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Ranunculaceae Plants Used at Chelsea 2009

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Delphinium 'Ailsa' with Actaea simplex 'Variegated'
Photograph by Sue Ward.

As I was planning the design of all the plants and was going to plant them on our stand at Chelsea, the Ranunculaceae Group committee suggested that I should choose the plants to represent our group. Choosing plants was not difficult as the family has so many wonderful specimens flowering naturally in May. So, with this in mind, I went mainly for the ones that we would see in our gardens at this time of year, weather permitting. Everyone one of them earned their place and if you don't know them, I can heartily recommend each one to you.

The design of our stand had two large separate triangle areas which I decided to treat as two borders. When all the plants were assembled at Chelsea, a definite colour theme appeared so we had a yellow, gold and white border where many of the Ranunculaceae plants went and the other border consisted of the grey, pink maroon and reds. The four pillars at the centre of the stand had the clematis on them.

Alphabetically, my first choice was Aconitum 'Ivorine', not one of the taller aconitums, only growing to a height of 75cms but with its strong vertical stems of ivory-white hooded flowers, it complemented the Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora at the back of the yellow and gold border.

Ranunculus aconitifolius 'FlorePleno'	Delphinium 'Spindrift', Delphinium 'Gossamer', Aquilegia chrysantha 'Yellow Queen', Clematis 'Parisienne' & Clematis 'Fond Memories'	Aquilegia 'Hensol Harebell'
Photographs by John McCormack

I first saw Actaea pachypoda 'Pewter and Pearls' last year in Kevin Hughes shade tunnel and loved it on first sight, a wonderful plant for dappled shade. Kevin spotted this plant in one of his seed trays of Actaea pachypoda, grey leaves amongst green leaves. He potted it on and watched it grow into a most elegant plant of slender stiff stems with soft grey-green divided leaves. It has the same fluffy white flowers which become spikes of white berries in late summer. Placing this plant was quite a challenge as I wanted the foliage to really stand out so, with this in mind, I put it near the front surrounding it with dark green leaves and wine red of Astrantia major 'Gill Richardson, Peony 'Buckeye Belle', a lovely deep maroon red, and Heuchera 'Mars' with its maroon red and grey in the coloured leaves. I was so pleased that Kevin allowed us to show this rare new plant on our stand at Chelsea.

I also used Actaea simplex 'Variegated' which came from Bob Brown who is chairman of the HPS Variegated Group. It is tall and elegant with branching stems and lovely soft green and cream leaves with some spotting and its spikes of white scented flowers appear in late summer. Behind the Actaea was planted the white Delphinium 'Ailsa' and in front of it was the white Iris 'Winter Olympics'.

Aquilegia chrysantha 'Yellow Queen' is one of my favourites, it has such a presence about it, planted with Achillea 'Moonshine', Verbascum 'Gainsborough' and the tall Delphinium 'Gossamer' behind it, it stood out really well.

Ranunculus gramineus	Trollius x cultorum 'Alabaster'	Aconitum 'Ivorine' & Thalictrum aquilegiifolium var. album
Photographs by John McCormack

Aquilegia 'Hensol Harebell', a lovely soft blue, was used to highlight the creamy-white flowers of the Aconitum 'Ivorine' and Peony 'White Wings' and it looked good amongst the green and gold foliage which surrounded it.

Aquilegia vulgaris 'Nivea', beautiful light green leaves with white flowers, planted in a large group, looked just the right partner for some large ferns.

I wanted to use a dark-flowered Aquilegia and settled on A. vulgaris 'William Guiness'. Again I planted this en mass amongst yellow Verbascum 'Cotswold Queen', the dark outer petals of the aquilegia picking up on the same dark-coloured centre of the flowers of the verbascum.

Anemone levellei was a good choice, planted in front of ferns and Aquilegia vulgaris 'Nivea'. The chalk white flowers on 25 cm high stems held up well and the palmate foliage with each leaf deeply dissected was a lovely contrast to the ferns.

Aquilegia vulgaris 'Nivea'	Clematis 'Fond Memories'	Actaea pachypoda 'Pewter & Pearls'
Photographs by John McCormack

We used 3 different clematis on the four corner pillars, C. 'Fond Memories' has enormous, single flowers that span almost 6 inches. The flowers are a creamy-white with lavender-rose edges.

C 'Hyde Hall' is a large early-flowering plant with creamy white flowers, with just a hint of green and pinkish brown anthers.

These two clematis were intertwined on two opposite pillars. The other two pillars had C. 'Parisienne' with its violet flowers with a dark red centre and is a very compact, free flowering plant which looked stunning when planted up the pillars in large numbers - though nobody realised just how many plants were used on each pillar!

Delphiniums being such tall plants, it was quite a challenge fitting them in but they were so beautiful I couldn't leave them out!

Delphinium 'Spindrift' is a soft blue with flecks of pink and a white eye. Delphinium 'Gossamer' is a similar colour to D. 'Spindrift' but perhaps a couple of tones darker. My final selection, Delphinium 'Ailsa', is the gentlest soft creamy-white.

Clematis 'Hyde Hall'
Photograph by John McCormack

Delphinium 'Spindrift' & Delphinium 'Gossamer'
Photograph by John McCormack

Actaea pachypoda 'Pewter & Pearls'
Photograph by Sue Ward

Now for some buttercups; I've had a soft spot for Ranunculus gramineus for many years, it has been a long time favourite of mine. The grass-like foliage is so unrepresentative of this genus; in flower it reaches a height of 18 cm - 24 cm. The bright yellow flowers are on very fine wiry stems growing well above the leaves. R. gramineus was planted weaving in and out of the middle part of the border which made it glow.

Ranunculus aconitifolius has dark green divided leaves with many branching stems carrying single white buttercup flowers which have yellow button centres. I partner these plants with Ranunculus gramineus and took them to the front of the border with Hakonechloa macra 'All Gold'.

Ranunculus aconitifolius 'Flore Pleno' (Fair Maids of Kent) has the same growth pattern as Ranunculus aconitifolius but has small tight double white button flowers, both making mounds of foliage around 90 cm high. Planted en mass with the yellow flowered Kniphofia pauciflora in amongst them, they looked wonderful.

All these buttercups do best in a retentive soil.

Aquilegia chrysantha 'Yellow Queen'	Aconitum 'Ivorine'	Anemone levellei, Aquilegia vulgaris 'Nivea' & Thalictrum aquilegiifolium var. album
Photographs by Jennifer Harmer

Thalictrum aquilegiifolium var. album at 1.3m high was at its peak and looked superb, its fluffy white flowers standing out well, sited towards the back of the yellow border next to Polystichum setiferum 'Pulcherrimum Bevis' and above it on the pillar, Clematis 'Hyde Hall'.

Thalictrum flavum subsp. glaucum can reach a height of 1.8m in the garden. The blue-grey foliage looked well but the flowers, a soft fluffy yellow were only just breaking so they were put with the blue delphiniums, appearing to grow in and around them. The foliage looked wonderful and the flowers came out just in time for judging on the Monday.

Thalictrum honanense was in flower, a lovely fluffy soft-lilac on long wiry stems reaching to about 30cm. The leaves are quite large with patterns of green, grey and purple marbling - I think this has a real WOW factor about it. It was planted on a corner with the grass Melica uniflora 'Variegata' behind it and the smaller Carex ornithopoda 'Variegata' in front which really showed off the thalictrum leaves.

Thalictrum honanense
Photograph by John McCormack.

Thalictrum minus 'Adiantifolium' at 90cm tall was a very late decision whether to use this plant or not, but I'm so glad that I did. It produces small grey-green maidenhair fern-like leaves on many branching stems. The flowers have no petals, just yellow stamens, I weaved the plants in and around Verbascum 'Gainsborough' and the two complemented each other beautifully.

The last thalictrum was T. tuberosum and, as the name suggests, it has a tuberous root which is clump-forming. It grows to 30cm with large creamy-white flowers over the grey-green leaves. Flowering in May, it is an absolute favourite of mine, planted at the front of the border with Ajuga incisa 'Frosted Jade' and Hosta decorata.

Trollius x cultorum 'Alabaster' grows to 60cm and is a lovely clump-forming plant with shiny pale green foliage and creamy lemon flowers opening from green buds. I put this in middle of the border either side of Carex elata 'Aurea' with Euphorbia characias 'Kestrel' behind and the variegated Ligusticum scoticum in the middle. The trollius flowers and buds pick up on the colour of the flowers and leaves of these plants. To grow well this plant will need a moist retentive soil and be in the sum.

Sue Ward
August 2009

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