The HPS Rutland Group has provided Zoom lectures during Covid restrictions to keep our gardeners connected. The February 2022 Zoom speaker was Adam Pasco, taking as his subject ‘Grow the Best Garden Flowers’.  Adam was editor of BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine for over 20 years and is a well-known broadcaster. Adam gardens on very heavy clay which has been enriched with much compost and mulch. He then showed us many gems and highly recommended plants performing in the garden or in pots which he amasses! He uses pots to move to strategic spots to create interest at different times of the year.

So many genera were covered but roses mentioned were ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ for its fragrance, ’Graham Thomas’ another old favourite for its repeat flowering, fragrant ‘Geoff Hamilton’, ‘St Bonica’ for good flowering plus ‘Kew Gardens’ and ‘Golden Celebrations’. Underneath for ground cover he used geraniums like you see at Harlow Carr.

A campanula worth growing with wonderful dark, big flowers he said was ‘Kent Belle’, which flowers in June/July. Other flowers mentioned were Echinacea ‘Flame Thrower’ which is striking and shows up in a border, as well as the long flowering Geranium ‘Rozanne. Rudbeckia ‘Goldstrum’ is a good doer in dappled shade and should be divided every 3-4 years.

 An unusual Acanthus he grew was ‘Whitewater’ with variegated leaves. Sedum ’Rose Carpet’ for its flowers and Sedum takesimense ‘Atlantis’ for its different leaf colours were used on border edges.  Euonymus was a good shrub to use against a wall or fence. Clematis ’Little lemons’ was a useful hardy dwarf Clematis, flowering from May to September.  A drought tolerant plant mentioned was Lomandra ‘White Sands’ which is supposed to be unkillable!

 We were shown so many more images of garden worthy flowers that each viewer must have seen some desirable plant that they would love to try in their garden.