The arrival of cuttings raised Surfinia’s 30 years ago was greeted with some scepticism by traditional growers, but the public loved their vigorous, pendula habit and massed free flowering performance. It took a little time for people to realise stronger growing plants needed more space to grow (so needed less plants in any given size of container), more watering and feeding.
Given this more generous style of cultivation, performance proved and continues to give outstanding garden decoration, flowering non-stop right through the summer and autumn.
While arriving in the single purple shade, there is now the full range of colours and I look forward to celebrating the Surfinia® 30th Anniversary with a display of them at the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show in May 2020. After the show plants will be grown on in the Floral Fantasia area at the RHS Hyde Hall Garden for hundreds of thousands of visitors to see and enjoy.