Crisp Whitness for spring gardens

Strolling around my favourite plant nurseries in quest for spring goodies, I came across one of the most professional and well conceived plant catalogues - the RHS online Plant  Shop (www.rhsplants.co.uk)

Besides the accurate and useful plant facts, like growing conditions, dimensions and so on, they have grouped the plants by colours - and the effect is just stunning! You browse pages of cool blues, lavish purples, blazing reds and sizzling hot oranges and yes, an avalanche of cool, porcelain white blooms of any shape and type. 

Sudden images of an impeccable white garden, with pure corollas embedded in dark green foliage crowd in my mind ...

I dream of an airy Wisteria floribunda Alba with long, undulating panicles, of clouds of pure clematis, and here comes a vision of the sheer delight of Clematis  x cartmanii "Joe" and Avalanche, both delicate and clad in white stars. Beautiful beyond bearable levels! Not to say that unlike most Clematis ( which are all desirable of course) the leaves are ferny and decorative by themselves and hardy in mild zones... What could a gardener aspire at more??

 Clematis x cartmanii Avalanche

Clematis x cartmanii Joe

 The immaculate dense spires of Lupinus Noble Maiden

The opulence of the silky peony can hardly find a match in the garden, and here are two real oldies which prove to keep up with any new breed. Both can be found at relatively low prices, compared with more recent varieties, in many catalogues and make a feast in any garden. Festiva Maxima makes a perfect cut flower as well, long lasting and heavenly scented.

 Peonia Lactiflora Krinkled White

 Peonia Lactiflora Festiva Maxima

With its elegant heart shaped leaves, Brunnera macrophylla "Jack Frost" is entitled to stand next to all the other Belles in the Immaculate Garden.

A Gardener's Surprise

Today, since the weather was almost summery, I decided to plant a couple of leftover bulbs... some lilly tulips, fritillaria Uva Vulpis and some narcissus.
I have the nasty habit of poking bulbs in any residual space between other plants, crowding them at the feet of roses and laurels and god knows what else.
This morning though I made up my mind and cleared up a pot where I tried to save a herbaceous peony I really loved and which I could not bring up my heart and leave behind in the old garden. So I lifted the beloved clump and potted it in the hope it will survive. The truth is that it did absolutely nothing and at this point, after one and a half years of shy hoping and praying and eventually mourning - I was mentally prepared to clear the pot and prepare it for a nice spring bulb planting...
So at this stage I lifted a couple of Asian Lilly which also found their way into the same vessel and to my great surprise.... at the bottom I found two bits of my still alive peony Flame!!

I know that any sensed person could object that I could have ordered a new plant and be done with all the sentimentalism , but we gardeners are sometimes quite attached to our creatures. It was like meeting a dear old friend... Useless to say that the found treasure has been ceremoniously repoted in fine and fragrant soil in the hope of a new start. Hopefully this time it will work better.

Peonia erbaceea "Flame"

For all bulb lovers here is an interresting Dutch nursery:
 http://www.debloembol.nl