RHS Wisley Flower Show 2014

I'm doing some new year tidying up, and I can see that I have several half-written blog posts that haven't been finished or published. Here is the first! I went to the RHS Wisley Flower Show in September, which feels like ages ago now. I took far too many photos, as usual.

This magnificent floral cake was made by Simon Lycett. If, for some awful reason, you had to choose between cake and flowers for a wedding, it would be a great way to combine a show-shopping wedding cake with beautiful wedding flowers - you could just order a simple kitchen cake for people to eat!

I bought some seeds from Hardy's, and was pleasantly surprised to be served by Rosy Hardy herself! One of the packets was sweet rocket seeds (aka Hesperis matronalis), and I sowed them straight away - too late, according to the growing instructions, but hey. They appear to be doing well, and will hopefully provide sweet-smelling flowers in the summer. The Hardy's display was a lovely mixture of cottage garden flowers, including some I've been growing myself - cleome, ammi, and sedum, and one particular variety that I want to grow one day: Cosmos "Antiquity".

This striking display of apples and "Sapphire" gentian caught my eye on the Harperley Hall Farm Nurseries stand.

More flowers for foodies: Echinacea "Tomato Soup". (As ever, I've been rubbish at keeping tabs on which photos belong to which stand. If you recognise a particular display, let me know!).

And for film-lovers: Echinacea "Fatal Attraction" (I saw the play with the amazing Natascha McElhone and Kristen Davis last year, and unlike most of the critics, preferred it to the film).

Beautiful, floaty sanguisorba.

Gorgeous gladioli in ice cream colours at Bridgend's bulb kings, Pheasant Acre Plants. Morrissey would have loved it!

The Priorswood Clematis display was ever so pretty.

Panicum "Heavy Metal" has a great name, but also looks wonderfully dark and fairy dust-like.

There was a NAFAS floral art competition, and entrants showed some wonderful skill and an eye for floral details.

There was a display of competition dahlias, which was bright and colourful. Below is the story behind the first trials of dahlias as garden flowers. I'm pleased to see it all started in Swansea...102 years ago!

Here are some of the dahlias, and some facts about them.

The rest of Wisley was beautiful. Full of gorgeous grasses and colourful flowers.

Finally, there were stunning, scented roses. The following are "Young Lycidas" and "Young Princess". Because of the mild winter we've had so far, I am still seeing roses in flower in other people's gardens. Lovely to look at, but it does feel rather wrong!

HRH Helianthus annus

Bowing down to sunflowers at Wisley last month.

The Day of the Triffids

I mentioned the mammoth cosmos in my little flower patch last month. Well, here I am on Sunday next to cosmos which were transplanted from greenhouse-grown seedlings into a trough, with shop-bought compost...

...and next to cosmos in the flower patch that was filled with homemade compost. Probably a bit too much.

Look at those stems...if there was an apocalypse, these would be triffids!

Of course, cosmos are lovely flowers, and not carnivorous; unlike these plants that I saw on the Hampshire Carnivorous Plants stand at the RHS Wisley Show at the weekend.

Birth flowers and trees in November

My birthday has come and gone this month, and one of my gifts was a handtied from an old friend. I don't think I've received anything other than petrol station flowers for my birthday before, so it was a lovely surprise. There were beautiful anemones, lemony waxflower, and a big, marshmallowey chrysanthemum bloom in the centre. Chrysanthemums are the birth flower for November and I've never been keen on them, associating them with the petrol station spray flowers that I've been given in the past, but of course there are so many types of chrysanthemums, and blooms are brilliant.

As there have been some lovely clear days in the last week, I decided to make the most of my RHS membership and visit Wisley, to see how it looks in autumn. It's beautiful!

There are autumn leaves, of course, with acers aplenty. And there are pretty berries like cotoneaster. Below are Acer palmatum 'Inaba-shidare', Acer palmatum 'Atropurpureum', and Acer palmatum 'Osakazuki'.

Everywhere you turn, there are beautiful grasses, including miscanthus and stipa. In the language of flowers, grasses are the symbol of homosexual love.

But there are flowers, too. There were stunning pink nerines in the gardens, with many more on display in the glasshouse. The glasshouse also had a display of chrysanthemums. Begone, petrol station memories!

And walking around the gardens, there were lots of Eryngium 'Silver Ghost', dancing Gaura 'Whirling Butterflies', and late roses (in order of appearance below: Lucky, You're Beautiful, and Crocus Rose).

There were other late-flowering gems to be found, such as Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm' and Achillea 'Credo', and autumn treasures like red-stemmed dogwood. Gardens don't shut up shop at the end of the summer; there is beauty to be found all year round!