Posted on 20.07.2022 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Notes from My Conservation Scheme Garden On my allotment I grow the usual items, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, radishes, raspberries and dahlias. But I have one bed in which, over the years, I have planted the Conservation Scheme plants that didn’t fit…

Posted on 04.03.2022 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants   Vinca minor ‘Mrs Betty James’  Introduced by the Shropshire group in 2017, it had caught the attention of Bob Brown of Cotswold Garden Flowers. He is the one who named it after the woman who brought it to a plant…

Posted on 06.01.2022 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants My Hemerocallis Story  Hemerocallis ‘Apple Court Damson’ Hemerocallis ‘Apple Court Damson’ I have always felt fairly neutral about Hemerocallis. It’s not that I don’t like them, but they were never one of those plants that reached out and grabbed me and…

Posted on 22.07.2021 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Geranium x oxonianum ‘Fran’s Star’ Geranium x oxonianum ‘Fran’s Star’ is doing well in my garden this summer, full of flowers and with lots of lush leaves. It must be all the rain we had earlier. It is a clump forming…

Posted on 10.05.2021 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Geranium ‘Pink Delight’   Spring is a time for dividing plants and making new ones. That’s exactly what I’ve done this week with my Geranium ‘Pink Delight’. I kept it in its pot last year so I could trial it in…

Posted on 24.03.2021 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants A Conservation Garden – March 2021 My latest Lockdown Project is to re-vamp an old bed on my allotment. This was almost the first section I worked and planted up when I took on the plot. It was meant to be…

Posted on 12.02.2021 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants A plant name mystery has been discovered in the Conservation Scheme database. In January Cathy Rollinson posted on the Conservation Scheme Facebook page that the plant we list as Persicaria runcinata Needham’s form is probably really Persicaria sinuata. She found this…

Posted on 24.01.2021 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Heuchera for Winter Foliage In the depths of winter I sometimes feel that I have to do what the plants are doing, just keep ticking over until the nights get shorter, the days get warmer and there is a sniff of…

Posted on 17.11.2020 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Chrysanthemum ‘Dulwich Pink’ AGM  This autumn I’m discovering a new Conservation Scheme plant – not one that is new to the scheme, but new to me. It has actually been in the scheme since 2010, introduced from the Hertfordshire group.  Somewhere…

Posted on 18.09.2020 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Conservation plants: tried and tested Gardeners want plants that make a positive contribution to the overall effect, either by adding foliage or flowers over a long period or providing a focal point of interest even if for a brief time. With…

Posted on 14.08.2020 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants   Drought tolerant sedums Perennial sedums are among the easiest plants to grow and provide a long period of interest as well as being an excellent choice to attract bees and butterflies. The main flowering period is from mid-August to October,…

Posted on 18.06.2020 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Spring into Summer This month I thought it might be interesting to look at how some of the conservation plants have performed so far this year. The first to show in the persistent rain of February and March were Vinca minor ‘Mrs…

Posted on 12.05.2020 | Updated on 19.05.2020 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Dianthus ‘Gold Dust’ Pinks have been grown in our gardens for centuries, loved for the neat clumps of grey-green grassy foliage and pretty clove-scented flowers. Descended from Dianthus plumarius, pink refers to the fringed petals that often…

Posted on 07.04.2020 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Geranium x oxonianum ‘Diane’s Treasure’ Hardy geraniums are ‘good do-ers’, reliably hardy perennials that will grow in most gardens, but have gained a reputation for seeding themselves around rather too vigorously. Geranium x oxonianum hybrids (a cross between G. endressii and…

Posted on 21.03.2020 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Four Phlox A new HPS booklet on Border Phlox will be published later this year, and it seems appropriate that we have several more phlox that are new to the Conservation List. Phlox paniculata ‘Maude Stella Dagley’ was featured in January,…

Posted on 18.02.2020 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Epimedium ‘Milky Way’ There are not many spring -flowering plants on the Conservation List, so it was good to have this suggestion from HPS Hampshire Group. Epimedium are an attractive addition to the spring garden, many have brightly coloured new foliage…

Added in Featured Conservation Plants Phlox paniculata ‘Maude Stella Dagley’ This is one of a number of new Phlox paniculata cultivars added to the Conservation Scheme last year by the Hampshire Group who have been growing Phlox paniculata ‘Maude Stella Dagley’ for over 15 years. The plant was thought to…

Posted on 02.11.2019 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Chrysanthemum ‘E.H. Wilson’ One of the new introductions to the Conservation Scheme this year, suggested by Southern Counties Group following a recommendation from one of the National Collection Holders, is Chrysanthemum E.H. Wilson’. Although not as difficult to obtain as some…

Posted on 03.10.2019 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Update from the annual meeting Conservation coordinators from the Local Groups came together a couple of weeks ago for the annual meeting and plant exchange. Over 300 plants, the result of propagation from divisions and cuttings, were distributed and the discussion…

Posted on 30.07.2019 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Conservation plants in the garden Plants in the Conservation Scheme should be completely hardy and perform well in the garden, but we don’t grow plants in isolation and I’ve been looking out for some interesting planting combinations. Erigeron ‘Sincerity’ has flowered…

Posted on 01.07.2019 | Updated on 31.07.2019 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Which plants are in the Scheme and why? There are 47 plants in the Conservation Scheme at the moment and you may wonder why there are not more and why these particular plants have been chosen. Thousands…

Posted on 01.06.2019 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Chrysanthemum ‘Romantica’ Chrysanthemum ‘Romantica’ was suggested for inclusion by HPS Hampshire Group in 2018 whose members have grown it since 2012. The name spelt with a ‘c’ as here is the RHS accepted name although a plant listed by Plant Heritage…

Posted on 01.05.2019 | Updated on 14.05.2019 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Phlox paniculata ‘Lady Clare’ is the fourth of the plants introduced to the Conservation Scheme last year. The Hampshire Group thought it worthy of inclusion because the large pale pink flowers with a deeper soft pink eye…

Posted on 02.03.2019 | Updated on 03.03.2019 | Added in Featured Conservation Plants Penstemon ‘Margery Fish’ This is another of the new introductions to the Scheme from 2018, suggested by Hampshire Group. Penstemons are a wonderful addition to the summer garden, flowering from early June for many weeks into the…