SPRING is still in the air and summer is on its way heralded in the horticultural world by the first of the flower shows.

Chelsea always gets the season off to a fine start, firing up gardeners the length and breadth of the country to go out and 'do it.'

Chelsea show is always a good shop window for plants, new introductions that may be well change our view of some plants.

This year at Chelsea we will see about 40 new plant introductions, including a double flowered oriental lily called Miss Lucy, a black flowered hyacinth appropriately named Midnight Mystique and a scented begonia called Arowmantica with apricot to deep flowers.

Although new plants continue to be introduced you might well ask what happens to many of the old ones after they simply go out of fashion.

The garden's heyday for plant introductions, particularly hybrids, was around the late 1800s early 1900s.However, many of those plants disappeared or became diseased and simply faded away.

Usually there are one or two kept by people just to keep the stock going.

One such plant about to be reintroduced is a begonia called Flamboyant.

It is a plant I used to grow as a young apprentice. It is versatile and can be used in the conservatory or outside as a bedding plant.

It has a compact habit but the best part of it is the abundance of blood red flowers it produces all season - hence its name Flamboyant.

The plant was first introduced in 1911 and then it almost died out due to virus.

Now though after over 90 years the existing stock has been cleaned and is now back on sale.

We are now awaiting Flamboyant's companion, Helene Harms, which had the same compact habit except the flowers were creamy yellow.

We are trying a few Flamboyant at Tatton this year to help with its redistribution.

It's a stunning plant to use in containers on the patio and in hanging baskets.

So watch out for it in the garden centres and when you visit Tatton in the summer.