Quackin Grass Nursery

Saponaria officinalis 'Betty Arnold' - Differing from 'Rosea-plena' this double flowering form Bouncing Bet or Lady by the Gate is virginal white - the color of fresh driven snow. 'Betty Arnold' is a very easy-natured sun-loving perennial, pretty in the midsummer and late summer garden with an extensive bloom period. The straight species is found in every continental U.S. state and all of southern Canada. Site in any good, draining garden soil in plenty of sun. If ordered in our autumn catalog your Bouncing Bet will arrive cut back. Cutting grown or by division - either way a pot grown established plant.

This note came our way on 3.17.2017. With warm and touching regards we share it with you...

"I was looking up my late mother's plant, Saponaria Officinalis 'Betty Arnold', and came across the charming description on your website. The plant did indeed come from Betty Arnold's lovely garden in beautiful Gloucestershire in England. My mum found this unusual double form of Saponaria growing in her garden and took it along to her monthly garden club. Her friend Bob Brown of Cotswold Garden Flowers asked her permission to introduce it to cultivation and sell the plant through his nursery. He gave it her name which she was so pleased about.

It is three years since she passed away now, and I was looking up whether the plant was still for sale, and I was so touched to see that it is being sold by nurseries in the UK, all over Europe and even in the USA. It is a wonderful legacy for a lovely lady, and I still have some of this growing in my garden from the plant she gave me years ago.

If you wish to add a note to your website description that the plant did indeed come from Betty Arnold's lovely garden in Gloucestershire, England, then I would be very pleased, and I'm sure she would have been too.

With kind regards

Louise Paul (nee Arnold)"

Lovely, indeed.