Sunday, September 28, 2008

'Hot Lips' - hot plant

Over the past few years, the plant that you see everyone carrying around at the Malvern Autumn Show has been Kniphofia rooperi. However, there is a new kid on the block; one that could be seen being carried aloft through the thronging crowds as well as on all the herbaceous perennial stands . The pretender to the crown this year is Salvia 'Hot Lips'.

The autumn show is best loved by me for its amateur show sections, including chrysanthemus, dahlias and vegetables. Not forgetting, of course, that autumn show dependable, the giant veg. I was going to write that the growing of giant vegetables is a strange, obsessive pastime. But then, so is blogging and you can't make a huge casserole out of a blog. I couldn't fight my way through to get a photo of the giant pumpkin, but managed a couple of shots. None of the shots were helped by the low light in the marquee, and the fact that I only took a macro lens with me. Be thankful that I didn't take a photo of the giant swedes. I will have nightmares about their alien shapes and strange protrusions for weeks. It seems that Perry ('cider' from pears) is now becoming a rather popular and trendy drink. Hailing from Worcestershire, I have had exposure to perry for quite some time (and not just through the 'delight' that is Babycham), but wasn't aware of the range of perry pears that have been bred in the area. They had some great names...


I did manage to see (despite the crowds) the gardens in the 'Plot to Pot' pavilion, including the one designed by the Chris Beardshaw mentee, Lyndsay Anglin:I also enjoyed Deb at Beholder's Eye's bronze medal winning garden:

My photographs don't do justice to the garden - better photos can be seen on her blog. Congratulations on your medal, Deb!

Rather annoyingly, the photographs I took outside of the steam engines came out much better than my horticultural photos. Here's some photos of some old tractor seats which, inexplicably, have been painted in bright colours. The colours did shine through the mist.



Finally, a couple of bargains were spotted for Arabella Sock...

8 comments:

Arabella Sock said...

Oh no!! I knew I should have gone. I could have had the blue boots and several balls of twine.

Great photos - although sadly none of the tiny gardening god. Are you sure you're not just keeping them to yourself?

I went out yesterday and took loads of photos for a blog I was going to do and then found I hadn't put the memory card back in the camera. Gutted!

Anonymous said...

mentor - mentee.

I like it. Don't know if you made it up or if my dictionary isn't up to scratch, but a great word.

Very entertaining post. I usually do the spring Malvern show. Never been in the autumn. Hot Lips looks like an improvement on the regular red salvia.
Joco

HappyMouffetard said...

Hello Joco - it's definitely a word - I wrote an 8000 word assignment about mentoring! Thank you for visiting.

I go to the spring show as well. The autumn one is different - not much of a gardening show, really but a nice morning out.

Arabella - no, no photos. It seemed a bit weird to take a photo of someone just because they'd been on the telly a bit. Anyway, he was surrounded by groupies!

VP said...

Missed you by a day HM :( I had a most enjoyable day there in the company of Patient Gardener yesterday :)

I had a lesson on cuttings at the Botanic Nursery earlier on this year and took home my very own S. 'Hot Lips', not realising I was subsequently going to see it every show this year. For once I'm a trend setter :0 Did you know that the flower changes colour according to the temperature?

VP said...

PS I didn't know perry pears were so small until yesterday!

My favourite apple variety name is 'Slack Ma Girdle'

Mr. McGregor's Daughter said...

Salvia 'Hot Lips' has been very popular with the Texas garden bloggers this year. Of course for us in Chicagoland, it has to be grown as an annual. I may have to hunt for it next year.
I must ask the question, why would anyone want to make a huge casserole out of anything, much less a blog? If the giant veggies were attractive, I suppose I could understand it, but they all seem freaky, like that carrot you've shown. I love the photos of the tractor seats, they'd make good calender shots.

HappyMouffetard said...

Hi MMD,

The giant veg growers claim that they still taste good, but I'm not sure I'd want to eat something that gives me nightmares!

VP - love Slack ma Girdle great name!

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good work.