Friday 11 September 2015

Wisley Flower Show

What a glorious day - bright blue sky, scorching sun - it almost fooled us into forgetting the biting temperatures of recent weeks. Not to waste such delightful weather, we made our way to the Wisley Flower Show. Overflow car parking at 9:50 meant a lovely meander through the pinetum with it's swathes of heather and tiny cyclamen - turns out the show started at 9am and not 10am as Mr M thought. Never mind.  
First stop the dahlia tent, whilst glorious it did highlight the limited colour palette which I'd never considered before. But I do still love the dark purples, which are impossible to capture on camera, and the more open flowers like 'Bishop of Oxford' and I am a sucker for a little pom pom. Onwards to the very genial plant displays - none of this Chelsea argy-barging in Surrey - where Mr M indulged in a few more agapanthus for the garden; Black Pantha, Midnight Dream and White Heaven.
We are still in awe of our sunny front garden and little sun traps in the back. I'm not sure the novelty will ever wear off having spent seven years in gloomy shade. One plant that triumphed this year were the alliums planted out the front - the most impressive being Allium Sphaerocephalon. The bees just go nuts for it. There were some really impressive allium displays today given the time of year.
I've been after some Allium Nectaroscordum siculum for ages and picked up 10 bulbs...and then we stumbled across Allium Summer Drummer. Oh my - they are fabulous. They are so tall! They can grow up to 175cm. Quicker than you could say boo to a goose, Mr M had purchased four bulbs and a solitary Allium White Giant - which, given the bulb size, should provide one of those big finale fireworks.
A couple more herbs for the herb garden followed by the obligatory over-priced burger and then it was time to go. Sadly the delightful Scabiosa Chile Black had sold out, so I'll add that to my 2016 wish list. And I was hoping that there would be a stand selling the beautiful wrought iron plant sculptures that a lot of the plant displays had, but alas no.
Off home with our wares, we spent the afternoon getting the front garden ready for Spring - dotted underneath the stepover apple trees we now have Crocus 'Snow Bunting', 'Goldilocks', 'Romance', 'Spring Beauty', Narcissus 'Jack Snipe' and 'Canaliculatus' and the tiny Iris 'danfordiae' and 'Pixie'. In front of the house, 40-ish mixed Wisley daffodils with a few of the leftover crocus bulbs. I ran out of puff, so tomorrow we plant the allium. We've somehow ended up with 60 Allium Sphaerocephalon - can you guess the garden theme for 2016?

Have a lovely weekend.

1 comment:

  1. I've never been to a flower show so it was lovely to visit via your blog. Looking forward to see how all that planting & growing goes and seeing future blog posts. Got any top tips for ripeing green tomatoes?

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