Features: Great Pavilion

Best of British in the Great Pavilion

Romance is in the air in the Great Pavilion: the cottage garden is back, and with it all the loveliest of British favourites.

It's probably no coincidence that the theme in the Pavilion this year is celebrating British horticulture: growers have responded by filling their displays to overflowing with aquilegias, foxgloves, verbascums and above all, peonies.

Peonies capture perfectly the combination of the moment: blowsy romance, luxurious extravagance and every colour from purest white to deepest scarlet. They pop up in displays all over the pavilion, from the lavish 'Lemon Dawn' at Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants, to sumptuous scarlet 'Black Pirate' at peony specialist Kelways. Among the loveliest is Paeonia 'Okhan', a pale creamy-yellow tree peony from Jacques Amand: it holds its blooms upright, unlike many tree peonies, and has a delicate, ethereal grace.

Colour is back after last year's muted, subdued shades, but dreamy tones of white, mauve and pink dominate. Many exhibitors give it a twist, though: Jekka McVicar adds a splash of orange marigold to the pale greys and mauves of fennel, thyme and lavender, while Broadleigh Bulbs have used flaming orange Tulipa 'Couleur Cardinal' in a subtle planting of white alliums, erythroniums and wood anemone.

Keep it simple, sweetie

Of course many cottage garden plants are simple English natives, and this too is celebrated in the Pavilion with some truly artless beauties.

Angelica (Angelica archangelica) is the new allium: its huge, firework-like heads are used to great effect in Jekka McVicar's herb garden, where she has a double row lining her canal. She has selected out some stunning purple-stemmed angelica which arose as a natural variation from seed, and is planning to develop them if she can.

Native British grasses get a rare outing at Knoll Gardens: owner Neil Lucas is particularly fond of Briza media 'Golden Bee', with pretty dancing flower heads like green jewels.

"It's such a delicate, easy to use, easy to please type of plant," he says. "And it moves in the slightest wind - it's so attractive." If you've ever dismissed British native grasses as uninteresting, this should change your mind for good.

Leaf it out

"Foliage colour is really important in your garden - it's that that holds any scheme together," says Andy McIndoe of Hilliers Nurseries, and this year's emphasis on leaves that are at least as good-looking as flowers is clear in his planting: look out for the fabulous combination of broad purple-leaved Cotinus 'Grace' teamed with spiky Pinus mugo and treacle-splashed Mentha piperata 'Chocolate'.

Foliage this year has gone extreme, and ranges from the wonderful to the downright wierd. At Jacques Amand's stand there's a fabulously brooding display, pitting the cobra-like heads of Arisaema griffithii against elegant Paris polyphylla underplanted with the perfect match of purple-tinged Japanese painted fern,Athyrium nipponicum var. pictum. To the other side are a fabulous range of podyphyllums - the purplish-brown mottled leaves of P. delavayi makes it a choice Chinese woodlander for dappled shade.

The elegant flutes of sarracenia are the must-have plant this year, while succulents have come into their own: subtle purple tones of aeoniums and silvery Echeveria elegans are given a coral-like beauty in the underwater scene created by the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism and Newington Nurseries. Among them curious fat marestails, Sanseveria cylindrica, rise like strange seaweed.

A taste of the new

Chelsea is the ultimate theatre for bringing a new plant into the spotlight for the first time, and this year there's a host of new roses and other eyecatchers making their debut.

It's almost impossible to choose between the 12 new roses being launched by rose companies David Austin, Peter Beales and Harkness. But Rosa 'The Sun and the Heart', bred by Harkness Roses, bears closer inspection: right at the heart, deep amid the petals is a stain of deepest red.

Another new release this year is Ginkgo biloba 'Pixie' from the Big Plant nursery. This small but perfectly-formed tree is ideal for container growing: its delicately shaped leaves are exactly like those of a full-sized ginkgo, so if you haven't much room, this little gem brings this most elegant of tree species into anyone's reach.

Finally, a spectacular new dahlia from the National Collection of Dahlias, Dahlia 'Joe Swift'. This is bang up to date with the current trend for paler-coloured, single flowers over deep purple leaves: like its namesake, it's a cheery, vibrant plant that would brighten up the darkest corner.