What are your current plant obsessions?

[IdaPolly]

I've recently started a slight obsession with dianthus/pinks flowers. They smell so nice and there are some really pretty varieties. What are your plant obsessions? I like seeing the people on Gardeners World who have an obsession with a flower. I remember people with peony, iris, Sweet pea and daffodil obsessions.

Wow... didnt know about D. fontanesii.. thank you!

My wisteria. It's the first year it has properly flowered, and it gives me joy every time I look at it 😀

It's potted, on a decked patio, so doing well.

I love regal pelargonium, I had three delivered from Fibrex Nursery yesterday and two of the three I bought from a market last year have survived the winter 😃 (which the cuttings I took didn't). So I need another one, then I'll have two sets of three. I love violas but I can't grow them to do them justice, so I enjoy them in gardens I visit.

I grew some variety of dark leaved heuchera last year in a tall narrow pot. I had a vision of a mound of leaves with sprays of flowers over them. I got what I wanted until the vine weevils rocked up. They've never been a problem before 😔

Finally, I love plants with dark foliage. If I had the talent and the room I think I'd have a black garden.

Roses here, last year I was very good and only bought one - Dannahue. I have a large pergola covered in 12 pink Olivia Rose Austin and Paul’s Himalayan musk. I have a few more Paul’s HM now in their tenth year still doing really well, plus a humongous Albertine that covers the back of the house. A Scepter’d Isle, Gertrude Jekyll, Harlow Carr, and a couple of Souvenir du Dr Jamain covering the shady front of the house. Adore them all.

I also love long spikes of flowers but have chalky dry sun baked soil so not a lot works. I grow lots of verbascum and I have Veronica gentianodes in pots, plus lots of hollyhocks which are cheerful in high summer.

I'm fascinated by dahlia, just the sheer variety of bloom formations from the pompom, to the cactus and the dinner plates. Plus the sweet little Figaro that I grew from some seeds on the cover of a magazine!

this year has been a struggle because of all the rain. I've been experimenting with leaving the tubers in the ground and heavily mulching. Big mistake, never again. This autumn I'll be digging them up, hosing them, and storing in light wrap of newspaper to avoid contact, and keep the airflow, in small stackable crates.

my project next weekend will be planting my latest collection (blue and purple themes) with the survivors that I ended up digging up a few weekends ago which are reds, oranges and burgundy themes, in an area of the border where they get a good blast of sunshine. I've bought 20 x 1.5m metal pegs that I'll sink in the ground and make a cat's cradle with twine so the plants grow through - got that tip off YouTube and it really is a great way to display dahlia.

they are a labour of love, especially splitting them, finding the 'eyes' so they sprout, taking away any rotting or damaged tubers from the mother plant, marking them up with felt pen to group into colours before replanting in late Spring. But I love them!

I also love alpines, so many beautiful colours and I love their tiny delicate prolific flowering habit. I lost a couple of varieties this year (that were happy on the rockery for years) because of all the incessant rain which they aren't geared up for, they'd rather have snow and dry cold.

still, some of them have struggled through and have given us a nice splash of colour in the gloom!

Don’t get excited, I can’t tell the difference between it and D lutea. RHS thinks it’s a synonym of lutea, although it was quite happy to send me packets of both in its annual seed distribution.

I have had numerous flirtations over the years, but my enduring plant loves are roses, heucheras, hardy geraniums, ferns and tulips.

I love geums too. I love the dainty flowers.

I also love astrantia.

Roses, salvia & nepeta - I bought 5 reduced roses today. Hoping they all get going with some tlc.

Needless to say that our garden is very fertile- so currently we tried planting meadow and it sprung so furiously that I'm in complete awe.😁

Perhaps try Thalictrum if you like Verbena