THE POTTING SHED UK June issue | Page 13

Gold Medal At Chelsea For 'The Secret Garden of Past & Present'

Suttons Seeds are over the moon to have won a Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show for 'The Secret Garden of Past & Present'. The garden was designed but Lynn and Mark Riches of Horticolous and was also in partnership with Paignton Zoo, Solardome Industries and Hydrogarden. Suttons provided the plants and seeds for the garden, including the fabulous new and exclusive 'Cha Cha Chive' which has gone on sale on the Suttons website this week. Paignton Zoo grew many of the plants, including some of the varieties from the James Wong's 'Homegrown Revolution' range, hydroponically with the help of the super new systems from Hydrogarden, to display in the fabulous Solardome. We are proud to have celebrated the 100th

birthday of The Chelsea Flower Show and to have won

this award in this most prestigious of events.

Thompson & Morgan is thrilled to announce that its ‘Plant of the Year’ entry has yet again been

placed in the top three at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Following on from the success last year of its revolutionary Foxglove ‘Illumination Pink’, which was named Plant of the

Year 2012, T&M’s entry for this year, Nasturtium ‘Fruit Salad’, has taken third place at the most prestigious event in the horticultural calendar. Facing tough competition from other plant breeders, Thompson

& Morgan’s innovative nasturtium certainly deserves this highly-regarded accolade. Some 12 years of careful breeding have gone into this exceptional variety after a customer sent

Thompson & Morgan an unusual nasturtium with serrated petals rather than the traditional round ones. Much more compact than the average annual nasturtium - and generally ‘better behaved’ in the garden - this is the first bicolour nasturtium with serrated petals. Bred to be sterile, the plants

bloom for a much longer time than any other nasturtium and the spectacular bicolour blooms are uniquely perfumed with a lovely sweet and spicy fragrance. This win at RHS Chelsea adds to a string of awards that

Thompson & Morgan has picked up over the years its plant breeding programme. It has been placed every year in RHS Chelsea’s Plant of the Year awards since they began. In 2010,

T&M’s Buddleja ‘Buzz’™ Series was short-listed; in 2011 Verbascum ‘Blue Lagoon’ was placed third; last year Foxglove ‘Illumination Pink’ came first. This year’s third place maintains T&M’s plant breeder, Charles Valin’s winning streak - he has bred all of these award-winning plants. ‘We’re very proud to have been placed in the top 3 again this year’, said Thompson & Morgan’s horticultural director, Paul

Hansord. ‘It was always going to be difficult to follow the success of ‘Illumination Pink’ last year, so we’re delighted that ‘Fruit Salad’ - another breeding phenomenon - has been recognised’. Limited stock of Nasturtium ‘Fruit Salad’ is available from Thompson & Morgan via its website,

www.thompson-morgan.com (delivery from April 2014)

Thompson & Morgan scoops top award

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