Plant Trends at Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show

The Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show is the trend setting event of the year here in Australia. The industry is displaying plants of future interest, tempting customers in the hope of spurring sales into the forthcoming season. If there’s a plant on display, people will be coming in and asking for it tomorrow. Three standout exhibits this year were inundated with punters wanting to know what the latest and the greatest in the plant world is. Of these three displays there was no doubt a concentrated focus on natives.

‘Cooling the Planet One Backyard at a Time’ – Tree Shrub Growers of Victoria

Highlighting plants by planting en masse, this display utilised a variety of species selected for their ability to ‘cool the planet’. For example shade trees (Fraxinus excelsior ‘Aurea’) were used to complement the variegated privet which stood over the exhibit and stage. Lawn was included, but so too were small ground covering plants such as the new release Dianella ‘Petite Marie’ and the strong selling and popular Banksia ‘Birthday Candles’. Other tufting beauties such as Libertia ‘Gold Fingers’ and Lomandra ‘Seascape’ (or ‘Silver Grace) add further colour and interest to the design. Structural plants were also significantly featured, and Xanthorrhoeas continue to be used as stand out features in garden designs.

Aloe plicatilus added further interest with their succulent bodies and unique architectural forms. Three other notable plants featured within exhibit included Yucca ‘Silver Sword’ and Acacia ‘Fettucini’. Espaliered citrus and olives from Merrywood Plants also created a bit of a storm with many questions on the stand focused on these trained plants.

‘Imagine’ – A joint garden by Humphris Nursery, Dirtscape Dreaming, Austraflora, Arbor Constructions and Swinburne

I spoke briefly to Barry Humphris of the ‘Imagine’ garden, a joint initiative between Humphris Nurseries and Swinburne University. Barry pointed out that grafted natives were incredibly popular, and that the public who know their natives, generally know their plants. The result of this is that there is a knowing expectation that a ‘grafted plant is a better plant.’ With these plants increasingly being used within designs, they are being engrained in the consumers psyche. With this in mind and demand high at the show, we will no doubt see this trend continue within garden centres post MIFGS – it seems everyone is going to want a grafted Eremophilla or Corymbia cv.

Another plant featured in the garden includes the newly released Eucalyptus cladocalyx ‘Vintage Red’ which has deep red juvenile foliage, potentially an ideal plant for coppicing – an increasingly popular horticultural practice here in Australia.

A wide range of other plants were featured including the ‘King in the Garden’ Range such as Acmena ‘Moonlight Flame’ and the increasingly popular fluffy pink heads of Ptilotis exaltatus ‘Phoenix’. Some other more unusual plants included in the large planting scheme were Pimelea physodes ‘Qualup Bells’ and the silver foliage of Marieana oppositifolia ‘Dwarf Silver Shadow’ and the Acacia cognata cultivars with their graceful weeping lime green foliage are proven winners.

Habitat – ‘Phillip Johnston’

This garden won not only Best in Show, but a Gold award for Best Show Garden. It was an incredibly impressive piece, and certainly stopped people in their tracks with their interesting selection of plants and massive feature boulders, intermingled with the key environmental messages about living a sustainable life. The garden itself comprised of a diverse plant selection, incorporating not only edible gardens (vegetables, fruit and citrus) but riparian vegetation including sedges and ferns and xeriscape plantings – the entire design wassegregated by ecological zones, with the water as the fluid entity and life
blood of making the site work. This is something which Phillip Johnston Landscape Systems designs around – building a sustainable habitat to be enjoyed.

To mention just a few of the stand out plants that stood out in the landscape – Bachychiton specimens, no doubt chosen for their spectacular structure, their ability to conserve moisture is also a drawcard. Doryanthes excelsa, the spectacularly large flowering Gymea Lily was also utilised in abundance, their phenomenal size and impact within the landscape added scale and stirred interest amongst the visitors. Other plants such as a number of cultivars of Anigozanthos, Dampiera, Eremophilla and a wide variety of fern species were utilised to create this impressive display of Australian flora.

Wisley Flower Show 2008

Below are some photos of the 'stand' which myself and my colleagues planned, designed and constructed. It will have staff manning it for the three days of the event, promoting the Wisley Plant Centre. Unfortunately due to the fact that we are part of the RHS, we are not eligible to win any awards, but I like to think it was award worthy. Nice job everyone who was involved!

L-R - Hilary (Deputy Supervisor, Indoor Sales Team),
Barbara (Manager of Wisley Plant Centre),
Nigel (Head of Wisley Plant Centre)

Freddie and I congratulating each other on our efforts!

There is to be some signage, point of sale and leaflets which we will be handing out to complete the scene.

Chelsea Flower Show 2008

The British nation stops, everyone’s talking about it, others are watching it on TV; it is THE trend setting event of the year where the media have the potential to make or break you as a member of industry. It’s gruelling, tiring, exciting and attended by everyone who is anyone. It is simply known as ‘Chelsea’.

The Chelsea Flower Show is the Royal Horticultural Societies long running horticultural show, allowing designers, growers and many other stakeholders to showcase their talent, expertise and unique products (outdoor living and sculpture is in abundance) to the general public. It is the world wide gardening event of the year, bringing together garden lovers from around the globe – this year saw exhibits by Flemings & Trailfinders Australian Garden [Australia], Kirstenbosch [South Africa] and the Horticultural Society of Trinidad and Tobago to name just a few.

There were a number of evident common trends in plant selection which were showcased amongst the big Show Gardens. General consensus was that Alliums, which have featured not only this year but for the past 6 or so, have become all too common as a stately plant associated with Chelsea. There is a strong desire from industry to see something new and different. Along with Alliums, other popular favourite plants include clipped Buxus which can be shaped to a wide range of forms, making it one of the most versatile base plants of a design.

While lush clean greens and pure white flowering plants dominate the designs this year, the other standout featured colour was purple. There was a significant amount of predominantly rich purple flowering plants cleverly offset by the contrasting white and green theme. As mentioned, the rich purple flowers of Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ stand tall in many of the exhibitor’s displays with Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’ also a popular purple structural plant. It also comes into its own when in flower, with a large yellow Crassulaceae inflorescence rising above the plant.

With the event being held at a high point in the middle of spring when many plants are flowering, timing the flowering period of these to coincide with Chelsea can be difficult with designers often having backup selections if one crop fails for one reason or another. Prior to opening on Press Day, walking around the site you would see Paeonia flowers wrapped up with insulation material around the buds like little blankets. This primarily aids in keeping the temperature even around the flower to prevent it from spoiling and opening too much before the all important Press Day. Just one of the many tricks in constructing a garden at Chelsea.

While the Wisley Plant Centre does not display at Chelsea, many other major garden centres do, with the common ‘grow your own’ theme dominating. There was a feast of ideas demonstrating outdoor living intermingled with home grown fruit and vegetables and ornamental displays of a wide variety of trees and shrubs.

So what is it that we as members of the Nursery and Garden Industry can take from this? These trends are a prime marketing point to increase sales within your nursery. At the Wisley Plant Centre, we have taken these trends of Chelsea and constructed Planted Containers and a display garden with associated plants for sale next to this. Appropriate point of sale is a must to ensure that the theme is understood and cross merchandising evident to inspire the customer. It is your opportunity to sell!

One of my favourite suggestive planting combinations I saw (at the Hilliers display) include the bright red bottle brush flowers of Callistemon citrinus and red roses, worked as focal points amongst coppiced Eucalyptus, Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’, Ceanothus cv., Lavandula ‘Tiara’, Choisya ternata ‘Aztec Pearl’, Pinus sylvestris, Convolvulus cnoerum and other plants in the same silver, green and red palette.

And of course I can not go without mentioning the Flemings Trailfinders Australian Garden. It was fantastic to see a piece of Australia be built up surrounded by everything else so quintessentially English in character. The final result was colourful, full of contrast and highly curvaceous, brought about by the featured sandstone walls and stringy bark decking. Yet again, another prime marketing point for you to utilise!

If you’re keen to see what it’s all about, and get an insight into the 2008 Chelsea Flower Show, the DVD is out now, available through www.rhs.org.uk/shopping

Chelsea Highlight Plants

Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’ (P)
Achillea ‘Moonshine’
Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ and other cv. (P)
Angelica sp.
Buxus sempervirens ??
Carex testacea
Cercis canadensis ‘Forrest Pansy’
Dicksonia antarctica
Digitalis cv.
Heuchera ‘Plum Pudding’ and other cv. (P)
Hosta cv.
Lavandula cv. (P)
Lupinus cv. (P)
Nepeta sp.
Papaver cv.
Phormium cv. (P)
Salvia cv. (P)
Verbascum cv.

(P) – The Purple Plants of Chelsea


Text and Photos by Anthony J Curnow



Reference Websites:
www.rhs.org.uk/chelsea
www.sanbi.org
www.hillier.co.uk
www.flemings.com.au/chelsea2008

Chelsea Flower Show 2008 - Photos

Great Dixter - A Garden of More Than 4 Seasons

Great Dixter is one of England’s finest garden examples where traditional horticultural practices are still being used to maintain an historic, seasonally interesting and highly intensive garden full of colour and contrast. It is an English garden of aspiration!

Set around the Manor of Dixter which dates back to the 1450s, the gardens were developed from 1912, when it was bought by Nathaniel Loyd as an agricultural property with farmhouse attached. Since that time, Christopher Loyd who inherited the property after the death of his father Nathanial in 1972, developed a strong love for plants and as such became one of England’s acclaimed gardening writers and plantsmen.

Christopher Loyd met Fergus Garret in 1988 when he was visiting the gardens as a student, and their combined passion and motivation led to a lifetime of friendship. Since the passing of Christopher Loyd in recent years, Fergus Garret has continued to set gardening trends while challenging horticulture. He has done this by avoiding traditional planting schemes and literally reinventing the colour wheel by utilising combinations that go against the rule such as the use of pink and yellow! On arrival to Dixter, one of Garrett’s first challenges was to convert what was a tired old formal rose garden into a rainbow of colour that would be an exotic garden featuring Cordylines, Cannas, Dahlia, Musa, Eucalyptus, Verbena bonariensis (a characteristically Dixter plant) and others. This level of ongoing experimentation is what makes Great Dixter one of Englands much loved gardens.

I was spending two days at the gardens with the Wisley Diploma students on a volunteer weekend, but little did I realise in the middle of winter that the gardens would be bare, only outlined by the characteristic Dixterian Yew hedges. As a result, there were a number of other maintenance duties which take place throughout the winter, and the one I was assigned to would be making fresh potting mix (or compost as it is called here).

The first step in this process is to use a turf cutter to take the top off a meadow and then to stack this high and let it decompose. From this, shavings are taken from one end and spread over an area, and then top dressed with compost from the gardens which is comprised mainly of decomposed clippings from those same meadows. These two parts are then rotary hoed together before being shovelled through a screen filter. This fine material is the base of the compost, with peat, pine bark, grit, fertilisers and other additions made after it has been sterilised by a huge fire throwing machine. It is backbreaking work, but I think one would agree that it makes a supreme growing medium, whereby plants will grow out of the media into its new surrounding soil quicker. This has been found on site at Great Dixter, primarily attributing to the fact that they are being grown in essentially the same soil they are to be planted into as stock plants for the gardens ongoing replacement scheme.

The stock produced by the Gardens Nursery staff is sold through a small plant centre at one end of the gardens, where visitors have the option of buying a plant propagated and grown on site in Dixters very own compost. It makes for a very attractive and attainable souvenir!

There are many interesting attributes that characterise Dixter as such a progressive garden. Quiet possibly it’s most popular of these is the successional planting schemes which Christopher Loyd is famous for. Having written many books on the topic, Dixter is the garden where these ideas were born. In each season the planting schemes primary goal is to provide interest throughout the entire growing season. This means that from Spring through to Autumn as one plant flowering early in the season begins to fade, another pops up in its place to provide further interest. There is no doubt that the level of success is varied, and it is an ongoing challenge to find combinations that work well, resulting in an incredibly high maintenance garden where the love for plants is evident at every level.

The philosophy behind successional planting is exhaustive, but to start such a canvas as Garret explained to us, the first step is to identify what you want the garden bed to look like at its peak and work first backwards and then forwards from that point. In doing so, think about using as much variation in colour, texture, form, height, flower, fruit and leaf and also plant type such as climbers, evergreen, perennials, biennials and annuals so that you create a canvas which changes constantly. The key is to also ensure that it looks good if it were viewed not only in colour, but black and white which is where the varied design elements and principles come into play. It’s all about balancing the number of plants so that one doesn’t swamp the other and they live in harmony. For example, bulbs will often die off if the other plantings around them are too thick and don’t die down at the right time.

Great Dixter demonstrates a truly inspirational style of gardening, bringing forth every little bit of passion that England and Australia share for our favourite past time. Forget the no maintenance style of gardening; this is one style where the purpose is to create your own living landscape full of ever changing interest throughout the year. While it is difficult to create what Great Dixter does due to Australia’s varying environment, the love and care which goes into developing a garden is something that we must harness once more. As horticulturalists in the nursery and garden industry, and the primary promoters of plants, we have to recapture that passion for gardening by encouraging and inspiring our customers when they step through the door of your plant centre looking for something to buy.


Text and Photos by Anthony J Curnow

Great Dixter - Working Weekend

An excellent weekend of learning. I was expecting a quiet weekend pottering around, little did I realise I would be put hard to work on creating fresh compost according to a John Innes recipe.








The first step in this process is to use a turf cutter to take the top off a meadow and then to stack this high and let it decompose. From here, shavings are taken from one end and spread over an area and then top dressed with compost from the gardens which is comprised mainly of decomposed clippings from the meadows. These two parts are then rotary hoed together before being pout through a sieve. This fine material is the base of the compost, with pine bark, grit, and other additions made after it has been sterilised. It is backbreaking work, but I think one would agree that it makes a supreme growing medium, whereby plants will grow out of the media into its new surrounding soil quicker. This has been found on site at Great Dixter, primarily attributing to the fact that they are being grown in essentially the same soil they are to be planted into as stock.





Other notes I wish to make:
- they wrote the textbook on successional planting.
- Important to create a 4/5 successional planting over a few seasons.
- Work from knowing what you want it to look like in the peak period and go backwards to fill the gaps either side of this
- The results should look good in black and white, this depends on varying
o Colour, texture, form, height, of both flower, fruit and leaf
o Varying seasonal interest of one plant
Cornus with red stems, but variegated foliage
o Select best plants for the spot
- Climbers, evergreen, perennials, biennials and annuals (reseeders need managing!) all grow together and cohabit
o Its about balancing the number of plants so that one doesn’t swamp the other and they live in harmony. Bulbs will often die off if the other plantings around them are too thick and doent die down at the right time
o Good combo – agapnthus and crocossmia, two striking colours
o Use backdrops to the colour like the yew heges which are clipped in autumn to get the most prolonged length of crisp edges
o Even if a garden is designed and developed around the spring summer season, winter interest can be created by evergreen shrubs (the backbone of the garden), grasses which add structure and create interest on frosty mornings and winter flowering plants such as Galanthus, Crocus, Iris reticulata, Helleborus, Primula vulgaris and early flowering Narcissus.

- very organic in its organisational culture
o traditional methods of producing compost which they prop all their plants in
o it’s a very high maintenance garden
o the plant centre is tiny and traditional and there is no desire to enhance things and put in a coffee shop as this will then lose the character of the place. This is just one example of many whereby the traditional horticultural practices are conserved at the expense of non commercialisation and lack of increasing margins.

Sir Harold Hillier Gardens - The Winter Garden

anthonycurnow.com
Anthony Curnow from Macdonalds Plants Plus Nursery in Bendigo is currently undertaking a program in Plant Centre Management Skills at the Royal Horticultural Societies flagship property, Wisley Gardens, UK. This is part of a series of articles documenting his experiences abroad.

Sir Harold Hillier gardens

Sir Harold Hillier Gardens lies close with Wisley as being one of the United Kingdoms leading ornamental gardens, incorporating a wide range of resources that act in promoting and developing horticulture. With a collection comprising of roughly 42,000 plants, about 12,000 different taxa which make up 11 National Plant Collections, there is little doubt as to its popularity.

I visited this garden with the purpose of seeing their well respected Winter Garden, which with more than 650 different cultivars is said to be the largest in Europe of its sort. The variety of plants selected for their form, colour, texture and scent is astonishing. Evergreen plants such as clipped Buxus and conifers are used as a backdrop to the fluorescent stems of Dogwoods (Cornus sp.) and the bright spider like flowers of Witchazels (Hamamellis sp.) Snowdrops (Galanthus sp.) at this time of the year dominate the lawns and gaps between deciduous shrubs, prior to the Daffodils emergence. If the showy display of Daphne bahlou ‘Jacqueline Postill’ is not enough to stop you in your tracks, then her scent alone is bound to bowl you right over. It is staggeringly sweet and you smell this plant well before you see it.
While most deciduous trees are waiting for warmer spring weather for bud burst, the light delicate pink petals of early cherry blossom (Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis Rosea’) have been flowering successfully along its bare stems since early winter. The newly formed bark begins to be revealed from beneath the flaking sheath of the Birches, and the catkins hang at the tips of the branches in preparation for pollen distribution. There are varied outlines formed against the sky of the deciduous trees, such as Ginkgo with its knobbly spur like growth, the twisted branches of Corylus contorta and the classic Quercus growth habit. There is so much to see in this garden that one walks away addicted to the satisfaction gained in overloading ones senses.

Interpretation is incredibly positive in the gardens, with an evident desire to educate the public. Their A4 photocopied handouts provide seasonal interest guided walks, presenting visitors with detailed information on the cultivars and how to say them phonetically, eliminating the questionable Latin pronunciations. Reference to whether their garden centres also stock the plant is made, bringing a unified front to the public, something which RHS Wisley is at this stage working on developing. These are excellent, positive interpretative and marketing ideas for such gardens in promoting horticulture on a technical level without ‘dumbing’ it down.

Along with running a wide range of programme and events for the general public, the Garden maintains a long history in educating and producing some of the countries finest horticulturists. Catherine Withers, a current Wisley Diploma trainee spent a year there volunteering and learning:

‘There are many opportunities for studying at Hillier gardens. I had the pleasure of living in the student accommodation along with the resident cat and the other students, of course. We were rotated around the five areas of the garden on a fortnightly basis, which was a good way to see the whole garden over the different seasons. Every other Thursday was study day where we had a workshop in the morning, often given by the head gardener, on important skills in horticulture such as shrub pruning, propagation, and tree planting. The afternoon was spent going on themed identification walks, being shown 20 plants that we would then be tested on in two weeks time. We also had to produce a project on something related to the garden and give a presentation to all the staff. There are two - three paid placements offered every year, either for six months or the whole year. Applicants usually have to have some horticultural experience. As for volunteering, this can be done at any time and for anything from a couple of weeks to the whole year. The accommodation is free as long as there is space and students come from around the world. For more information on the garden look at the website http://www.hilliergardens.org.uk/’

Sir Harold Hillier Gardens is, like Wisley, a place of opportunity for both budding horticulturists and gardeners of all ages.

A Taste of Horticulture in Holland

In a recent trip to Holland for the weekend, I was provided with the opportunity to be shown around a unique nursery. It primarily grows a number of Hedera sp. of varying pot sizes and three or four varieties of Euonymus fortunei for the landscape and garden centre market.
The difference between this nursery and all the others in the country is its employees. With the exception of a small management team, the other 80 odd employees consist of people with special needs. It provides a good bridging opportunity for people of all abilities in providing them with the skills which will help them out in being employed elsewhere.
The nursery used to grow species such as Zamiocalus (ZZ Plants) and Spathiphyllum which required the houses to be heated, however given the cost to run the boiler and the lack of funding (primarily from government), a shift in species grown on site was made. Very little chemical spraying takes place, with the introduction of some beneficial insects to biologically control common pests such as aphid throughout the seasons. The plants generally look after themselves, with the majority of the worked working in propagation and potting and at the other of the production line at dispatch, where plants are cleaned up and staked.

With winter nearly gone now, the spring season is upon us, and a busy one it is bound to be with the world renowned Chelsea Flower Show in May and the peak season about to begin for all retailers.

Text and Photos by Anthony J Curnow

Sir Harold Hillier Gardens - The Winter Garden - Photos

Wintertime at RHS Wisley Gardens

Winter at Wisley

Its winter time and Wisley Gardens has taken on a new look, with the bare structured bones of the gardens and its borders being revealed, it has turned into a winter wonderland! The colour of the sky offset by the lush grass acts as a backdrop to a number of winter marvels which in our increasingly temperate climate in South East Australia, we just don’t get to experience.

Christmas has passed and the season is reaching its peak with sweetly scented, spider shaped Hamamelis sp. (Witch hazel) flowers being borne along the bare stems, they are real show stoppers having only just shed their vivid Autumn colours. The shorter days and low sun slung on the horizon sheds light in a fashion that promotes shadows, silhouettes and reflections in the ponds, bringing warmth to the plants that are covered white with frozen moisture in the air. The orange-brown flaking bark of Acer griseum, vibrant coloured stems of coppiced Salix sp. and Cornus sp. and the pink and orange fruits of Euonymus sp. all add interest to a season which for many find dull and depressing; there is plenty of evidence that the garden is a living system just waiting for the right conditions to explode into leaf and bloom.

The extents to which gardeners go to save their precious plants over the winter are amazing. Here in the gardens, tents and straw/wire structures keep the growing tips warm and cosy of a multitude of plants (such as Cordyline and Ensete) that are not fully frost hardy.

Life as a Plantsman

Recently I attended a Kew Garden lecture by Roy Lancaster on his life as a Plantsman. Roy Lancaster is a highly respected member of the industry here in the UK, introducing a number of plant species into cultivation during his career. His enthusiasm is outstanding and highly inspiring to young members of the industry. So one may ask, what is a Plantsman? A plantsman as described by Mr. Lancaster falls under the 3 P’s – Plants, People and Places. As a Plantsman, he went on to describe the prerequisites of what it takes to be a ‘good gardener’:

• Patience – there are not many plants that are on the same time scale as humans, and as such be prepared to wait 20 years for something to flower!
• Sense of adventure – the need to see things growing in the wild - ‘’I want to see for myself’’
• Sense of curiosity – a curious mind – question everything – where, when and how?

Some of my most memorable moments so far demonstrates such characteristics; the feeling I had when climbing the high mountains in Switzerland and nearly treading on a small stand of Eidelweiss and being taken off the beaten track on Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo to view Nepenthes sp. growing wild. These were enthralling moments full of my own nerdy excitement – I love plants! We must not forget the origins of the plants we work with each day, and never take them for granted. So get out there, even if it is your local nature reserve, and view plants in their habitat!

Another interesting point is the way Mr. Lancaster continued to promote the fact that being a good gardener really is something to aspire to. I believe being a ‘gardener’ is an old term and I know that little respect is often obtained when asked ‘…and what do you do?’ I think this is why the term horticulturalist is often favoured, as it is a more professional term, which given natural succession, probably is the appropriate term for many of us in industry – we are horticulturalists. We hold a vast bank of knowledge and experience and as such should be seen as those to turn to when any issue arises from plants in both the natural and artificial landscape.