The best honeysuckle to grow in your garden

I’ve probably grown more species of honeysuckle than of any other genus except, perhaps, roses and primulas. I love them – but not all of them. An evergreen groundcover plant called Lonicera pileata doesn’t interest me at all. The same is true of L. nitida, also evergreen, but most often used for hedging; it needs no fewer than three cuts a year to keep it tidy. There’s a manky cultivar called Baggeson’s Gold that’s even uglier, but that’s only two duds among some 180 species that all make excellent garden plants.

There’s a big division between the honeysuckles that twine and climb and usually open their long flowers to exhale a delicious scent and the ones that have smaller flowers on fast-growing super-hardy bushes. I got very excited about 20 years ago when the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), announced that it had managed to cross the two types of honeysuckle. Henceforth, we could look forward to hybrids that carried long, sweet-scented flowers on tough, neat shrubs. Alas, they never appeared.

INRA has, however, produced some very good forms of our native honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum, of which the most impressive is called Chic&Choc. Its flowers are chocolate-coloured on the outside, a striking contrast with the creamy-yellow insides.

I’ve always valued plants that come from friends’ gardens. Graham Thomas presented me with super-floriferous L. similis var. delavayi (he’s also credited with an autumn-flowering form of our common honeysuckle called Graham Thomas, but he told me he had nothing to do with its introduction and didn’t know where it came from).

My early flowering form called Belgica came from Daphne Hoskins at Kellaways and evergreen L. henryi from John Phillips, Wiltshire’s greatest plantsman.

My grandmother gave me L. japonica Aureoreticulata – she loved the way the leaf-veins are tricked out in gold – and the head gardener at the Hanbury Botanical Gardens at La Mortola pressed me to take the species with the largest flowers, L. hildebrandiana, which grows to 33ft in sub-tropical Assam, but is too tender to grow outside in England. It died.

Some of our honeysuckles came from seed collected in the wild. The scent of L. etrusca bade me stop and look for seed one warm summer evening as I motored up the Tiber valley. The seed of L. implexa hailed from my uncle’s garden in Majorca and L. xylostemon from Italy’s Gran Paradiso park (with the consent of a warden, I hasten to add).

L. xylostemon is a shrub and the shrubby honeysuckles are wonderful no-nonsense plants for gardens on poor soil such as chalk or Bagshot sand. Many are from central Asia and expect very hot summers and very cold winters. They get a bit confused by our mild winters and I find that L. korolkowii is the first of all my garden shrubs to come into leaf.

We have a beautiful form with glaucous leaves that flowers in April and suckers well; it came from Keith Steadman, of Wickwar in Gloucestershire. Keith was very keen on shrubby honeysuckles (and willows, too) and it was from him that we acquired L. chrysantha and L. ruprechtiana. All these will reach 10ft in height.

The best shrubby honeysuckles don’t grow too big. I recommend L. chaetocarpa, a short shrub with hairy grey leaves and large primrose-yellow flowers. I gave one to Richard Nutt, who showed it to the RHS Floral B Committee; we were disappointed it didn’t get an award.

Everyone knows winter-flowering L. x purpusii, but few grow intensely sweet-scented L. syringantha, which we had from Chris Thornton. No less desirable is L. involucrata, a present from Bill Baker; its yellow flowers are set off by crimson bracts.

My latest acquisitions are L. kamtchatka and closely-related L. caerulea var edulis. Both carry edible purple fruits rather like a cylindrical blueberry and both seem happy in a stony corner of our chalk garden. I’m hoping for enough fruit to fill a small bowl.

Here’s a melancholy postscript. All the gardening friends I mention above are dead now. Their gardens and their memories live on in mine, but where are the young, acquisitive plantsmen that I was once? There is so much I would like to give them.

Why is there no such thing as a truly blue rose?

Ask a group of rose lovers what they feel about a blue rose and most of them say ‘it will never happen’. Press them to say whether they’d welcome one and most reply in the negative. Then, they babble about blue being unnatural and retaliate with some sort of circular argument such as ‘who would want one anyway?’.

Well, I would, for starters. I would love to have such roses in my garden. Blue is the only colour that roses lack. The Victorians longed for a bright-yellow rose (the first, Soleil d’Or, came out in 1900), so why do we say ‘yuck’ when blue roses are mentioned?

The possibilities are enormous. Imagine gentian-blue Floribundas in flower throughout the summer and autumn. They would revolutionise our gardens, as did Soleil d’Or, which is the ancestor of every yellow or orange rose in our garden today. Bring on the blues, say I.

True-blue pigments don’t exist naturally in the genus Rosa. There are lots of good purples among the old roses (Gallicas especially) and hundreds of excellent mauves and lilacs were introduced in the 1950s and 1960s (think of Sterling Silver, Lavender Dream and Lilac Charm) as the unexpected result of breeding for vigour. Rhapsody in Blue, a vigorous shrub with smoky-purple flowers, is one of the most popular of modern roses, but it’s not the sort of blue we’re looking for.

The truth is that the only way to get clear blues into our roses is by doing a bit of genetic modification in the lab, which is the sort of innovation that many people disapprove of, quite forgetting that the story of all plant-breeding is a history of genetic improvement.

The potential rewards for introducing the first true-blue rose are enormous, probably exceeding £100 million and it requires the sort of research and development that many ambitious biologists enjoy. In fact, plant-breeding scientists in Australia and Japan have already introduced the genes for pure blue into the chromosomes of Hybrid Teas and Floribundas. The trouble is that the blue genes don’t yet express themselves as cornflower blue in roses, just dark mauve or purple again. More research is needed and more investment.

What exactly is the problem? There are several technical snags that seem, as yet, insoluble.

The source of blueness is an anthocyanidin called delphinidin. It’s common enough in the plant world, but it is also an indicator of pH and operates like litmus paper. Delphinidin occurs in cranberries, which, if they weren’t so acid, would not be red, but blue.

The trouble is that the cells of rose petals are naturally acid, so the delphinidin turns a muddy mauve. To be sure of a gentian-blue rose, the scientists need to choose another source of blue colouring or create a rose whose whole metabolism is alkaline — which is asking a lot of them.

There’s another problem, which is that scientists will also have to block the other determinants of colour within the roses. Pink is the predominant colour among roses, but it combines with blue to give mauve. Experiments have been made with genes present in iris species to prevent the roses from expressing their pre-existing colours, but with only limited success. One idea was to insert delphinidin into a white rose that had no trace of pink in its make-up, but that didn’t work either. Don’t ask me why.

Work on producing true-blue roses has been a major concern for some 30 years now. The leading firm is a Japanese-Australian enterprise that forms part of the Suntory empire. After about 20 fruitless years, it finally introduced a ‘blue’ rose called Applause in 2010 and managed to sell it at about $30 (£24) per stem.

Yes — that was the price per stem.

I’ve never seen it and I can’t imagine just who would spend so much on just one rose, not least because the photographs that Suntory sent out to journalists seemed to me as mauve as all those beauties from the 1950s and 1960s. Don’t rush to buy it: it’s not for sale in the UK.

I hope the research will continue. Suntory is nothing if not innovative. The fame of success is an alluring prospect and so are the potential rewards. When, eventually, scientists manage to breed brilliant-blue roses, as blue as delphiniums and gentians, I shall be among the first to buy a plant. Or perhaps two — but that depends upon the price.

Keep the lily beyond Easter

OK, now that Easter is over with, a question remains.

What do I do with the Easter lily Aunt Blanch gave me? Or, what do we do with those lilies that were given to the church?

Prior to World War 1, Easter lilies — also known as Bermuda lilies — were produced and exported from Bermuda and from Japan. The plant is a native of Japan and, until Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were the world’s biggest producers of this flower.

At the end of WWI a soldier from the coastal region of southern Oregon came home with a suitcase filed with the lily bulbs. He started growing them and since his friends, neighbors and family seemed to like them, he started giving the plants as gifts.

Soon, there were a lot of people growing these flowers. Some were selling them in limited quantities. After the start of World War II, the Japanese lilies were no longer available so the growers in Oregon and now, Northern California, had an expanding market for their plants. At one time there were 1,200 growers producing Easter lilies on the Pacific coast. The number of growers has declined to about a dozen now but they produce 95 percent of the potted Easter lilies sold worldwide. Upwards of 14 million of these plants are grown in a small area on the California-Oregon state line and the odds are pretty good that our lilies came from there.

So, how do we continue to enjoy these potted plants and can we keep them through the year? First thing, remove those yellow anthers in the middle of the flower; these are the male flower part that produces pollen. Removing the anthers will help the flower to last longer and you will not get that yellow powder sticking to the flowers — or to whatever brushes up against them.

Second, keep the plant in a brightly lit location. It will last longer if it is not in direct sunlight. Keep the soil moist. To see if water is needed simply stick your finger in the soil to about the second knuckle, and as long as the soil is moist the plant is doing okay. Remove each flower as it begins to fade to keep the plant attractive. If you want to keep it as a potted plant you may need to move it to a larger container.

As soon as the weather is warm enough and there is no longer any chance of a frost — usually about the second week of May for this area — the lily can be planted in the soil outdoors. Also, wait until the blooms have faded and been removed. Keep the foliage intact. The plant will need its leaves to produce its food through photosynthesis. This food will help the plant to establish itself in the garden and will allow the lily to store some energy for the next year’s growth.

Remember this plant is normally a summer flowering perennial. It was forced to bloom in a greenhouse to make it an appropriate plant to sell for Easter. It will revert back to the schedule it is supposed to keep in the next year. It may bloom again, but probably not this year.

When planting the Easter lily, keep the stem and leaves intact and plant it deep enough so that the top of the bulb is about 6 inches below the soil surface. Water well to settle the soil around the bulb, and keep the soil moist for the rest of the growing season. Do not over water as this will cause the bulb to rot. When the leaves turn brown in the fall, cut it back to about 3 inches. The bulb should be covered with a thick layer of much for insulation in the winter. The mulch should be taken down to about 2 inches when it is time for the plant to grow in the spring. A balanced plant food can be applied to the soil to help with the flowering, apply this when the first green shoots appear.

It’s pretty simple really. Enjoy your garden.

Growing roses not the thorn once thought

Roses are among the oldest flowers in cultivation, although many have earned a reputation as fussy or difficult to grow. Some of the newer shrub rose hybrids, however, are disease-resistant, carefree and repeat-blooming — just the qualities novice gardeners love.

“They are generally much healthier, more free-flowering, easier to prune and more winter-hardy” than some earlier generations of roses, said Michael Marriott, technical manager and senior rosarian for David Austin Limited of Albrighton, England, about the many emerging shrub rose varieties.

Shrub roses, also labeled landscaping or groundcover roses, blend a diverse mix of old-rose varieties with modern roses to capture the best qualities of each, including fragrance, flowering styles, colors and growth habits.

They’re bred for garden performance rather than plant perfection, converting many rose contrarians into vocal rosarians, Marriott said.

“There are certainly plenty of hesitant gardeners who mistakenly think all roses will be finicky and hard to grow — but I’d say they’re decreasing in number,” Marriott said.

Early landscape designers frequently recommended that roses be concentrated only in rose gardens, in the process creating a monoculture conducive to pests and diseases. Now they’re integrating roses into mixed borders where companion plants surround roses to the benefit of all, Marriott said.

Despite longstanding perceptions, rose growing isn’t a specialty particular to older or more affluent gardeners, said Chris VanCleave, a banker and rose advocate from Helena, Ala., who has a wide following on the garden lecture circuit and his “Redneck Rosarian” website.

Regardless of where you are or who you are, there’s a rose just for you, he said.

“Baby boomers, Gen Xers and millennial generations don’t care so much about a perfect bloom. Instead they want garden color and low maintenance, and they’re also averse to using harmful chemicals in the garden,” VanCleave said.

“Some want flowering power, while others grow them for sentimental reasons,” VanCleave said. “My rose garden began with one rose to honor my mother after she passed away. I now have around 185.”

Along with beauty, roses offer a great deal of utility around the landscape, including erosion control, salt endurance and appeal to pollinators — especially varieties whose blooms open fully to expose their stamens.

“Most roses are more drought-hardy than people think and can tolerate drier conditions, although during these times your flowering and plant size are diminished,” said Anthony Tesselaar, president and co-founder of Anthony Tesselaar Plants in Silvan, Australia, which markets Flower Carpet roses.

Surveys continue to identify roses as everyone’s favorite flower — even people who don’t have gardens, Marriott said.

How to Order Flowers For a Woman

Anyone can pay to send a dozen roses, but it's not always the right move. Regardless of your message, sending flowers to a woman right every time requires a bit of thought. We've done that thinking for you at Winston Flowers. That's why you call us.

The world of bouquets can be daunting for most men, overwhelmed by the sheer number of floral options conveying different messages, combined with bouquet shape, texture, and more.

Currently in its third generation, Winston Flowers is helmed by myself and my brother, Ted, and we're here to help simplify this whole process by offering a few simple tips for sending flowers right every single time.

While most people associate standard roses with romance, there are equally romantic flowers like orchids, for example. Try to think outside the box and send something extraordinary like specialty varieties. We use artisan garden and novelty roses to elevate our arrangements.

Spend a little more for the more unique flowers for a more memorable gifting experience. It'll be worth it in the long run.

You've got to think about the overall aesthetic, how everything fits together and the shape the bouquet creates. Round looks more romantic—it's classic, plush, and beautiful. Is that what you're going for?

Size is another thing to think about when choosing what to send. Having something delivered to her office is a sweet surprise and will certainly be a topic of conversation among her coworkers, but you have to think about what you're sending. If you know she's going to want to take it home after, don't send anything too big or difficult to carry.

When designing our arrangements, we prefer to keep within complementary color palettes to offer a sophisticated look. Soft blush tones in the autumn months are typically a combination of dusty pink-gray tones paired with shades of peach, cream, faded silver greens, and dark autumn foliage.

A great example of this is our Antique Romance—we start with a base of cream roses, two-toned antique hydrangea, silver eucalyptus, then add pops of color with specialty peach garden roses, speckled Vanda orchids, and maroon autumn leaves.

You must strike a balance between the flowers (as the focal point) and the textures that incorporate a bouquet. Texture creates depth and complements the featured flowers, making the arrangement special and seasonal.

A few of our favorites are amaranthus (long curvaceous stems lined with lush and feathery maroon foliage), Italian parvifolia (stems of flat silvery-green leaves), seeded eucalyptus (clusters of flower-like seed pods), and kiwi vine (a climbing, free-form vine of the kiwi plant that is twig-like in appearance and adds an organic feel.)

The twist we bring is seasonality, allowing our clients to take advantage of what's unique right now. For me, when you tie in the season, you're adding sensibility. That's what we can bring. During the fall we emphasize beautiful, muted antique tones and seasonality is offered with subtle colors, textures, and foliage.

Even just by choosing a local, family-owned business like ours says something about the thought that went into your purchase. I feel like there are a lot of comparisons to be made between this industry and the restaurant industry.

For example, would you rather take your date to a large, expensive chain or to an intimate chef-owned restaurant? We are the equivalent of a farm-to-table restaurant with an emphasis on seasonality and the highest quality ingredients.

Suspended Flowers for Total Fairy Tale Vibes

I'm not married—and I'm not planning on getting married any time soon—but even I can't resist scrolling through Pinterest‘s wedding tag every now and then. It's like a fairytale I can live vicariously through—a fantastical world full of beautiful things and food and clothing. And at this point, the practice of perusing the wedding page is so enjoyable for me it's basically therapeutic.

Though I'm most apt to admire seemingly delicious cakes or ornate vintage rings, a different kind of trend has caught my eye lately: suspended flowers, which are really just wedding floral arrangements hung from the ceiling.

I've never been the kind of person who has strong opinions about wedding flowers. I've actually considered (eventually) getting married in the desert, because I like the idea of creating such a stark juxtaposition between delicate, intricate bridal decor and the rough, sand- and cactus-filled landscape. But now that I've been exposed to suspended flowers, I'm low-key reconceptualizing my whole fantasy.

Flowers are undeniably beautiful, and when you suspend them from the ceiling, they somehow become even more so. There's something about the idea of looking up and seeing a sky full of flowers that's not just unexpected, but downright dreamy. It seems like the kind of thing that should be reserved for storybooks, but I'm so glad it isn't.

Plus, on a more practical note, a strategically placed canopy—floral or otherwise—can make any space feel cozier and more intimate.

Whether you're getting married sometime soon or not, lose yourself in the following 17 photos of suspended flowers. And dream of of all the cascading flowers you'll hang at your wedding—or just like, an incredible party you'll throw—someday.

Easter flowers offer fragrant reminders of history and faith

In ancient days, winter was a time of starvation, sickness and death. Therefore, when the winter months were over, there was a time of great celebration. Buds were growing, flowers were blooming and birds' nests contained eggs, which were thought to be dead — and yet live birds hatched from them. And all these things rose up out of the seemingly dead earth.

In their joy over this renewal, the people celebrated with festivals, feasting and gifts of flowers and eggs. Over time, Europeans took on the Anglo-Saxon name for this festival, Eostre. Eostre, also spelled Eastre, was the great mother goddess, the goddess of all life.

And the Saxons thanked her each year for allowing them to survive another winter season.

According to Christian beliefs, Christ was crucified in the spring. He died, was buried for three days, and then came back to life. When early missionaries in Europe first taught the pagans, it was easier to explain the story of Christ by comparing it to the Eostre festival that they already understood. And, over time, the two celebrations became synonymous.

In modern times, some of these traditions still exist, although we usually don't know why. We still decorate eggs in beautiful colors and use them in displays throughout our homes. We celebrate rabbits which, because of their fertility, were considered a symbol of life. We give flowers, candies and eggs as gifts to our children. And we also still fill our homes with flowers — the beautiful flowers of spring and Eostre.

Traditionally, in Russia and the United Kingdom, the pussy willow was given as a symbol of Eostre and spring, and in Europe, the narcissus was popular. However, for the Christians, the Lillium candidum was the flower of choice because it symbolized Christ, specifically.

Few people were able to read at that time, and so, in paintings, symbols were used to let viewers know who the subject was. The Lillium candidum, now known as the Madonna lily, was first used in early paintings to symbolize Christ. It was claimed that the flowers first sprang up from the drops of Christ's blood that fell when he hung on the cross, and they returned each year from dead ground. They also falsely believed the stem grew in three days. The rich, satiny white flowers (white meant purity) naturally bloomed around Easter time in the Middle East. And before hybridization, there were usually only three flower buds, which symbolized the Holy Trinity. Over time, this lily also was used to symbolize Mary, the mother of Jesus.

The Madonna lily is still one of the most popular Easter flowers. The white trumpet lily (Lillium longiflorum) is another favorite these days, and most people can't tell the difference. Other modern favorites are daffodils, tulips and hibiscus. In our area, none of these would naturally bloom so early in the year. Therefore, nurseries plant them in pots and manipulate their climate so the plant thinks it's time to bloom. This will throw off their schedules a bit, but that can be remedied if you wish to save your bulbs.

When you are choosing a potted bulb for decorating, try to get one that has buds that haven't opened yet. These will last longer in your home. Also, as soon as the buds open, remove the anthers (the small rods with the pollen on them) of the lilies. Again, this will help the flower last longer. Place the plant in a bright location, free from drafts. Keep the soil slightly moist but not wet. Once they have finished blooming, you can throw them away. Or, except for the tulips — you can save them and plant them out in the garden.

If you plan to keep it, cut off the spent flowers and any seed pods, but leave the green stem and leaves. Keep it watered and give it liquid fertilizer about every two weeks. In late May, plant it in your garden in a bright sunny location. Keep watering and feeding it until the stem dies back and the plant goes dormant. At that time, cut it back to the ground. It may not bloom the following year, but by the second year, it should have corrected its timing.

The daisy is another flower that was used to symbolize Christ. The story is that the Wise Men recognized the stable where Jesus was born because these flowers, which looked like the star they had been following, grew all around the place.

Easter is a wonderful time of the year. It is a time of renewal, new life and forgiveness. And certainly a time for which we should rejoice. And what better way to celebrate than to fill your home with the beautiful vibrant shades of the flowers reminiscent of traditions of long ago?

Mary Stickley-Godinez is The Daily Progress' gardening columnist.