The delphinium that wouldn’t die

WHEN a customer arrived at Graham and Nina Austin’s Hertfordshire nursery 15 years ago bearing a cutting of a beautiful deep-blue delphinium, they knew straight away that it was the rare and endangered Delphinium ‘Alice Artindale’. The flower—famous in its day, but slow to propagate, which is why it fell out of favour—was originally bred in 1936 by William Artindale and named after his daughter-in-law. Now, the Austins, who run Home Farm Plants (www.homefarmplants.co.uk), have won the charity Pl...