Plants on trial

How do you tell if a new plant really is all it’s cracked up to be by the producer or breeder? Probably the two best ways are to ask a large number of gardeners or give it to an independent trial company for its assessment.
Ball Colegrave, a producer of bedding plants to the trade based in West Adderbury, Banbury, holds an open day each year where gardeners can have a good look round and pass judgement on their favourite new plants. Visitors take part in the Blue Flag Test – they place a blue flag beside their favourite plant.

More than 1,200 blue flags were placed this year and the new begonia ‘Sherbet Bon Bon’ (left) topped the polls. This very showy tuberous-rooted begonia has a compact cascading habit, making it extremely suitable for patio baskets, window troughs and vertical planting schemes. It produces an abundance of two-tone yellow and pink blush flowers. The cooler the conditions, the more intense the flower colours become. It’s a ‘no-fuss’ plant, tolerating all weathers, needing little maintenance as its self-cleaning flowers mean there’s no need to deadhead.


Fleuroselect is the international trialling organisation for the ornamental plants industry. Trials are held all over the world, and each year the best new introductions in those trials are given a Fleuroselect Gold Medal. This year there were three winners.
Gaillardia x grandiflora ‘Mesa Yellow’ is a first-year flowering perennial that produces an abundance of perfect yellow flowers over a long period.
Physostegia virginiana ‘Crystal Peak White’ fits into the popular, modern range of annual flowering container perennials. It shows outstanding compactness and uniformity and is early to flower.
Sanvitalia speciosa ‘Million Suns’ produces an abundance of perfectly formed, golden yellow flowers. It is compact with excellent basal branching and a longer flowering period - from May to the first frosts.
So let’s hope that these plants do as well in our gardens next year as they have done in the trials.

Hard graft - easy graft

I've just got back from the Suttons Press Day at Capel Manor in Enfield. Another great day, very useful and informative - thanks David, Tom and Fran.
Among all the new flower and veg seed introductions for 2010, probably the most exciting news is the introduction of a wide range of grafted vegetable plants. You may have grown some of Suttons grafted tomatoes this year, but the new range also includes sweet peppers, chilli peppers, cucumbers, aubergines and melons.
The advantage of grafted plants (that is grafting a known vegetable variety onto a known, reliable rootstock) are many, but include: healthier, stronger plants that are especially better in poor summers (2007-2009 for example!); heavier and better yields produced over a longer period (both earlier and later); better disease resistance; and plants less susceptible to nutritional disorders - although they do need more feeding with potash fertilisers, due to their strong, vigorous growth.
None of this is new. Gardeners used to regularly graft their own tomatoes back in the day, but it's difficult, tedious work, Commercially most aubergine production is from grafted plants as is the majority of organic pepper and organic cucumber production. But what is new is that these methods are now available to the home gardener as ready-to-grow plants. Okay, they may be expensive to buy (around a tenner for three plants), but apparently people have been lapping up the tomato plants this year, so these new introductions should prove just as popular.
As Tom Sharples from Suttons says: "Grafting helps make the uncertainty of growing some of these crops more certain. Those that have depended on a good summer or even having to be grown in a greenhouse to do well will now be available to everyone and produce a reliable crop."
The grafting process is also giving Suttons the opportunity to experiment. They are grafting two different tomato varieties onto one rootstock to produce a 'family tomato' plant and, due to the increased vigour, even running up two main shoots from each plant - or four from the family tomato. This not only increases yield from each plant, but also allows you to grow more in a smaller space. Good thinking.
If you've grown the grafted tomatoes this year I'd love to hear your comments.

Plants on trial

The summer is a great time for us journos because all the seed companies have their trial open days and we can get a glimpse of what's to come in the following year. The first of this year's trials/open days was this week at Thompson & Morgan.
You can always rely on T&M to have a bucket-load of new plants for gardeners to grow. As with all seed companies, not all of them are necessarily your cup of tea and some may just be a new colour of an existing plant, but there are always some jewels. My favourites include the following.
Calendula 'Apricot Twist': masses of fully double apricot flowers on bushy plants that are early to flower.
Cosmos 'Double Click Snow Puff': white pompom flowers with a hint of pink.
Cosmos 'Sweet Sixteen': a semi-double with soft pink flowers with darker pink picotee edges and a double frill in the centre.
Delphinium 'Centurion Lilac Blue Bicolour': bicoloured blooms with triple layered petals in lilac an day-glo blue with a white 'bee' centre.
Digitalis purpurea 'Pam's Split': a selection from 'Pam's Choice'.
Gazania 'Big Kiss Yellow Flame': huge flowers!
Petunia 'Sophistica Lime Bicolour': flowers variously marked with lime green and rose pink stripes and splashes. Interesting!
There were also some outdoor gerberas with absolutely massive flowers and a trailing tuberous begonioa whose flowers have a range of scents throughout the day (the smell is temperature dependent) - neither of which have been named yet.
In veg there was:
Brussels sprout 'Bitesize': small buttons that remain solid for a long time and well spaced on the stem for easy picking.
Brussels sprout 'Petit Rosy Mixed': a 'stir-fry' sprout! Loose, frilly edged buttons in purple, green and bicoloured. I've got to try this one.
Runner bean 'St George': red and white flowers - superior to 'Painted lady'.
There were also some interesting new fruit developments; a new family tree containing an apricot, peach and nectarine; and a plum, aptly named the water bomb plum, as it produces a mass of juice and as soon as you bite into it juice explodes everywhere - needs to be eaten carefully.
Thanks T&M for a great day.