A Hereford-based commercial nursery has put together a selection of plants for garden centres to follow the predicted trends for the retail sector next year, which include boldly coloured, British-grown and low maintenance plants.
Carol Dickinson, head of business support at Wyevale Nurseries, explains: “Our 2022 promotional catalogue for garden centres showcases some of our boldest and brightest plants on the nursery. Ideal for the nation’s army of new gardeners! Here we’ve highlighted just a handful of our collections for 2022 but we have a large range available right from the start of the year through to early autumn.
“The autumn Chelsea Flower Show gave us an opportunity to look at different varieties, styles and to include unique features and shapes, as well as considerations for provenance, low maintenance and location e.g container or balcony planting.
“Plants we think will be particularly popular in 2022 are Allium Lavender Bubbles, Exochorda racemosa ‘Niagra’, Digitalis x valinii ‘Firebird’, Astrantia Star Collection, Hardy Fern Specimen Collection, Lomandra longifolia ‘White Sands’, and our Phormium Collection.”
Allium Lavender ‘Bubbles’ won best New Plant at this year’s virtual National Plant Show and was placed second in the RHS Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Year. It’s so called because it has masses of dusky purple flowers which appear to float like bubbles over evergreen foliage. It has a long flowering period and performs well in the garden or container. Plus, it’s pollinator friendly.
Exochorda racemosa ‘Niagra’ is a deciduous shrub with green oval-shaped leaves and masses of white blooms in spring that last for many weeks.
Digitalis x valinii ‘Firebird’ is UK bred to be more winter hardy. Shortlisted as one of Chelsea’s Plants of the Year in 2019 it gives a strong garden performance with reddish-pink blooms against apricot centres.
Carol continues: “Our Astrantia Star Collection features these beautiful eye-catching, traditional cottage garden favourites, which make for excellent cut flowers, another growing trend with gardeners. They’re uniquely shaped blooms flower from late spring into summer. Our collection includes ‘Star of Billions’, which has large dense pincushion flowers which open pale green, slowly turning to blush pink and ‘Star of Beauty’, which features large clusters of tiny white flowers with magenta-purple tips, crowded together in a dome shaped flower, just like the pins on a cushion.
“However, it’s not just plants with wonderful flowers in our 2022 catalogue, we’ve also a great range of ferns, grasses and evergreens, which were really popular at Chelsea 2021 and look to be a firm favourite for next year. Our Hardy Fern Specimen Collection features plants grown in five-litre pots and are supplied as a mass of fresh foliage, providing maximum impact. Although not new varieties, we’ve an extended range for 2022 featuring interesting forms and colours.
“Other ferns included in this collection are Asplenium scolopendrium, Dryopteris affinis, Dryopteris atrata, Dryopteris erythrosora, Polystichum polyblepharum and Polystichum setiferum Herrenhausen.”
Also spotlighted in the catalogue for 2022 is Lomandra longifolia ‘White Sands’. Although not new, it won the People’s Choice Award at Groot Groen 2020, and is an ideal low maintenance grass for containers, beds and borders to give architectural interest and evergreen colour. The Wyevale Nurseries team says it predicts low maintenance will be ‘big’ for the coming year.
Carol adds: “Another Wyevale Nurseries speciality is our fabulous Phormium Collection. We offer a fine collection of these evergreen beauties in a range of colours and forms. They are perfect for garden centre plantarias, as they are so eye-catching! Use to add architectural interest and height to displays or promote on their own.
“This collection comes in a range of beautiful colours, from Black Velvet to Yellow Wave.”
