My Garden

This is not the only place I'm writing about new plants. Last month I wrote a piece for the Daily Telegraph about the top ten new perennials this spring. You can read it here . And over the last year I’ve been posting on new plants over on my Transatlantic Plantsman blog. You can find them all here... Read more..

Many of the Chelsea exhibitors will have new plants on display this year, but what does "new" actually mean? There are three main types of "new" Chelsea plants. 1. Plants which have never have been seen on display anywhere in the country - or perhaps anywhere in the world - before... Read more..

Clematis is our most popular climber but many gardeners are put off growing more than one because they fear their garden will disappear under a vast mass of growth. World renowned clematis breeder Raymond Evison has solved that problem with his series of prolific and long flowering but less vigorous... Read more..

This year Thorncroft Clematis Nursery in Norfolk celebrates twenty years of clematis sales to gardeners. To mark the occasion, at the Chelsea Flower Show next week (stand F6 in the Great Pavilion) they're launching a splendid new variety named for one of the founders of the nursery. ‘Geoffrey Tolver'... Read more..

Another Gold Medal for Raymond Evison's clematis here at the Chelsea Flower Show- "the best stand we've ever done," he told me - and four excellent new varieties. I wrote about ‘Diana's Delight' before the show and of the other three Fleuri (‘Evipo0421') stood out for me... Read more..

Getting clematis ready for the Chelsea Flower Show can be tricky. The later flowering types in particular can be hard to encourage into flower in May and of course at the same time there's also the need to keep the early ones at their peak. Thorncroft Clematis had earmarked a number of newcomers... Read more..

Clematis ‘Jackmanii' is perhaps the most famous clematis of all. It's that more or less indestructible, very prolific, vivid purple variety (usually with just four petals) that flowers in summer and autumn and which you can easily prune simply by cutting it back hard every spring. Now, we have... Read more..