NO SOONER does one season end than the next is on many gardeners' minds. Catalogues from the national breeders and mail order firms are popping through letterboxes with a number of new varieties of both flowers and vegetables to tempt the keen gardener.
Thompson & Morgan of Ipswich, who have been in the business since 1855, are among the top breeders of new varieties in the country.
For the 2010 season, the introduce over 30 new flower varieties, four of which are UK exclusive and six world exclu
sive, as well as more than 20 new vegetables, five of them UK exclusive.
Their 'flower of the year' is a world exclusive grandiflora sweet pea named Heirloom Bicolour Mixed. This is an impressive and highly fragrant mixture which offers the widest range of small-flowered, bicoloured heirloom varieties.
Their wonderful colours – pink, cerise, red, lilac, white – and perfume will be a wonderful addition to the 2010 flower garden and should provide plenty of cut blooms for the house. This lovely mixture comprises old-fashioned varieties such as Indigo King, Butterfly, Lady Turrall and Painted Lady. Well grown, plants will reach six feet.
A firm favourite in many gardens every year – for one thing they are so easy to grow – are nasturtiums.
T & M's 'flower of the year' for 2009 was Cobra, a new trailing nasturtium with dark foliage and dark red, double blooms. Cobra was under trial personally and what a growth it produced, trailing up to 30 inches from hanging baskets and winter boxes and smothered in its distinctive dark flowers.
For the 2010 season, the Ipswich-based breeders release Double Delight Cream for the amateur gardener. This was the best-flowering double nasturtium in their trials. Unlike Cobra, this world exclusive is a bush variety, not trailing, at 12 inches high.
Fabulous double to semi-double, large, cream flowers with a hint of lime contrast beautifully with the mid-green bushy foliage.
Nasturtium seeds can be sown outdoors in late April where they are to flower but for earlier flowering, three seeds to a three-inch pot under glass or even a kitchen windowsill will give young plants time to go outside in late May.
For a free catalogue from Thompson & Morgan, readers should call 01473 695224 quoting PRS10.
