Claire Austin returns to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show
This May, Claire Austin, the award-winning nurserywoman and garden writer, returns to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for the first time since 2016, celebrating her 40 year career in horticulture and the 40th anniversary of her first visit to the show.
Never one to do things by halves, Claire and her team at Claire Austin Hardy Plants are staging two judged exhibits next to one another in the Great Pavilion (GPF 92 A and 92B) each celebrating the specialisms of her acclaimed plant nursery at White Hopton Farm in the Welsh
Marches. One of the 4.5m x 4.5m courtyard gardens will shine a spotlight exclusively on Irises, and the other will showcase hardy perennials and peonies.
Iris Courtyard Garden exhibit
The Iris Courtyard Garden exhibit will be planted with over 50 varieties of bearded irises in a spectacular range of colours from pure white and pale pink to the cerise, blue, purple, yellow orange, brown and deepest black and the striking two-tone varieties.
At the centre of the Iris Courtyard Garden, local farmer-florist Emma Cox of Luna Bloom will create a magnificent urn arrangement using bearded irises and the more delicate iris sibirica varieties as cut flowers. Popular with flower farmers for their flamboyant, ruffled blooms and
sword-like foliage, irises make beautiful cut blooms and last well in the vase.
Claire holds the National Collection of Bearded Irises and has successfully grown fields of bearded irises in four different locations and soil conditions during her 40 year career. Claire wants to share how easy they are to grow in a garden setting.
A warm spring permitting, the iris varieties making their Chelsea debut will include:
Iris ‘Executive Order’ bears luxurious, sweetly scented flowers on strong stems. The soft blue-white standards are tightly ruffled and flushed with soft violet. The plush velvet, purple black falls pale along to a fine line along the edges. as the petals curl upwards along the ruffles the paler underside becomes visible.
Iris ‘Confection Perfection’ is a long-flowering variety that has delicately coloured, perfectly shaped blooms. The standards are soft pink and the colour is reflected around the edges of creamy white falls. The petals are lightly ruffled and borne on strong stems.”
Iris 'Edwardian Era' is a flashy little number with tightly ruffled petals that are also laced along the edges. The colour blends from pink-lilac to nearly white in the centre of the falls. Lots of buds carried on strong stems.”
Iris 'Table For Two': The flowers on this handsome plant have velvety dark brown falls with short rivers of white radiating from the yellow beard. The copper standards are heavily flushed with purple from the base upwards.
Perennial Courtyard Garden Exhibit
The adjacent Perennial Courtyard will offer a contemporary twist on the cottage garden, inspired in part by the front garden at White Hopton Farm. The soft textural planting will create a gentle tapestry of late spring flowering perennials punctuated by the pop of early season peonies such as ‘Garden Peace’, ‘Raspberry Charm’ and ‘Cytherea’.
Aquilegia, bergenia, brunnera, centaurea, geranium, geum, lamprocapnos, pulmonaria, stachys byzantina, veronica and blousy, striking peonies will feature amongst the soft perennial planting. At the heart of the exhibit will be an urn arrangement by Luna Bloom brimming with late spring perennials and peonies, favourites of artisan flower farmers and flower arrangers alike.
Claire’s modern take on the cottage garden is extremely low maintenance. In early spring, Ric Kenwood, Claire’s husband and business partner, simply strims the foliage and seedheads in the front garden at White Hopton Farm back to ground level.
Three of Claire Austin’s plant introductions are set to make their Chelsea debut this year:
Alchemilla mollis 'Cream Dream': Found some years ago in the garden at White Hopton Farm this stable variegated version of the well-known ‘Lady’s mantle’ has round, scallop-edged, soft green leaves libeCream Dreamrally splashed with cream. The leaves create a neat mound that is less vigorous than the normal green version and a froth of tiny, lime-green flowers cover the mound for much of the spring and summer.
Geranium x oxonianum 'Patricia Josephine': Selected from the many hardy geraniums that seeded around my mother’s garden in Albrighton years ago, this variety has proved to be an enduring plant; robust, free-flowering and pretty. The very pale pink, wide-trumpet like flowers
are scattered above a mound of round, notched, mid-green leaves that have dark maroon dots at the base.
Pulmonaria 'Spring Awakening': Unlike other pulmonarias, which tend to spread, the very pale blue-white flowers are carried in clusters above a dense clump of oval, pointed, mid-green leaves that are neatly spotted with silver dots. The flowers usually begin to open in late
February. As the flower stems grow taller more clusters of flowers appear making this not only an attractive, vigorous plant but long-flowering.