BREAKING NEWS – New arrivals for 2019

Excited to announce some early new arrivals for next year’s plant list alongside the return of some old favourites, the Yellow Jacob’s Ladder Polemonium paucifolium and Mukdenia karasuba rossii. Once again we’ve stuck by our mantra of only selling plants that we grow in the garden here at Lewis Cottage and we think you’ll enjoy them as much as we do. Most are propagated from seed or cuttings from the garden or where seed is scarce, the plants don’t come true or we simply don’t have enough of the plant to split yet, well then we go to great lengths to find an independent grower to get supplies of small plants which we then grow on to a sellable size. The feedback that we receive from both our NGS visitors and Private Garden Groups plays a large part in determining what we look out for each year whether that be colour, form, species or just what’s in fashion. We hope you’ll like the selection for next year, don’t forget this is only a taster, they’ll be more to come in the Autumn, so we look forward to getting your orders once you’ve taken a look.

Astrantia Roma (L) – Delicate, papery, soft pink flowers held on wiry stems above attractive deeply lobed, mid-green leaves. This delightful masterwort is a vigorous variety with a much longer flowering period than most pink or red varieties. It looks particularly fetching planted with grasses and we LOVE it. Angelica Gigas (R) – This is a stunning, architectural plant that will add height and drama to a border. It produces dome-shaped heads of plum-purple flowers on red-tinted stems in August and September and it has pretty, deeply cut leaves. Try it at the back of a sunny, herbaceous or mixed border, where the flowerheads will attract bees. It performs best in moist, fertile soil.

Anthriscus Ravenswing (below left)- An elegant purple form of common cow parsley, this has pretty clusters of tiny, creamy-white flowers in late spring and early summer, highlighted by the lacy, deeply cut dark purple foliage. It self seeds freely unless you remove the spent flower heads and makes a perfect plant for a wild garden or meadow, and an effective companion to ornamental grasses.

Epimedium Spine Tingler (below right) – ‘Spine Tingler’ is aptly named for its dark green leaves that have spiny margins. These leaves take on a slight blush tint. Soft yellow flowers bloom on compact plants in mid to late spring. Unlike other Epimedium that send flowers first, followed by foliage, ‘Spine Tingler’ sends flowers and foliage up at the same time.

Sambucus Milk Chocolate (bottom left)  Soft reddish brown foliage with a well-defined pale midrib and very broad heads of white flowers. Flowers later than normal Jul-Sep.

Pulmonaria Diana Clare (bottom right) – The leaves of this plant look stunning from summer to mid winter being long and apple green with almost complete silver guilding. The large violet blue flowers appear in February and continue until May displayed well above the bold clumps of stunning foliage. A excellent all rounder tolerant of some sun or full shade.

Hydrangea Zorro – (below centre) A newish form of Teller Blue Hydrangea with black stems. Produces deep blue lacecap flowers on acid soil just like ‘Blaumeisse’. The fertile flowers are pale blue, encircled by a small number of large four sepalled sterile florets. A strong robust plant which can also turn pink/mauve on neutral soil.