New plants: Adenophora 'White Blaze'

Back in the summer of 2017, Adenophora ‘White Blaze’ won the Visitor Vote Award at the prestigious National Plant Show, the annual celebration of plants for commercial growers and garden centres.

It was expected that it would be available in garden centres and by mail order a year or two later, but the plant proved slow to increase.

Rosy Hardy of Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants revealed: “This was from our own seed of blue-flowered Adenophora pereskiifolia, and this one flowered white.”

“We kept it and propagated it from divisions. It was then given to Fairweather’s [a top commercial grower] to see if they could produce it in larger quantities. They were able to propagate it in the lab by tissue culture, and once it was in good production, we were able to start offering it.”

As Rosy describes on the Hardy’s website: “The distinctive spikes of this brand new Adenophora are packed white bellflowers throughout summer.”

As can be seen in the picture, the elegant bells sometimes develop faint blue-purple tints.

Perfect for introducing graceful vertical punctuation to a mixed or herbaceous border, this new twist on a classic cottage garden perennial

Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs.

is long-flowering, hardy and easy to grow.

“An ideal ingredient for a ‘white’ garden, it blends harmoniously with cool tones such as pale pinks and blues. Fairly unfussy, it can cope with any reasonable soil but prefers a sunny to partially-shaded site,” says Rosy.

You can order Adenophora ‘White Blaze’ from Crocus, Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants and Barnes Nurseries.