I wrote up the bright new bicoloured Pacific Coast Iris from Broadleigh Gardens, ‘Broadleigh Fenella', before the show. Then when I talked to Christine Skelmersdale, who runs Broadleigh, down at the show I found that she had two unexpected new introductions that she was showing at the Chelsea Flower Show for the first time.
The first was another of her long and seemingly ever improving series of Pacific Coast Irises that carry the Broadleigh prefix.
‘Broadleigh Eleanor' is a delicious, good-enough-to-eat mulberry purple with a sparkling yellow flash in the throat. The buds are a lovely deep shade while the foliage is also very dark. Earlier than most in the series, the flowers at the show had been held back and were the last of the season while ‘Broadleigh Fenella' was showing the first flowers of the season.
This plant is named for Christine's God daughter who was married on 8 May - while Christine was meeting visitors to her exhibit at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show.
Also on display for the first time was Camassia ‘Broadleigh Belle', a mix of hybrid camassias in a wide range of shades. The mixture developed as self sown seedlings in the frame yard at Broadleigh, with bulbs from iris expert Peter Maynard in their background, but recently Christine has been selecting them and she now has five or six hundred lined out in the field.
Her mixture includes pale blue, mid blue, rich purplish blue, pale rose pink, pure white and ice white (white, but blue tinted on the backs of the petals and with dark anthers).
You can order both Iris ‘Broadleigh Eleanor' and Camassia ‘Broadway Belle' at the show - last day today - and both will be available in due course on the Broadleigh Gardens website.