VISITORS to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show know all the plants there are grown to the highest of standards, but there is one family that consistently outshines all the others: delphiniums. Impossibly tall and perfectly proportioned, their spires of delicate flowers often elicit gasps of astonishment and many gardeners make an annual pilgrimage to marvel at the growers’ skills and be dazzled by the opulence of the flowers. Seasoned gardeners take most plants in their stride, but delphiniums can intimidate even the most experienced of us.
Achieving the same calibre of display in the rough and tumble of the British garden is beyond the abilities of most gardeners, although fantastic displays of delphiniums can still be seen, notably at Temple Newsam in West Yorkshire and at Regent’s Park in London, where a colour-themed sweep of the flowers shines out against a protective yew hedge. Visit between June and early August when delphiniums are at the peak of their performance.
Anyone who has grown them knows that, although the perfection shown at flower shows and in professional gardens is almost impossible to achieve, delphiniums will, nevertheless, always be impressive. The height of the blooms, the intensity of colour (particularly the blue forms) and the elegance of the flowers make a group of even common-or-garden delphiniums irresistible. These are plants that don’t need to be the mollycoddled supermodels of the show bench to make an impression; even a poorly grown delphinium will still turn heads.
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Denne historien er fra May 17, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
