The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 9 letter word HYDRANGEA
I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
H
Y
D
R
A
N
G
E
A
More clues leading to the result HYDRANGEA
- Called into London park with a climber
- Backer mostly into monster plot feature
- Shrub in untidy garden surrounded by fresh hay
- Extremely happy a garden cultivated this?
- Park warden’s spoken of a showy plant
- Hot year ruined a garden plant
- Short water pipe, say, is placed over a shrubby plant
- Bury park official picked up a shrub
- Called into Greater Manchester town with a flowering shrub
- Flower found in garden, haymaking?
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "plant" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case plant = hydrangea.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does HYDRANGEA mean?
HYDRANGEA noun- Any of several shrubs, of the genus Hydrangea, having large clusters of white, pink or blue flowers