It’s a Hat trick for ‘Illumination Pink’.
Thompson & Morgan is thrilled to have won the 2012 Garden Retail ‘Best New Plant’ award for its exclusive and unique foxglove, ‘Illumination Pink’.
This highly-regarded award is now the third prestigious accolade bestowed upon T&M’s innovative foxglove variety. In May, ‘Illumination Pink’ was named ‘Plant of the Year’ at the world-renowned RHS Chelsea Flower Show. This honour was followed in July by the Anglian Business Award for Innovation.
The well-respected Garden Retail Awards, held last night at Grosvenor House on Park Lane in London, are presented by the horticulture industry’s leading business and professional magazine. Entrants in the Best New Plant Variety category were required to ‘demonstrate innovation and fill a gap in the market for the amateur gardener’. ‘Illumination Pink’ certainly fits the criteria amply. It’s everything that other foxgloves aren’t – a hardy perennial which flowers non-stop for 6 months in never-before-seen colours. Coming first in such an outstanding field of competitors makes the award all the more impressive. Other companies short-listed for awards included Homebase and Dobbies Garden Centres.
Michael Perry, Thompson & Morgan’s new product development manager, was at the ceremony to accept the award and confessed that he was over the moon! “Foxglove ‘Illumination Pink’ is a triumph of plant breeding. It was thought to be impossible, but we managed to create this beautiful new hybrid”. Thompson & Morgan has revealed that over 180,000 plants have been sold since its win at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May.
Customers can buy 6 plants of Foxglove ‘Illumination Pink’ for £18.99 – a saving £12.99 – from Thompson & Morgan’s website or by calling the order line on 0844 573 1818
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
Never seen such beauty on foxgloves before and never seen so many bees working from dawn to dusk illumination is very worthy of its award thank you T M
Thank you! We’re delighted to hear that your foxgloves have been so popular!
On 12/4/13 ordered geraniums – due to be despatched by end April ’13. Part of the order has arrived but no news at all about the T&M’s F1 Jackpot hybrid. It’s now 17/5/13….any idea when they will be despatched? A note on the website may help. If I were to order right now I can see that they’d be despatched by the end of May ’13. I’m aware that we’ve all experienced adverse weather conditions but, again, info on the website to this effect would reassure me.
Dear Andrea, thank you for your feedback. I’m sorry that you’ve had to wait for your geraniums. I’ve asked customer care to email you directly with more information. I’ll also pass on your comment to my colleague in the web team to see if we can find a way to add notes to despatch dates.
Hello again, I’ve just had confirmation that we are looking at ways to improve communication of despatch dates online.
Ordered Foxglove Illumination Pink in Sep 2012 and paid with CC. Later received an email to say that due to weather conditions they would not be available. Fair enough these things happen. I expected to get them this year once conditions had improved but so far nothing. Emails go unanswered apart from a ‘We are very busy’ message which tells me absolutely nothing. The most galling aspect of this is that you are advertising this product for sale this year. Why dont you try honouring last years orders first – only a suggestion. I had always considered T&M to be a first rate and very helpful firm but now beginning to wonder.
Yours Foxgloveless
PS Please do not advise me to contact your customer care team because they all seem to have gone on holiday
Dear Bob, I’m sorry to hear you’ve waited so long to find out about your foxglove plants, but you should have an email from our customer care department in your inbox. It would seem that a letter sent explaining the situation didn’t actually reach you, but the plants are due to be delivered by the end of this month.
I am bitterly disappointed with Thompson and Morgan. Despite ordering the new foxglove ‘illumination pink’ in May, and the payment of £23.94, put on my credit card also in May, the plants were promised for delivery in June but this date was later changed to October. This has again been changed to next spring, nearly a year after payment was taken for them. At my age you do not order plants for the following year as you might not be here to enjoy them.
I’m very sorry to hear that you’ve been waiting so long for your digitalis plants to arrive. Unfortunately, the plants we had intended to send in October had not reached the required standard. We therefore took the regrettable decision to delay sending the plants out until we could ensure that they had reached high quality that we expect from our growers, so as to ensure the best quality plants for our customers. I do understand your frustration, especially as you’ve already paid for the plants. If you would like to discuss this further, please contact our customer care team on 0844 573 1818. Thank you.