Of all the parts of the Garden at Wisley, the Trials Field is always an exciting area to visit. The dahlias and chrysanthemums are spectacular at the moment, as are the sunny Tagetes (marigolds), last of the cool delphiniums, and the statuesque Cortaderia grasses, amongst many others.
Our Sempervivum trial has just been judged by the Rock Garden Plants Trials Subcommittee. They’ve made their recommendations as to which cultivars should be awarded the prestigious Award of Garden Merit (AGM). The winners have had to deal with all manner of weather conditions ranging from the scorching summer of 2006 to the deluge of 2007.
Sempervivums, or house leeks, are generally easy to look after. They produce evergreen, symmetrical rosettes of oval to strap shaped pointed fleshy leaves that hug the ground, and are often used in rock gardens, screes, walls and alpine houses. Our trial, that has been in place since 2005, is due to come out in the next month or two, and when it does we are planning to plant a green roof from some of these sempervivum on the shelter in the top corner of the Trials Field. That’ll be something to look out for. The rest of the plants will be either returned to the 15 individuals and nurseries who donated them for the trial, or used elsewhere at Wisley. We received 302 entries, with 4 plants per entry, of 266 different cultivars. As they’ve grown over the duration of the trial, you can imagine how many we have now!
For more information visit http://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/trials_opendays.asp
Our next open day is next Tuesday 9th September when we’ll be focusing on dahlias.