Plants For Europe Limited

Stop press: Plants For Europe to exhibit at FlowerTrials® ‘25! | Plants for Europe The Plants for Europe team is delighted to announce that we will be representing plant breeders at FlowerTrials® this year!

We are both excited and daunted by this - but what an opportunity to promote our portfolio of plants and take our business to the next level! www.plantsforeurope.com/flowertrials...

You still see this on the continent at this time of year, but it's rare. To have the fragrance in your living room in February is a lovely thing.

I wonder if @rspbengland.bsky.social consider the weather for the #BigBirdCount. Our feeders are normally busy, today they are just swaying in the gale. Our local coal tits, nuthatches and woodpeckers are far too sensible to fly in this storm.

Sunset over the South Downs with vibrant red, purple and orange colours.

Sunset viewed from near Ditchling Beacon earlier.

The cover and some pages from the new Plants For Europe Limited portfolio book, showing pictures of plants.

The new PFE portfolio book is here and ready to go for #IPMEssen next week!

Why do we need new plants? at IPM Essen | LinkedIn Don't forget to check out the international new plants debate at IPM Essen on Weds 29 January - hosted by @HortWeek https://www.hortweek.com/article/1901483 #Horticulture IPM ESSEN Michael Perry Gr...

I'll be speaking at Why do we need new plants? at IPM Essen! Make sure to attend it on January 29. I think that there will be quite an audience - and the other panel members are excellent.
www.linkedin.com/events/whydo...

Sambucus Laced Up - a columnar elderflower variety with dark leaves.

IPM Essen next week - see you there? Sambucus SNR1292 Laced Up has been nominated for the best new plant award! Columnar habit, dark finely divided leaves and pink flowers. Entered by Zu Jeddeloh Pflanzen and Kordes Jungpflanzen, variety management by Plants For Europe Limited.

A pink Helleborus flower

Is it rude to lift up Helleborus flowers to look at the reproductive parts?

A Helleborus hybridus flower - mid pink with darker markings on the petals and dark nectaries.

SOUND THE HELLEBORUS SEASON KLAXON! One of the lovely seedlings in the PFE HQ garden - nice markings on the petals, and very dark nectaries (although the nectaries are a little too small to be showy).

Can't help feeling that there was a missed opportunity to call it flatpackensis.

Surely Brachyglottis with a "y"? Used to be classified as Senecio, native to New Zealand.

Trains are excellent. Sussex to Rome recently, Berlin at the end of the month.

Graph showing outdoor temperature over a 24 hour period today, now falling steeply.

The temperature graph is going downhill and somewhat steeply! If anyone asks, I'm with the cat, by the fire!

A moment that changed me: I went to Kew Gardens – and found a place of safety after homelessness and drug addiction I’d had a very tough few years after my father died, living on the streets and sleeping with one eye open. But as I looked at a tulip tree that day, my love of gardening came flooding back

Horticulture is brilliant and this is a wonderfully uplifting story. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Passiflora caerulea flowers (passion flower)

Happy New Year everyone! It's ghastly outside (in every sense) so here's a reminder of summer - Passiflora caerulea in the PFE HQ garden.

Working professionally with plant breeders (large scale professionals and small scale independents, some with just one plant) and being UK contact for CIOPORA (international breeders org), I'm sad to hear this, but I've seen it to. Newbies need advice/support, not put downs. Here to help.

That's a bright one!

Coal tit on bird feeder

I hadn't reckoned on being in the office today, but there are a bunch of urgent things to do. At least I was reminded to refill the office bird feeder for the coal tits. Best wishes to everyone for the holiday season, our office reopens on Friday 3rd January.

Spiraea Walberton's Magic Carpet - golden yellow foliage with orange red tips and red flower buds.

Plant From A Conversation - Spiraea Walberton's(R) Magic Carpet WALBUMA. Winner of the Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit. A truly great plant.

Interesting, and backs up my own experiences. Rewilding is a strange concept to me - without human management, it can go very wrong

Helleborus Walberton's Rosemary in flower with a pink bloom

Today's Plant From A Conversation - Helleborus Walberton's(R) Rosemary WALHERO. An outstanding plant, demand always exceeds supply.

Euphorbia martinii Ascot Rainbow

Euphorbia martinii Ascot Rainbow - a great year-round plant.

White stems of Rubus cockburnianus

At Wisley today for a meeting and spotted a Plant From A (recent) Conversation - Rubus cockburnianus. Possibly currently out of fashion?

A leafless oak tree is caught in low evening sunlight with dark clouds beyond.

Golden light on the oak against a brooding sky.

Today's Plant From A Conversation - Polemonium Golden Feathers. We've seen one or two lurking in garden centres, left over from the summer stock. But why don't retailers stock this all year round? It still looks great in winter, holding its variegated foliage really well.

Gentle reminder - we will follow you back if you follow us - but not if you have an empty profile! Make sure you have a profile picture, a photo at the top of your profile and a short bio. Otherwise, we might think you're a bot! 🤖

Today's "Plant From A Conversation" (might become a regular Bluesky feature!) is Pennisetum advena Chelsea - great habit, excellent leaf colour, super for a pot and British bred! Talk to us about availability.

Coleus Skeletal foliage

We've been talking about Coleus Skeletal in the office today, so here's a picture of this great plant from earlier this year, grown by our friends at Kernock Park Plants.

After the frosts last week turned a lot of things to mush and Storm Bert wrecked some of the standing grasses over the weekend, today is sunny and we spotted the first Narcissus poking through.

Giving Matt Biggs the lifetime award at the Garden Media Guild awards is exactly right - he's achieved so much for gardening and horticulture and is an absolutely lovely person too!