’ has been exhibited outside of Japan.