“The first one has got to be a snowdrop called ‘Mrs. McNamara’. She's not green or yellow or striped or anything fancy, but she's got the most wonderful perfume. So if you're not superstitious and you're happy to pluck a couple of flowers and bring them into the house, they just smell wonderful and fill the whole room with perfume.
“The second plant I couldn't do without are the witch hazels (Hamamelis) because they are such a wonderful backdrop to the snowdrops in winter and I just love scented plants.
“Thirdly, I would say hardy geraniums, They’re probably a close second to snowdrops in the amount of varieties I've got. I think they're just fantastic plants because you've got everything from really tall ones up to about 3 feet to lovely ground cover ones. And for me, it's great because I can plant lots and lots of different snowdrops around the garden, and then in summer, they completely disappear because there's this carpet of different hardy geraniums.”
Catch up with the rest of Helen’s chat in the Scotland Grows Show.
“The first one would be a Helleborus argutifolius, which is a holly leaved hellebore. It's evergreen, it’s winter flowering, it has beautiful, massive, lime green heads of lots and lots of flowers. The biggest thing I like about it though is that it's early food for bees so when solitary bees come out there's food in my garden there for them, you see it covered early on in the year.
“My second one is Hypericum kouytchense, that's Saint John's wort, another evergreen. I call it the buzzing bush as it attracts lots of different species of bees - you see the theme here. The pollen doesn't automatically come off it so the reason I call it the buzzing bush is that bees have to use sonication to get it off - that's where they use their legs, they grab hold of the anthers, and they flex their flight muscles. You get the buzz without their wings buzzing so they can get the pollen off the anthers, it's great.
“My last one are fuchsias. It’s my favourite flower as my grandpa Tom had a garden full of them when I was little and fuchsia pink is my favourite colour. And they're good for bees as well. There's definitely a theme to my garden: as much as I can my garden is pretty much aimed at our buzzing friends.”
Catch up with the rest of Victoria’s chat in the Scotland Grows Show.
“I decided not to choose my 3 favourites because that's just impossible, but the 3 that came to my head first. The first was actually Narcissus ‘Irene Copeland’. It's a beautiful division 4 double daffodil, and it was one of the first that I saw when coming into Greenbank Garden, and I was just blown away by how elegant it was, it was absolutely beautiful. I just wish I had a field of those daffodils, it would be a sight to behold.
“Number 2 would be Abies koreana, the Korean Fir. I absolutely love this plant. It is amazing to have such a beautiful structural shape to it with quite short needles and then those beautiful purple cones that mature to a pale blue and then leak that white sap. You get a progression of colour as the season goes on, and I just think it's absolutely stunning. It's a brilliant wee tree that can fit into small gardens and provide some much needed structure for years to come.
“And then one of my favourite climbers is Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin', the Chilean flowering potato. It's a little bit different from clematis or honeysuckles, and it's got a beautiful pale purple flower and that yellow centre, it’s just stunning. If you get it in a nice south facing place, it will just take over, and it will just be a constant pleasure throughout the year.”
Catch up with the rest of Andrew’s chat in the Scotland Grows Show.
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