Anemone Wild Swan™ will be  at large in a prominent landscapers display at the Chelsea Flower Show 2013 . This should be very impressive, Europe is becoming quite aware of what a wonderful plant Wild Swan ™ can be for the garden.

April 6, 2013 – The Oregonian News in the U.S. writes about the wonderful attributes of Wild Swan ™ and how Nicholas Staddon, director of new plant introductions for Monrovia Growers loves this new introduction and is bringing it to the U.S. market this year. This is some doing because Monrovia tests extensively before their decision.

For more information about Anemone Wild Swan™ please visit this page.

Wild Swan™ established in 2001 and trialed extensively in the MacGregors’ nursery in  Kirkcudbright Scotland.

“The plant is just so different, purple at the back and white at the front and it flowers for such a long time. It’s just a brilliant garden plant and that is why it was entered and eventually won the top recognition.”

Elizabeth’s increasingly passionate interest in plants and gardening eventually had to become a way of life so in 1988 the family moved to Kirkcudbright, a delightful town and fishing port in the south west of Scotland. The nursery has always concentrated on unusual hardy herbaceous plants, sold mainly by mail order and by exhibiting and selling at the larger flower shows in Scotland and England.

In 20 years of exhibiting, Elizabeth and Alasdair have been awarded countless medals for floral displays, including 9 gold medals from the The Royal Horticultural Society, with awards for the most creative display and the best floral exhibit at R.H.S. Tatton Park.

Over 50 new plants have been introduced by the nursery over the last 23 years!

For information on the Anemone Wild Swan™  please visit this page

• Flowers for four to five months in hot, dry gardening climates with virtually no upkeep.
• Tight foliage provide mass display of bright intensely colored flowers in prominent locations.
• Eliminates variable range of habits & lack of hardiness associated with many Salvia greggii forms on the market.
• Fast results in new gardens, mixed borders, poolside landscaping, cottage/wildflower gardens, & large containers.
• Lightly clipped, can form a low informal hedge, evergreen in some climates.
• Birds are attracted, deer are not, as they have an aromatic foliage!
• Flower size: 80cm x 80cm

KEY FEATURES

• Mass displays of intense colored flowers on a compact shrub.
• Won’t appear washed out under bright summer skies.
• Very minimal watering, fertilizing or pruning required.
• Species: Salvia microphylla hybrids, (microphylla x greggii).
• Zone 6 through 10.

Hot gardening with virtually no care, and with huge impact!  Click here to read more about the Salvia Heatwave™ Collection

Heatwave™ Blast: Prolific display of deep salmon pink large flowers. Drought and extreme heat tolerant. Compact, long lasting flowering shrubs. Deer resistant

Heatwave™ Blaze: large dark crimson red blossoms, displayed in mass, shown above rich green aromatic foliage. Non fading in the hot sun, as are all the Heatwave ‘ s

Heatwave™ Glitter:  Pastel mauve large blossoms, displayed on lovely green aromatic foliage. Provides fast results for new gardens.

Heatwave™ Glimmer: large creamy-white flowers displayed on black calyx, with attractive green fragrant foliage. Blooms prolifically for many months.

Heatwave™ Sparkle:  Showy deep mauve-pink with white throat. Ideal for attracting birds to the garden.

Read more about the Heatwave™ collection
For more information about the our Salvia Heatwave ™ Collection click here

The 2011 Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Year Award has been won by Anemone “Wild Swan”™

Read more about this fabulous plant

Dicentra spectabilis hordival uspp22739 Valentine ®, copf

wins top award ,    August 2012 ISU Evaluation of New Perennials in The Netherlands.

The ISU (the International Hardy Plant Union) was founded in Hannover on the 14th January 1965 by German, Dutch and Swiss nurserymen, with the idea of co-ordinating their interests on an international basis. From these early beginnings, the ISU has developed into an association of perennial plant growers and persons from related professions, with approx. 500 members in 17 European countries, as well as in the USA, Canada and Argentina.

The ISU is the only worldwide association of perennial plant growers. It connects professionals and promotes contacts all over the world.The promotion of the exchange of experiences on an international level

The primary aim of the ISU is to promote contacts among the perennial plant growers and users from different countries in the field of the cultivation, the assortments, the trade and the use of perennials.

The ISU also facilitates business connections. Thanks to the ISU young nurserymen find jobs abroad where they can make further professional studies. Another kind of contact could promote the development of product assortments in particular nurseries.
The evaluation of perennial plants deals with comparing and assessing perennial plant assortments. The focus is on cultivation suitability and garden value of the perennials. Depending on the use (habitat), different properties may be sought-after. For boarder habitats, for example, we are looking for perennial plants that have a high ornament value, that are healthy and have a good aspect for as long as possible. The properties of the perennial plants are examined in special evaluation gardens.

One of the most important goals of the ISU is the co-ordination of perennial plant evaluation on an international level and the exchange of information and evaluation results. For this reason every two years a special evaluation meeting takes place on occasion of the ISU Congress.

For more information please visit this page

Parfar ‘Patricia Ann Fretwell’ ™

Inventor: Barry Fretwell, England

Plants: These breathtaking flowers are light pink with a darker pink-red bar and creamy-white stamens – the first double-blooming clematis with this coloration. A very special addition to the clematis family, the plant’s double flowers are on the old wood from May through June. Larger single flowers appear on the new growth in summer to fall. Suitable for container or garden.

Colour: multi shades of pink-red.

Blooming season: late spring and again late summer

Zone: 4-9

Mature Size: H 2 m flower x W 16 cm

Care: Plant in sun to partial shade in fertile, well-drained alkaline soil. Dig a hole 12 cm deeper than the root ball, then plant with enriched soil, ensuring the top of the root ball is slightly higher than ground level. Back fill with enriched soil

Regular deep watering is important to ensure the root ball does not dry out. Fertilize consistently with a well balanced general fertilizer beginning in April at start of growth. To keep roots cool, use mulch to reduce the soil temperature. A once-a-year application of lime will do the trick. Prune group 2. This clematis has repeat blooming, so prune old flowers after finished. Light pruning to strong buds in April is recommended to promote branching. Support with a trellis or archway.

Inventor: Mr. Brian Collingwood, Manchester UK

Plants: These highly attractive large deep rich dark purple flowers have a faint red-purple bar with thick white filaments, anthers that are purple-red with whitish pollen. Fruit heads are persistent adding a special uniqueness. The flowers are shaped broadly elliptic-ovate, overlapping with wavy margins, showing as many as 15-18 flowers per vine and having a lovely cowslip fragrance.   Blossoms appear on the previous years and new growth, against mid-green foliage with white downy under sides.  The longevity of display, ease of culture, including complete resistance to clematis wilt enhances Suzy Mac’s desire. Especially excellent for a container but also wonderful in the garden.

Colour: dark purple, flower size 14-16 cm, 2-8 sepals (3-7 inches)

Blooming season: May through September

Zone: 2-9

Mature Size: height 75cm x width 30 cm  (5’ x24”)

Culture: patens x unknown, early large flowering. Clematis Suzy Mac ppaf was selected from approximately 60 new plants raised from seeds obtained from a population of greenhouse open pollinated Clematis patens, the seed parent of a form not widely know except in the wild in Japan. Pollen parent unknown.

Care: Plant in sun to partial shade in fertile, well-drained alkaline soil. Dig a hole 12 cm deeper than the root ball, then plant with enriched soil, ensuring the top of the root ball is slightly higher than ground level. Back fill with enriched soil.

Regular deep watering is important to ensure the root ball does not dry out. Fertilize consistently with a well balanced general fertilizer beginning in April at start of growth. To keep roots cool, use mulch to reduce the soil temperature. A once-a-year application of lime will do the trick. Prune group 2. This clematis has repeat blooming, so prune old flowers after finished. Light pruning to strong buds in April is recommended to promote branching. Support with a trellis or archway.  Prune group 2

Winner of 2012 British Clematis Society Trials

Read more about this award winning new clematis Kivistik Clematis Minister uspp#22899

Clematis as a cut flower is the newest of the Roseville Farms’ clematis products. These stems of clematis blooms will be to florists within hours. Photo by: Lynette L. Walther

“You know clematis, those eye-popping, almost-but-not-completely-over-the-top perennial flowering vines that produce blooms the size of dinner plates, right? I know clematis, and I have to admit I was weak in the knees, standing there surrounded by thousands — no make that millions — of lusty little clematis plants. The location was Roseville Farms, a huge clematis nursery smack-dab in the middle of the state of Florida. It is most likely that every clematis you might have growing in your yard or those for sale at any given nursery in your neck of the woods was conceived at this facility.

Never mind that few Floridians ever grow or even get to see a beautiful clematis in full bloom, because clematis is a perennial vine that needs an extended period of cold-induced dormancy to grow and bloom properly. Even so Roseville Farms is the place for clematis, where each spring more than a hundred varieties (40 of which are patented) of clematis (some four million plants in four-inch pots) are shipped to nurseries all over the country to be potted up in gallon containers and grown for local gardens.

I knew that local nurseries got many of their plants (not only clematis) from large farms in Florida, and wanted to see how they were grown and in the case of clematis, find out why they are grown there.

Recently Roseville Farms’ vice president of sales and marketing, Dan Webber, took me on a tour of the amazing nursery. He explained that Roseville Farms is the “largest and most reliable source for U.S.-grown clematis vines with over 35 exclusive varieties.” And what a place it is, situated in the rolling hills near Apopka, on 40-plus acres with 12 acres of greenhouses, including a series of “cold houses” kept at 38 degrees F where plants are given the requisite days of dormancy that sunny Florida simply cannot provide.

But while it lacks the terms of sustained cold weather, the locale more than makes up for that minor detail in terms of getting a clematis vine off to a great start.

“We can grow everything here three times faster than we could elsewhere,” Webber said, explaining how a big clematis nursery ended up in sub-tropical Florida, with dependable sunshine and moderate temperatures being the key factors. As for the cold that clematis requires, it is supplied by six weeks in those refrigerated buildings that Webber calls “coolers.”

“We try to mimic Mother Nature, and by September, they (the plants) just want to shut down. Come December it’s not very interesting in here,” said Webber of when the plants get the cold treatment in the “coolers.” But by springtime, the greenhouses are a’bloom with stunning plants ready to ship out.

Roseville’s clematis plants start out as cuttings. No tissue culture here, no sir. Old fashioned cuttings are the only basis for their plants, and Roseville has perfected the art of rooting clematis cuttings, Webber explained. Each year more varieties are added to the nursery collection, but only after years (usually at least three or four) of trial where the varieties are tested out for everything from their ability to be rooted from cuttings to the reliability of their blooms. A rigorous list of requirements must be met before any clematis newcomer becomes part of the collection.

Roseville has branched out recently into the cut flower business as well, with clematis blooms grown and shipped from their greenhouses. We all know and love those long-lasting flowers, but the concept of them as cut flowers for the florist trade is something entirely novel. So new and such a cutting-edge concept that Roseville’s cut clematis flowers were featured by Martha Stewart on her television program this spring. There’s little doubt now we’ll all be seeing more clematis, more often from now on.

The high-end product is labor intensive to say the least. All produced in the greenhouses, the potted plants are grown with special nutrients to ensure bright green foliage; are pruned to a single leader that is hand-staked; and when the time is right — a critical factor in the process — the blooms are harvested. The 34-inch stems which usually display a single bloom, are hand trimmed and packed in bunches that are labeled by variety, not color because those familiar with clematis know how many different “blues” or “pinks” or “whites” there are in clematis. Webber pointed out how one variety, Little Ibi for example, starts out with a bluish-tint and evolves into pure white as the blooms “mature,” a process that continues even once the stems are cut.

“It is amazing how much water the stems can take up,” Webber remarked. The blooms are cut when they just begin to open and not later. “If the flowers are too big when we ship them, they can get bruised.” He said shelf life for the flowers is a week to 10 days, and even 12 days to two weeks “…easily if you change the water regularly.”

No doubt many of you will adapt that idea of clematis in a floral arrangement, and run with it once the clematis comes into bloom this summer. It’s a whole new way to look at this “Queen of Vines,” and a fresh take on this garden favorite. Such a trendsetter you will be!

For homegrown clematis in Zone 5, Webber offered these recommendations for reliable varieties color-by-color:

• Pinks: Proteus and Patricia Anne Fretwell
• Whites: Snow Queen, Comtesse de Bouchard
• Blue: H.F. Young
• Reds: Niobe, Ruutel

For a handy pruning chart from Roseville Farms — listed by category and variety — and growing tips for the Queen of Vines, visit my blog entry on a Clematis planting and pruning guide at: http://gardeningonthego.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/clematis-planting-and-pruning-guide.”

The conditions at Roseville Farms in central Florida mean that plants get a good start and do it quickly. This plant is already blooming. (Photo by: Lynette L. Walther)

Each spring Roseville Farms ships out millions (yes millions) of these clematis plants to nurseries all over the country where they are potted up and grown to sell to local garden centers and customers. (Photo by: Lynette L. Walther)

Anyone who has ever grown clematis knows that when it comes to clematis, the roots are the thing, and this tiny clematis vine at Roseville Farms nursery sports a characteristically robust root system. (Photo by: Lynette L. Walther)

“Lynette L. Walther is the recipient of the National Garden Bureau’s Exemplary Journalism Award and the Florida Magazine Association’s Silver Award of Writing Excellence. She is a member of the Garden Writers Association. She gardens in Camden.”

Celebrate the tenth year of Lithodora ‘Star’ by creating your own galaxy with a cluster of Stars 12 inches apart.

Read more about Lithodora ‘Star’…