One of the much anticipated highlights of the Floral Pavilion at the Chelsea Flower Show is always the stand from Dibleys featuring mainly Streptocarpus - sometimes called the Cape Primrose. In twenty years at Chelsea Dibleys have won nineteen Gold Medals - that's impressive.
And every year, along with their fascinating and beautifully staged exhibit, they introduce some new varieties and this year they'll be launching two new streptocarpus on stand D4. Both have flowers about 5cm/2in across, both are very prolific, both will flower for about ten months of the year and both are fairly compact.
The subtle pastel colouring of ‘Hannah' is especially appealing, its rose pink flowers open quite pale and become a richer pink after a couple of days. The creamy yellow throat pales almost to white as it extends on to the lower part of the flower. The seven short purple streaks in the throat complete the picture.
'Hope' is a much stronger colour. The lower lobes of the flower are a velvety reddish purple while the upper lobes are overlaid in white. Slender yellow streaks in the throat add a flash of bright light. Sales of ‘Hope' are supporting Hope House, a children's hospice with two facilities - one in Oswestry in Shropshire and another in Conwy in North Wales. Dibleys will donate 5p to Hope House for every plant of ‘Hope' sold.
You can order plants of these two new Streptocarpus at the show, or from the Dibleys website.