PUZZLES & PRIZES

Test your gardening knowledge with our brain teasers this month!

CLUES ACROSS

1 Flowering plant often dubbed the annual delphinium (8)

6 Birds of the order Strigiformes visiting gardens nocturnally (4)

7 - - - - flower, term commonly used for a plant of the campanula genus (4)

8 ‘The - - - -’, monarch among the various purple coneflower cultivars (4)

9 Any plants whose natural habitat is generally highland, snowy regions (7)

12 Brewer’s mitrewort genus with greenish saucer-shaped summer blooms (7)

15 Early summer-flowering Ornithogalum umbellatum or - - - - of Bethlehem (4)

17 - - - - carnosa, house vine also known a the wax plant or porcelain flower (4)

18 Genus of flowering plants taking its name from the Greek for ‘rainbow’ (4)

19 Ficus - - - - - - - -, ornamental rubber plant (8)

CLUES DOWN

1 Seventh sign of the zodiac whose birth flower is the freesia or 16 Down (5) 2 Beautiful evergreen shrub, - - - - - - latifolia or mountain laurel (6) 3 ‘Ostrich - - - - -’, feathery name given to a cultivar of aster and astilbe (5)

4 - - - - garden, area with plants laid out between stones and slabs (4)

5 - - - - - - - flower – Actinotus helianthi – with blooms of facecloth texture (7) 10 Chinese - - - - - - -, perennial physalis bearing orange seed cases (7) 11 Long-lived colourful perennial, - - - - - poker or kniphofia (3-3)

13 - - - - - coccinea, exotic ‘flame of the woods’ with orange globe blooms (5) 14 Yellow-flowered evergreen sawtoothed or box-leafed shrub (5) 16 Summer flower whose cultivars include ‘Peace’, ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ and ‘Cariad’ (4)