The British Invasion - The English are coming - Knocking a few Giants down to size.

After 10 years of gardening in Alaska we decided to begin a garden upheaval of sorts. Yes, plants are always getting moved around in our Alaska garden, especially if a shrub rose has outgrown its home, or we are looking for a better visual effect, but this time it was different. We wanted to get rid of all our Pacific Giant delphiniums. Our Pacific Giant delphiniums had come into quite a bit of criticism. English Delphinium Society Vice-president, Lynne Rathbone in the Delphinium Society Yearbook article, Jewels Among the Glaciers that our delphiniums were in truth inferior, or as my fellow Brits might say, “not much cop.”


At the same time, we had become enamored by the English delphiniums grown by local Master Gardener, Catherine Renfro at her Girdwood, Alaska B & B. Catherine’ ENGLISH delphiniums were mentioned in Ms. Rathbone’s article. However, unlike our delphiniums Catherine’s English delphiniums drew much deserved acclaim. Girdwood does have a slightly milder climate than Anchorage, however Catherine has a milder, if not motherly touch when it comes to growing her beloved English delphiniums. Catherine makes sure she does everything right when it comes to growing her delphiniums:  Catherine gives her English delphiniums a prime, sunny location, good soil, lots of TLC in the form of, bone and blood meal and water, water, water. Moreover, every spring Catherine thins her delphs to just a few shoots to ensure all the extra energy goes into making her English delphinium plants stocky and strong and extremely beautiful.


Therefore, our Alaska garden was full of underperforming delphiniums. These delphiniums were weak, leggy, and snapped in the wind. Part of the problem was their location.  Although the Pacific Giant delphiniums added much needed height and color to the back border of the upper garden, these delphinium plants were right back by the fence where they got little sun, so they tended to be leggy. In addition, our home is near to Cook Inlet, and tends to to be somewhat of a magnet for wind. Windy conditions is bad news for delphinium lovers be they in Broughton Oxfordshire, England, Maine or Texas, USA, or  Tanya Circle, Anchorage Alaska.


Our plan to replace our Pacific Giants delphiniums was twofold:

Anchorage, Alaska was a scene of carnage as giant after giant bit the dust. Yes, the giants were cut down discarded, and replaced by English delphiniums. In the back border, some potentially stunning dark blue delphiniums were planted in the middle of the garden bed. Some of these dark blues have dark bee or eyes, some have white bees. One particularly favorite has a honey eye.

On one side of the sloping border we added rich purples delphiniums with white bees. On the other side of the sloping border we included light blues with dark bees including the named English delphinium cultivar, Walton Benjamin which as a striped blue and black eye. Walton Benjamin was moved from behind the rose arbor where it was alongside the fabulous English delphinium shown below. By the retaining wall we have planted dark purples with dark bees.


Our Alaska English Delphiniums Display Gardens was started in 2004, literally from the ground up since we prepared the soil with a foundation of chopped leaves and grass followed by much bone meal alfalfa, and compost. Since this English Delphiniums Display Gardens is in the front garden we wanted it to be something that would literally stop passers by in their tracks(this is already happening).


We already had an exciting beautiful ruffled amethyst colored delphinium which we named Justina after Edith’s mother. We had moved Justina the delphinium(not my mother-in-law), from the back garden to the front. The delphinium, Justina was  officially registered with Royal Horticultural Society of Great Britain on January 25, 2006. The English delphinium, Justina could be the first named delphinium in over 50 years that actually originated in the United States, a worthy tribute for a wonderful person.

Another English delphinium that had been grown from seed was a sumptuous cream delphinium. This too was moved to the English delphinium display garden.


If you have ever tried to individually import plants you will how hard this is to accomplish, especially since 911 whereby the previous USDA plant inspectors has been replaced by Homeland security inspectors. Now even with the appropriate phytosanitary certificate imported plants are usually inspected not at the airport, but at a separate location, meaning it takes much longer before these plants to their final home, and many plants don’t last that long without water. Now, I am not blaming USDA here it is merely a sad state of affairs for plant lovers to have to attempt the near impossible only to end up with some very sad looking, if not dead plants which is what happened twice to a fellow delphinium enthusiast.

When it comes to gardening, we never do anything by halves, so 24 hours of plane travel, finding an DEFRA inspector(the UK equivalent of USDA), who was willing to inspect the delphinium cuttings, then cleaning and repacking them, did not seem too much of a challenge just to get some rare prized named English delphiniums.

Twenty selected English delphiniums were meticulously brought back from the UK. This collection included the highly prized Lucia Sahin, the superb cream English delphinium, Sunkissed , as well as two whites, Atholl and Constance Rivett, the rich purple, Summerfield Oberon, the light blue Walton Benjamin, and the new cultivar, Walton Holly. Lucia Sahin and Sunkissed were planted in the English Delphiniums display bed alongside other dusky pinks and creams that we were fortunate to have grown from seeds obtained from some Delphinium Society members.

Across from the English delphiniums display bed and bordering our driveway is a bed of perennial yellow verbascums, and hardy roses. We plan to add dark blue English delphiniums to complement the verbascums.

Although it is still 5 months away we eagerly await a new summer, especially after a week of bitterly cold weather.   The English Delphiniums display bed and the other English delphiniums that we planted throughout our Alaskan garden should be a fitting tribute to the variety of colors and outstanding beauty of these majestic plants,
and these English delphiniums should provide us with some wonderful delphinium plants, if some stunning new photos.

We expect our British Invasion of the delphinium kind will put on quite a superb summer performance; a show that will encourage others to want to grow English delphiniums here in Alaska, and fortunately, this British invasion will not pre-empted by Beatles.