Thompson & Morgan scoops top award – another win at RHS Chelsea
Paul Hansord and Michael Perry with the winning plant
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 for 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.
Nasturtium ‘Fruit Salad’
‘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 the Thompson & Morgan website and will be delivered from April 2014.
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.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks