The Alpine Gardener - December 2013

334 THE ALPINE GARDENER

Alpine Gardener the

JOURNAL OF THE ALPINE GARDEN SOCIETY

VOL. 81 No. 4 DECEMBER 2013 pp. 356-472

ISSN 1475-0449

the international society for the cultivation, conservation and exploration of alpine and rock garden plants

Volume 81 No. 4

December 2013

Alpine Gardener THE

CONTENTS 359

357 EDITOR’S LETTER 359 ALPINE DIARY

A plant-hunter sets up a new nursery; readers’ letters; 2013 AGS shows round-up.

370 ROBERT ROLFE

Self-seeding plants can be both a blessing and a curse.

402 PHOTO ALBUM

The AGS slide librarians present a selection of beautiful close-up images from around the world.

412 BLACKTHORN

402 434

In the final part of our series on Robin and Sue White’s enviable garden, Robert Rolfe looks at the plants they grow under cover.

434 THE DOLOMITES

Pete and Jackie Murray follow the snowmelt in these Italian mountains and learn much to help them grow alpines at home.

456 PLANTS FROM OUR SHOWS

Prize plants from this year’s Ulster, East Anglia, Malvern, Southport and Summer South shows.

December 2013 Volume 81 No 4

PRACTICAL GARDENING

378

378 KABSCHIA SAXIFRAGES

412

Adrian Young passes on 40 years’ experience of growing these popular alpines.

394 HOW TO GROW IT Tropaeolum sessilifolium by Jean-Patrick Agier.

396 MINI-GARDENS

John Dower reveals how he keeps his ‘garden in a pot’ looking pristine.

468 BOOK SHELF

Tim Ingram selects some of his favourite horticultural volumes.

COVER PHOTOGRAPHS

Front: Ranunculus asiaticus in northern Jordan (Peter Sheasby).

Back: A cross between Pulsatilla vulgaris var. rubra and P. vulgaris subsp. grandis shown by John Richards at the East Anglia Show (Doug Joyce).

ON THESE PAGES

Left: Trillium tennesseense; Sarcodes sanguinea; the Dolomites.

Right: Saxifraga burseriana; Orchis italica; Gladiolus floribundus.

456

Published by the

Alpine Garden Society

The international society for the cultivation, conservation and exploration of alpine and rock garden plants, small hardy herbaceous plants, hardy and half-hardy bulbs, hardy ferns and small shrubs AGS Centre, Avon Bank, Pershore, Worcestershire WR10 3JP, UK Tel: +44(0)1386 554790 Fax: +44(0)1386 554801 Email: ags@alpinegardensociety.net Director of the Alpine Garden Society: Christine McGregor Registered charity No. 207478 Annual subscriptions: Single (UK and Ireland) £31* Family (two people at same address) £35* Junior (under 18/student) £13 Overseas single US$54 £33 Overseas family US$60 £36 * £2 deduction for direct debit subscribers For details of life membership and joint life membership apply to the Alpine Garden Society at the address above.

Printed by Butler Tanner & Dennis, Caxton Road, Frome, Somerset BA11 1NE Price to non-members £8.00 Second-class postage paid at Rahway, New Jersey.

US Postmaster: send address corrections to AGS Bulletin, c/o Mercury Airfreight International Ltd. Inc., 2323 Randolph Avenue, Avenel, NJ 07001. USPS 450-210.

© The Alpine Garden Society ISSN 1475-0449

Editor: John Fitzpatrick Tel: +44(0)1981 580134 Email: editor@agsgroups.org Associate Editor: Robert Rolfe Tel: +44(0)1159 231928 Email: robert.rolfe@agsgroups.org Practical Gardening Correspondent: Vic Aspland CChem. MRSC Tel: +44(0)1384 396331 Email: vic.aspland@agsgroups.org Custodian AGS Digital Library: Jon Evans Tel: +44(0)1252 724416 Email: jon.evans@agsgroups.org Custodian AGS Slide Library: Peter Sheasby Tel/fax: +44(0)1295 720502 To advertise in The Alpine Gardener please call or email the AGS Centre (details above) The Editor welcomes contributions of articles and photographs. Please call or email the Editor to discuss relevant formats for photographs before sending. The Editor cannot accept responsibility for loss of, or damage to, articles, artwork or photographs sent by post.

The views expressed in The Alpine Gardener do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor or of the Alpine Garden Society. The Alpine Gardener is published four times a year in March, June, September and December.

www.alpinegardensociety.net

PETER SHEASBY

Elythranthera brunonis, the purple enamel orchid, endemic to Western Australia

T

he Alpine Garden Society today is a very different organisation from the one that was set up in 1929. What would our founding fathers think if they could see, for example, the ease with which we can place our Seed Exchange orders on the AGS website, the spectacular array of plants exhibited at our 23 shows, or our online Encyclopaedia of Alpines?

One thing, however, remains unchanged: the name of our Society.

In the Letters column on page 364, John Noakes, a former AGS Trustee, argues that it may be time to consider whether the name still fits. His concern is that the word ‘alpine’ no longer

DECEMBER 2013

Is this just an ‘Alpine’ Garden Society?

Editor ’s letter reflects the diverse range of plants from a wide variety of habitats in which our members take an interest.

There is certainly confusion among 357

EDITOR’S LETTER the general gardening public about what exactly is an ‘alpine’. Many gardeners will tell you that they don’t grow alpines, but take a walk around their gardens and you will probably be able to point out several plants that we, in the AGS, would consider to be alpines.

This year I spent a couple of days on the AGS exhibit at the Chelsea Flower Show.

This featured a great many woodland and bog plants, with cypripediums prominent among them. Many visitors to the show were confused to see these plants in an ‘alpine’ display. And one visitor to an AGS show this year pointed out to me that a winning entry in a class for ‘three pans of rock plants’ didn’t, as far as she was concerned, feature any rock plants at all!

This is reflected in the two letters that follow John Noakes’s comments, with members taking opposing views about whether cypripediums should be classed as alpines. Peter Sheasby’s photograph on the previous page of Elythranthera brunonis, the purple enamel orchid endemic to Western Australia, is taken from the AGS slide library. This beautiful plant inhabits coastal sand plains, heathland and woodland, but is it an alpine? Should this image be in our slide library at all?

A debate has been simmering in the AGS for many years about whether our name is still apposite and there can be no denying that the words ‘alpine’ and ‘rock garden’, whether we like it or not, cause many gardeners to switch off.

What is your view? Is this still just an ‘Alpine’ Garden Society or has it become so much more? Has our organisation evolved to such an extent that its name 358

no longer truly reflects the wide interests of its members? Has the name become a handicap by deterring prospective new members who are unaware of the scope of our horticultural endeavours?

The one thing that the AGS must do over the next few years is increase membership to reduce the annual deficit in its running costs. The long-term survival of the Society in its current form depends on this. If a change of name would help bring in new members, then it is something we must consider.

Our founding fathers, I am certain, would want us to do whatever is necessary to secure the Society’s future and promote a wider interest in all the wonderful plants that fascinate our members.

M

y apologies to every reader who received a copy of the September issue with a duplicated contents page.

This was a printing error which was not noticed until the issue had been mailed.

The missing page is on the AGS website should you wish to print it to insert into your copy of the journal. Find it by following the link for The Alpine Gardener.

John Fitzpatrick  We’d like to hear your views about articles in The Alpine Gardener, and also about your experiences of growing plants or searching for them in the wild.

Please write to the Editor at AGS Centre (address on title page) or email editor@agsgroups.org.

THE ALPINE GARDENER

JOHN FITZPATRICK

ALPINE DIARY

Tom Mitchell holding a pot of Crocus mathewii at Evolution Plants

Evolution owner’s aim is a revolution in gardening

A

modern-day plant-hunter has set up a nursery that will offer a range of unusual and rare plants to gardeners all over the world.

Tom Mitchell’s Evolution Plants opened for business in October, although the nursery has been in existence for five years. During this time he has been propagating, cultivating and trialling plants, mostly grown from seed collected on his many expeditions around the world.

He says that he wants to create ‘the world’s best nursery, propelled by seed

DECEMBER 2013

collection in the wild and an evangelical attitude to conservation’.

Tom, who has a degree in natural sciences and a PhD in tropical rainforest biology, decided to start his nursery after a 15-year career as a City banker.

His catalogue includes plants from a diverse range of habitats, including bulbs from South Africa, woodlanders from the United States and trees from the temperate rainforests of south-west China.

The nursery, near Bradford-onAvon, Wiltshire, is open to visitors by 359

ALPINE DIARY JOHN FITZPATRICK

Staff tend some of the rarities being grown at Evolution Plants

appointment only. Initially Tom will trade mostly on his website, www. evolution-plants.com, and from 2015 will attend plants fairs and shows, including some AGS shows. He says that overseas customers can order with confidence, knowing that all the necessary phytosanitary paperwork for export, to include CITES-listed plants, will be completed at the nursery.

He says: ‘I want Evolution Plants to become the most exciting online destination in the world for plantsmen and keen gardeners. There is a whole host of temperate plants that most gardeners are simply unaware of.’

Tom is deeply concerned about 360

conservation and believes that his nursery can contribute significantly by cultivating endangered plants. ‘Many of the wild places that I visit to collect seed are under threat from development,’ he says, ‘which will eventually destroy habitats and lead to the extinction of hundreds of species. I have no power to halt this destruction, but by collecting seed and cultivating it we can use our gardens as arks in which some of these vanishing species can be preserved.’

Tom has not been put off starting a nursery by some of the advice offered to him by those who have already made that leap, such as, ‘The first 20 years are the worst,’ and, ‘You can make a THE ALPINE GARDENER

TOM MITCHELL

ALPINE DIARY

Galanthus nivalis ‘Elsje Mitchell’ and, right, G. reginae-olgae subsp. vernalis ‘Corinne’

reasonable living if you are prepared to live like a peasant.’

‘I want to grow the widest possible range of plants and inspire enthusiasm for them among a new generation of gardeners,’ he says ‘At the moment gardening isn’t ‘cool’ and I want to make it ‘cool’. I’ll be using all the modern social media to stimulate an interest in plants and horticulture among young people.’

In the past five years Tom has made over 3,000 seed collections in 20 countries. He is a self-confessed galanthophile and is introducing three new snowdrop cultivars through DECEMBER 2013

361

AARON FLODEN

ALPINE DIARY

Two new species being cultivated

by Evolution Plants: Trillium tennesseense and, opposite, Trautvetteria fonticalcarea ined.

the nursery: Galanthus nivalis ‘Elsje Mitchell’, G. n. ‘Pieter Mitchell’ and G. reginae-olgae subsp. vernalis ‘Corinne’.

Other plants that will feature heavily in his catalogue include hellebores, peonies and American woodlanders.

He has been to the eastern United States in search of new Veratrum and Trillium species, to Crete to look for Dracunculus and Arum, and to Mozambique and Swaziland on the trail of Gladiolus and Gloriosa. Trips are planned over the next few years to eastern Uzbekistan, Japan and India, and he has botanist friends who will collect seed in the field to be grown at Evolution Plants.

362

‘I aim to have 500 species for sale on the website at any one time,’ he says, ‘and a high proportion of these will be unique to Evolution Plants.’

At the moment Tom’s nursery occupies five acres of a 13-acre site, giving him plenty of room for expansion. Five large polytunnels house thousands of pots of seedlings germinated from his collections and thousands of young plants. There are also extensive stock beds outdoors.

One of the plants he is introducing to horticulture is an undescribed species of Trautvetteria, a genus in the Ranunculaceae often considered THE ALPINE GARDENER

AARON FLODEN

ALPINE DIARY

to be monotypic, containing only Trautvetteria caroliniensis. Tom explains: ‘I was exploring with my friend, the botanist Aaron Floden, near Knoxville, Tennessee, and he noticed that the Trautvetteria we were examining was quite distinct from other populations we had encountered in the preceding few days. He suspected it might represent a new species and, after a great deal more work in the field, in the herbarium and in the lab, sequencing DNA, Aaron’s suspicions have been confirmed. He is currently preparing the paper that will, if it is accepted, publish this new species as Trautvetteria fonticalcarea, which means ‘little limestone spring’. It is a fantastic plant for the shade garden and associates well with hellebores, Aconitum and Thalictrum.’

DECEMBER 2013

Another new species being cultivated

by Tom is Trillium tennesseense, recently discovered and known to occur in only three locations on the slopes of Bays Mountain in Hamblen and Hawkins counties, Tennessee. It closely resembles T. oostingii and has been confirmed as a new species through DNA analysis.

Tom does not intend to pursue hybridising, preferring to concentrate on bringing species into cultivation. He will, however, make an exception with hellebores and epimediums, with the intention of creating ‘daintier’ cultivars with smaller flowers.

John Fitzpatrick  To contact Tom Mitchell visit www.evolution-plants.com 363

ALPINE DIARY

From John Noakes, Long Marston, Hertfordshire

I

n the last issue of the journal, Alice Robertson, a new member, raised the fundamental issue of changing the name of the Alpine Garden Society.

Unlike Alice, I am a long-time member but I, too, am concerned about the appropriateness of our name and its ability to reflect the wide range of our current activities. Our members are enthusiastic about all aspects of the smaller plants that come from, in the main, high-altitude regions of the world, but also take a great interest, for example, in plants from forests and deserts.

So why ‘alpine’ and why ‘garden’? Many members are intrigued and content to view alpines in the wild on tours or read about them in our excellent journal, yet, except in the hands of a few experts, many plants are ungrowable in the garden.

There is another important strand to consider in this discussion. The Society needs to recruit new members to help reduce its financial deficit, but does our current name put off potential new recruits who are unaware of the depth of our interests?

When I was chairman of the AGS Membership Task Force I was frequently asked when talking to gardeners outside the Society: ‘What is the AGS about?’

They were astonished to learn that we provide such a wide canvas of activities and resources and had an interest in plants from such a diverse range of habitats.

I believe there is now a need to spell out

364

Isn’t it time that the AGS had a new name?

Letters

what we stand for and create a new name to encompass this. It will be difficult, as no name will capture all that we do. The name Alpine Garden Society has served us well in the past but the activities and interests of the Society and its members have evolved beyond this.

I suspect that many AGS members would be reluctant to embrace change, but it is vital that we should present ourselves to potential new members as more than just an ‘alpine’ garden society.

Can we start a discussion?

From Brian and Jo Walker, Solihull, West Midlands

W

e very much enjoyed the articles on cypripediums in the September issue of The Alpine Gardener. The cultivation regime at Anthura nursery in the Netherlands, as described by Christopher Grey-Wilson, is incredibly THE ALPINE GARDENER

ALPINE DIARY

Cypripedium Gabriella, yet another success in Wim van Kruijsbergen’s garden

impressive and we can’t have been the only AGS members who stared openmouthed at the photograph of all those thousands of plants in that enormous greenhouse. Hopefully we can now look forward to the prices of these orchids coming down, thus encouraging more people to attempt to grow them.

Equally, it was wonderful to see that someone else shares our success in growing them, both in our alpine house, where they have experienced -22C, and in the woodland garden, where they have been thriving for some years.

Cypripedium calceolus grows at up to 2,000m in the wild so it copes well at our altitude. The success achieved by Wim van Kruijsbergen in his garden is inspirational. He offered much useful DECEMBER 2013

advice and we shall be following some of it to try to cultivate more of these plants in our garden.

From Vivien Clowes, Hampshire

I

was both pleased and annoyed by the September issue of The Alpine Gardener. Firstly, I was pleased to see the Editor’s tribute to Caryl Baron, who was a member of the Hampshire Local Group. I was glad to know her and she offered me much advice when I first joined the group.

Secondly, why all those pages about orchids (cypripediums)? They are not alpines and I found those illustrated to be very ugly. Please do not do it again.

365

ALPINE DIARY

A

GS exhibitors shook off the effects of a bitterly cold spring to stage some vintage performances at the Society’s shows during 2013.

The season, however, wasn’t without its disappointments. A programme of 23 shows, from South Wales in February to Newcastle in October, had been drawn up, but two had to be cancelled due to unexpected circumstances.

The Loughborough spring was the first casualty after the rupturing of a gas main in the grounds of Charnwood College the day before the show, which meant the venue had to be closed. This was a double blow because it would have been Doreen and Eric Webster’s swansong as show secretaries.

Then, just two weeks later, parts of England experienced the worst March snowfall on record, resulting in the cancellation of the East Lancashire Show. Director of Shows Ray Drew commented: ‘It is very rare that a show has to be cancelled. The last time was as a mark of respect when the Queen Mother died just before the London Show in 2002. So to lose two in as many weeks was particularly galling.’

Lionel Clarkson’s stewardship of the Blackpool Show also came to an end after many years. Ray said: ‘On behalf of all exhibitors I’d like to thank Doreen, Eric and Lionel for the sterling work they have done for their respective shows.’ In fact this year’s was the final Blackpool Show, since the school used is closing, and it will be replaced in 2014 by a show in Kendal, Cumbria.

There were also new show secretaries to welcome. Kana and Jonathan Webster 366

Exhibitors rally after setbacks in March 2013 SHOWS ROUND-UP were in charge of their first South West Show, where five Certificates of Merit were awarded, a measure of the quality on display. The Loughborough Autumn Show saw the arrival of Neil Hubbard and Martin Rogerson as joint show secretaries, both being rewarded for their considerable effort by a superb array of plants.

This year Cecilia Coller refused to loosen her grip on the Open Section and once again topped the aggregate table. Don Peace finished second, just five first places behind Cecilia, though her considerable number of multi-pan entries ensured she finished well ahead on points.

Brian Sulman won the Intermediate Section aggregate while Pauline Carless, in her first season as an exhibitor, showed great promise and topped the Novice Section.

Three exhibitors won their first Farrer Medals during the season. At Kent, George Elder from Cardiff won with Corydalis darwasica; at Summer THE ALPINE GARDENER

JOHN FITZPATRICK

ALPINE DIARY

A fine entry of cushion plants at this year’s Malvern Show, which also featured a display of containers planted by AGS members and an extensive Artistic Section, part of which can be seen at the top of the photograph

Show South, David Richards from Cheltenham was victorious with Salvia cyanescens; at Autumn South, Tony Jenkins from Maidstone showed a fine pan of Diplodium coccinea.

The late spring was partly responsible for a bumper number entries at both the Northumberland and Midland shows in April. At Hexham 88 exhibitors staged 814 plants, while a week later at Knowle DECEMBER 2013

95 exhibitors brought 809 plants to the benches. Both shows were a riot of colour that could not have failed to impress visitors.

The two-day London Show had the smallest number of plant exhibitors and plants on show, but this event is noted for its Artistic Section and this year was no exception. It seemed that every available space was covered with the 367

ALPINE DIARY

JON EVANS

A packed bench at the Midland Show at Knowle, where 809 plants were staged by 95 exhibitors

cream of AGS artists’ work, including photographs, botanical art and embroidery. It was an impressive sight at what is one of the AGS’s best-attended shows in terms of visitors.

Next year the London Show will be staged for the first time on a Sunday.

It is hoped that the fact it will be on one day only and that the Congestion Charge does not apply at weekends will encourage more exhibitors into the capital. This is a showpiece event for the AGS and it deserves your support.

In Ireland, the Dublin Show saw an increase in the number of plants staged but exhibitor numbers have fallen over the past few years. The Ulster show also had a healthy entry, with exhibitors up by close to a third on recent years.

Overall in 2013 there were 6,752 entries at our shows and, when multi-pan classes 368

are taken into account, the benches strained under the weight of 9,374 plants. This was down 358 on last year, but given that both the Loughborough spring and East Lancashire shows were cancelled, it looks very healthy.

Ray added: ‘Without the continued support of both show secretaries and exhibitors, come rain or shine, our shows would cease to be.

‘We should also be looking to the future and we must encourage new exhibitors to join the ranks of the Novice Section, an area sadly in decline.

‘In the late 1990s we always had in excess of 200 Novice exhibitors over all shows, peaking at 299 in 1995. This year we had 85. We must do all we can to encourage new members to exhibit because it is they who will ensure the long-term future of our shows.’

THE ALPINE GARDENER

ALPINE DIARY

AGS AGGREGATE SHOW RESULTS 2013

OPEN SECTION TOP TEN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Cecilia Coller, Norwich Don Peace, Yarm Ivor Betteridge, Ashby-de-la-Zouch Bob & Rannveig Wallis, Carmarthen Paul & Gill Ranson, Chippenham Lee & Julie Martin, Pevensey Eric Jarrett, Stroud Ian Robertson, Shaftesbury Alan & Janet Cook, Dinton Alan Newton, Ponteland

First First Second Third places points * points points 106 101 75 48 41 35 30 23 30 28

232 166 135 115 83 65 59 52 48 46

130 61 70 72 52 30 19 28 49 43

84 23 40 19 24 14 8 19 28 20

59 40 25 19 21

90 54 27 27 23

100 43 16 11 16

51 17 15 2 16

16 14 7 7 6

22 16 11 9 6

16 4 5 6 5

2 3 3 2 4

114 81 61

68 25 33

34 2 10

INTERMEDIATE SECTION TOP FIVE 1 2 3 4 5

Brian Sulman, Mildenhall Andrew Ward, Wisbech Norman Davies, Bacup Tony Stanley, Darlington Colin & Kathleen Billington, Chipping

NOVICE SECTION TOP FIVE 1 2 3 4 5

Pauline Carless, Redditch Bob Worsley, Woodford Alan Oatway, Newby Bridge Jean Noakes , Chelmsford John Kirk, Rotherham

ARTISTIC OPEN SECTION TOP THREE 1 2 3

Jon Evans, Farnham 39 Jean Morris, Berkhamsted 41 Caroline Jackson-Houlston, Risinghurst 32

ARTISTIC INTERMEDIATE SECTION TOP THREE 1 John & Clare Dower, Frodsham 27 51 45 15 2 Kit Strange, London 14 26 6 12 3 John Hill, Worcester 18 22 26 22

* First, second and third points are awarded for each plant exhibited. For example, a first place in a three-pan class is awarded three first points.

DECEMBER 2013

369

ALPINE DIARY

T

hey’re gone now, every last one. Grubbed up to make way for a gravel garden, which the new owners of a nearby house have unimaginatively filled with phormiums, Choisya ternata Sundance, ‘statement’ stones and lines of lavender either side of the drive. But only two years ago the same space was graced by Helleborus niger, the Christmas rose, in abundance.

Here it truly did bloom on or around the date dictated by its popular name (there are several forms that will usually comply). After eating at lunchtime on the 25th, it is my habit to walk briskly round the neighbourhood, and the sight of these clumps, luminously white in the fading light, always brought cheer.

Whereas the presence in shops, a few days before Christmas, of those ‘celebration baskets’ in which a gaudy polyanthus, an overbred Cyclamen persicum, a winterflowering azalea and a young Kentia palm (Howea forsteriana) are shoved together in a short-lived, expendable melange, deserves a seasonal sneer.

Other seasonal plantings? Inevitably, given the time of year, the subjects of the popular carol The Holly and the Ivy come to mind, but most alpine gardeners won’t be excited by the mention of either group of plants. When it comes to holly, only Ilex crenata (‘Mariesii’ takes time to reach even 30cm) is in scale, but as dwarf shrubs go, it is second or arguably third division. As for ivy (Hedera), even some dwarf clones of H. helix can be a threat to both stonework and other plants within their compass. Much preferable are miniature plants with lookalike leaves such as Wahlenbergia hederacea

370

Self-seeders can be a delight – or a task for Roundup ROBERT ROLFE (ivy-leaved bellflower) and Cymbalaria (ivy-leaved toadflax), with the Italian, large-flowered C. pallida best of all.

Holly, despite its berrying, birdsheltering and bird-feeding utilities, is not something I’ve bothered with in my garden. But I welcome unreservedly the so-called sea holly and its allies, valuing their lengthy high-summer flowerings. This is a mixed pleasure in the case of the statuesque Eryngium giganteum, which self-sows freely.

Young plants rapidly send down long taproots, as defiant when it comes to their unearthing as those of a dandelion, so that any remnants act in the manner of root cuttings, rising again.

Removing infiltrators from, say, the middle of a Dianthus cushion is a ticklish business, best accomplished by THE ALPINE GARDENER

JON EVANS

ALPINE DIARY

Helleborus niger, one of the joys of winter

the precise application of Roundup or a similar herbicide, and not necessarily just the once. Yet the silvery-white bracts of E. giganteum, glistening in the sun, are one of summer’s durable pleasures. These take a heavy toll of bees, which become fatally trapped as they gather nectar or else are impaled on the ossifying calyces.

Another favourite is E. bourgatii ‘Oxford Blue’, whose seedlings flower in their third year, come July. For weeks beforehand the foliage, almost variegated in effect, is a delight. It doesn’t self-sow nearly as determinedly as the just-mentioned spiny Turk, but will form a good patch in five or so years, the more so if young plants are set out at the end of their third summer, having been thinned and potted on as DECEMBER 2013

they reawakened the previous March.

Trim the old, toughened leaves in late autumn or earliest spring and re-apply a coarse, gritty/rocky topdressing so that the dormant crowns can sprout unimpeded once the weather warms up. Peacock butterflies, more abundant in my garden back in August than for many a year, could daily be seen going from flower to flower, before switching to the third flush of flowers on a nearby Daphne x susannae ‘Cheriton’.

In the British Isles there is just one native species, Eryngium maritimum.

The common name, sea holly, acknowledges its broad, spiny-margined leaves. Bluish-grey, these are perhaps the most attractive of all the species.

Last June, I was at Birkdale (very close to Southport on the Lancashire coast) 371

ALPINE DIARY with the enduringly good-natured Brian Burrow. I wanted to photograph the tens of thousands of Epipactis palustris, yet found them in tantalisingly late bud, though dactylorhizas, bee and pyramidal orchids were in full bloom.

‘I’m surprised not to have come across any sea holly,’ I shouted to Brian (there was a brisk sea breeze and our words were carried away on the wind).

‘Look down,’ he countered. ‘You’re almost standing on one.’

Paying close attention to where I put my feet was imperative on a June visit to the Yorkshire Dales in the same company (Brian was born there), intent on finding Primula farinosa in full flower. In an average year, the first day of June is its apotheosis in this part of the country.

It was scattered around in a very late season (a fortnight later, the ground was reportedly pink over), sometimes right in the grassy track of the Pennine Way, elsewhere in an old limestone quarry and also, occasionally, on Ingleborough’s limestone pavement.

Seldom has it been illustrated in colour in these pages; the last such instance (volume 59, page 75) occupies a full page.

Such depictions distort the dimensions of what is invariably a very small plant, just an inch or two tall. Often primroses bloom nearby, their flowers four or five times as large.

Despite having learned about limestone pavement in school geography lessons, until I ventured onto a real-life example I had little idea how deep the grikes (or rock crevasses, to accord them their proper degree of magnitude) can be.

Sometimes only waist-wide, at other times gaping chasms the width of a 372

table, they can be perilous, particularly after heavy rainfall, when the rocks can be very slippery. My seasoned guide negotiated the dissected limestone with all the sure-footedness of a chamois.

I followed, uncertainly, querying the wisdom of the route from time to time.

‘I’ve taken octogenarians up here before,’ Brian reassured me, but adding, ‘though we kept off this part’ – for reasons that were very apparent. Some of the grikes are 30 feet deep: fall down one of these and you will be lucky to survive.

In favoured spots, one can find gathered together primroses, early purple orchids and lily-of-the-valley in full flower, with Potentilla crantzii and Trollius europaeus in late bud. The Trollius, locally abundant on the pavement, also abounds in the surrounding fields, colouring them yellow in late May and June. Several selections are cultivated, the most alluring for alpine gardeners being a dwarf ecotype from the Storr on Skye (719m), whose flowers, much the same size as the typical plant, are carried on scapes that start out only 8-10cm tall, lengthening over the course of a fortnight. Further north still, indeed as far north as it is possible to venture on the British mainland, the limestone pavement at Durness also harbours plants that, just for a second, suggested to Brian a wildly disjunct population of Ranunculus alpestris, so small and glossy were the leaves. This, an even smaller form of the Trollius, has flowers that suffer in comparison with those of the Skye plants.

Before leaving the matter of where to tread boldly, and where to tread lightly (or not at all), it’s worth mentioning that THE ALPINE GARDENER

ROBERT ROLFE

ALPINE DIARY

Eryngium bourgatii ‘Oxford Blue’ seedlings and, right, Primula farinosa

non-alpine lawns can act as seed beds for plants any gardener would be loathe to run over with a mower. At Pelham House, Hertfordshire, where our President David Haselgrove gardened until his move to Wiltshire in 2011, bee orchids appeared in the turf down by the cold frames. The roadside bank was spectacularly massed with cowslips (these could indeed be mown with impunity after they had set seed) and the rich blue overspill of Anemone blanda from a well-stocked border made an adjacent grass path a no-go area during their glory days in late March.

Last summer I looked after a garden for a fortnight while the owners were DECEMBER 2013

373

ALPINE DIARY on holiday. During that time the lawn remained unmown and in the second week, following heavy rain, a blue haze developed – not Veronica filiformis, the speedwell that flowers in April and May, but Pratia pedunculata. Until a long dry spell saw it off, I used to grow the white P. angulata ‘Treadwellii’ and its spread in damp summers made me think twice about obtaining an equally enthusiastic coloniser. But in the right place it is undeniably pretty, its facility to flower profusely even in the dog days of late summer very useful. Native to south-eastern Australia and Tasmania, the observation ‘tolerant of foot traffic’ is well-founded.

Another southerner, Nierembergia repens, can take an equal hold when suited. I grew this in a pavement bed of the sort devised, or at least popularised,

by E.B. Anderson, in which ‘The roots are kept cool and moist, the necks well-drained, and the foliage out of contact with the cold, damp earth in the winter and free from earth splatter in rain’ (Rock Gardens, 1968). Not all of his visitors understood that the main purpose of such constructions, made of broken paving stones for convenience, was not ambulatory: ‘The pavement bed should, preferably, be edged with stones of some kind to prevent the ignorant visitor thinking it is meant to be walked upon,’ he harrumphed.

Whereas N. repens has a running habit, advertised by its name, the majority of the 20 or so species that make up the genus are subshrubs, a few of them from respectable alpine altitudes. One such, N. pulchella, is now well-established in cultivation from a 2007 introduction 374

(F&W11500) from 2,500m on the Paso Minas Capillitas in Catamarca Province, Argentina. This does not confer automatic hardiness. My first stocks perished in the admittedly extreme winter of 2010-11, though a replacement sailed through the 2012-13 freeze, given alpine house protection and kept rather dry. A very sandy, gritty compost and a deep root run are advisable, as is checking for overwintering aphids. In late autumn, reduce the top growth to a height of around 7-10cm.

It is a ‘cut and come again’ plant that will repeat flower. The first display comes in late May or early June, a blizzard of 30mm wide corollas, each with a very slender, yellowish-green tube around 25mm long that detaches as the flower wanes. Their colour varies in wild populations but plants from the Flores & Watson introduction are quite uniform, with crinkly, blue-white corollas 3cm across, lavender-flushed towards the centre, with darker lines radiating from a small yellow bullseye, part-hidden by the projecting style.

Prune back as hard as you dare when the first flush starts to look untidy, apply a weak dose of liquid fertiliser and you will be rewarded with an encore in late summer, perhaps even better than the first, for the stems will be shorter if in full sun.

From the potato family to the mallow family, another Andean speciality. Side by side with Nierembergia pulchella in my alpine house, but from much further south − the steppes of Patagonia − Lecanophora ruiz-lealii peaks in June or early July. It came to me as seed in 2010, courtesy of Vojtĕch Holubec, THE ALPINE GARDENER

ROBERT ROLFE

ALPINE DIARY

Nierembergia pulchella will produce a second flush if cut back hard DECEMBER 2013

375

ALPINE DIARY

376

ROBERT ROLFE

who had chanced upon a colony west of Rio Mayo (the name of the river is also that of a town, north of Lago Buenos Aires) during his first ever trip to South America. A score of seedlings sprouted, but a dozen damped off before I deduced (my level of insight never fails to astonish) that minimal watering was necessary. A coarse grit top layer takes up half the depth of the pot, the bottom infill comprising two parts sand, one part fine grade perlite and one part loam.

Damp, not cold, is its enemy: at home, in Argentina, winter temperatures routinely plummet to -30C. The large pink flowers, up to 45mm diameter and faintly rose-scented, look vaguely like those of a geranium, while the palmate leaves are narrowly subdivided into rounded lobes, all surfaces silvery-grey due to a thick plastering of stellate white hairs. It has an efficient means of seed dispersal: the capsule, pendant at maturity, disconnects as its pedicel withers and drops to the ground. In a Roaring Forties climate it will skittle around far from source; in a well-ventilated glasshouse a daily check will yield a decent harvest.

L. ruiz-lealii is included in the new AGS field guide, Flowers of the Patagonian Mountains by Martin Sheader, which anyone with the least interest in the plants of that region will find very useful.

This helpfully contradicts the name L. chubutensis, under which this rather obscure species was initially distributed.

But it does occur in Province Chubut and is one of nine species, some not dwarf nor pink, from which to choose.

As a diverting sideline, Martin and his wife Anna-Liisa have developed various

Lecanophora ruiz-lealii

novel hybrids, those between Ourisia microphylla and O. polyantha (= O. x bitternensis) most famously. A more recent cross, apparently not recorded anywhere else, involves the coupling of Turkish/Caucasian Campanula myrtifolia and the Peloponnese C. asperuloides, the latter hitherto classified in either Trachelium or Diosphaera. The most vigorous are soft blue and incline towards the seed parent.

My garden, too, has given rise to various hybrids, a few of them deliberate but the majority unplanned and unexpected.

I’ll deal with others in my next column, but for now will mention just two Viola combinations that have sprung up, one outdoors, the other under glass. I THE ALPINE GARDENER

ROBERT ROLFE

ALPINE DIARY

Viola altaica, V. ‘Bowles’s Black’ and some of their offsping in Robert’s garden

hadn’t realised that Viola altaica would be so wantonly compatible with V. ‘Bowles’s Black’, but confirmation of their admissibility was advertised first on the show bench from seed I had sent to the AGS Seed Exchange, then a fortnight later in my garden, where the majority of the black and blue offspring charmed (those that didn’t I hoicked out straightaway).

In 1996, I saw Viola albanica growing on the high screes of Smolikas, the type locality (it also grows on a scattering of other mountains in north-west Greece and adjacent Albania). I’ve grown it, off and on, ever since the AGS MESE Greek expedition three years later. Last autumn two seedlings clearly differed DECEMBER 2013

from their neighbours, both in their size, coloration and slightly enhanced growth rate.

Since only one other species was in flower at the same time, these selfevidently represent the hybrid V. albanica x altaica. One was much closer to the pollen parent, foliage aside, expiring after performing all summer long. The other, equally free-flowering but larger bloomed than its Greek parent, set an abundance of seed.

At a time of the year when traditionally we look forward to the 12 months ahead, I hope that some of the second generation seedlings will equal or even improve upon the sterling qualities of their novel, fertile mule mother.

377

PRACTICAL GARDENING

How to get the best from Kabschia saxifrages

M

y involvement with Waterperry Gardens began in 1972 and I started growing and studying saxifrages soon after. In that time I have learned a great deal about how to cultivate them in a lowland climate and I’m delighted with the results we have achieved at Waterperry, where we hold National Collections of Kabschia (dwarf cushion) and Ligulatae (silver) saxifrages. In this article I want to pass on that knowledge to help you get the best results from the saxifrages in your garden.

It is difficult to talk about Waterperry without first mentioning Valerie Finnis.

She arrived at what was the Waterperry School of Horticulture in 1942 as a teenage student and, after a few years, became a teacher and quickly established an alpine plant nursery.

She forged links with overseas growers and built up an extensive collection of Kabschia saxifrages. Wilhelm Schacht

378

Adrian Young manages the National Collection of Kabschia saxifrages at Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire.

Here he passes on the knowledge acquired during 40 years of growing these most popular and beautiful alpine plants of the Munich Botanic Garden was a friend and gave her many plants. During the 1950s and 1960s, Valerie almost single-handedly revitalised the interest in saxifrages in the UK. Her nursery was THE ALPINE GARDENER

Relishing their tufa home at Waterperry are three saxifrages raised by the prolific breeder Ray Fairbairn: from left, ‘Allendale Fairy’, ‘Allendale Bonny’ and ‘Allendale Bravo’

selling more than 7,000 alpines annually, most of them saxifrages.

In 1971 she married Sir David Scott and moved to the Dower House, part of the Boughton House estate near Kettering, Northamptonshire. She did not like to be called Lady Scott, preferring the simple name ‘Valerie’. She was always extremely helpful and encouraged me to progress with the saxifrages at Waterperry.

Cecilia Christie-Miller, a friend of Valerie’s, was an excellent sax grower and had a magnificent collection of Kabschia and Ligulatae saxifrages. She also had many contacts and put Valerie in touch with sax enthusiasts worldwide.

Cecilia had an alpine house full of large DECEMBER 2013

and beautiful saxifrages in clay pans. I was inspired and tried to grow plants like this but failed miserably.

When I took over the management of the Kabschia collection at Waterperry there were around 7,000 plants in several wooden frames, mostly in small clay pots.

With three other volunteers I managed to keep the stock going for a few years, selling around 4,000 a year. We soon realised, however, that we had to find better ways of cultivating Kabschia saxifrages.

We experienced the usual problems such as summer cushion burn and a disfiguring condition that rotted the 379

PRACTICAL GARDENING

centre of the rosettes. We were told this was caused by nematodes and took various preventive measures, but none was successful. Eventually we sent some samples to the then Ministry of Agriculture whose scientists quickly came up with a diagnosis.

The problem was Phytophthora, a damaging fungal stem rot. We were advised that this was caused by cultivation conditions and that we should look carefully at drainage and particularly the type of compost we used. (Incidentally, saxifrages do indeed offer a habitat for nematodes but they are not usually harmful.)

380

We also started to look at how Kabschias grow in the wild. We visited the French Alps, the Pyrenees, the Dolomites, the Maritime Alps and also the Greek mountains – north, south, east and west.

What we discovered is summarised by the following points:

Growing conditions in the wild  Mountains are not flat! Saxifrages grow on steep cliffs or screes.  Alpine plants exist in a constant airflow.  The growing medium is rock or scree.

Kabschias are saxicole - they love rock.  Saxifrage roots penetrate deep into THE ALPINE GARDENER

KABSCHIA SAXIFRAGES

Saxifraga oppositifolia ‘Le Bourg d’Oisans’ enjoying life at Waterperry Gardens.

Opposite, Saxifraga ‘Karel Stivin’

the rock, where cold water and minerals are available.  Roots can pull a cushion tight to the rock surface.  The available light is very pure, even in the shade.

Growing conditions in cultivation  Plants are in pots that stand on flat benches or are plunged in sand.  Roots are severely restricted in pots and head straight for the drainage hole and freedom.  Plants are grown in an alien medium (John Innes compost or some humusbased mix).

DECEMBER 2013

 Light is modified drastically by glass, causing etiolation.  Airflow is poor, causing a build-up of heat.  Compost temperature is high in summer, resulting in a damaged root system.  Available water fluctuates constantly.

I am not criticising the way that most people grow saxifrages – far from it. I am merely describing the regime. But it became clear to me that growing them in pots provides very different conditions from their natural habitats in the mountains. I concluded that we had 381

PRACTICAL GARDENING

Saxifraga ‘Mona Lisa’, which was raised by Dr Radvan Horný

to modify our methods. The first step was to look at the pots we used. I was concerned that the clay pots were too shallow, dried out quickly and heated up in summer. So we sourced some plastic ‘grower’s pots’, rigid pots that did not flex and were four inches wide and five inches deep. We grew healthy plants for three or four years – a definite improvement.

Unfortunately, this was short lived.

After four years the cushions grew looser and many suffered from Phytophthora.

We were using a John Innes-based compost with added grit, a common recipe still used today by many growers.

Bill Archer was a great alpine gardener and he advised me to put any sick 382

saxifrages into a sand and peat mix after washing away all the previous compost.

This worked well and revived many near-dead Kabschias. In a moment of inspiration I decided to switch to this simple mix for all our saxifrages and this, in conjunction with the deeper pots, gave rapid improvements.

It still proved difficult, however, to keep the plants in character for the long term. I started to notice that growers who used raised beds for saxifrages had better plants, particularly their older specimens. I visited Duncan Lowe, Milan Halada, Ota Vlasák and many other saxifrage enthusiasts until the penny dropped: saxifrages like their freedom. So once again I started to THE ALPINE GARDENER

KABSCHIA SAXIFRAGES

Growing Kabschias: pots or raised beds?

POTS

RAISED BEDS

Advantages  Easy to work with.  Plants are portable.

Advantages  More room for root development.  More stable conditions, particularly for roots.  Less temperature variation and greater water retention.  Opportunity for rock association.  Plants grow tighter and in character, suffering fewer infections.  Closer to a natural habitat.

Disadvantages  Unstable environment for plant: dry in summer.  Difficult to manage sub-surface conditions: warm in summer.  Severe root restriction.  Glass cover needed in winter.  Produces etiolated growth and easily infected by fungal pathogens.  Conditions are far removed from a natural habitat.

analyse growing conditions, comparing pots with raised beds. My conclusions are in the panel above.

I also considered troughs. Small troughs are similar to pots and have the same advantages and disadvantages.

Larger troughs are a halfway house, and about 25cm of depth is needed to give a relatively stable root environment.

At this point I analysed all the options.

I have seen Kabschias grown in very large alpine houses, presumably with the idea that bigger is better. This is not the case. Bigger alpine houses just cook the Kabschias quicker. You could invest in a cool, Welsh hillside as John ByamGrounds did at Llandovery. This doesn’t work either – there’s just too much DECEMBER 2013

Disadvantages  Can be costly to construct and require an open aspect.  Protection from winter wet and the provision of summer shading is required to grow Kabschias well.  Plants are not portable.

winter wet. In fact John kept most of his Kabschia collection in greenhouses. You could build a very natural-looking rock garden like several of the Czech growers have done, but they heat up rapidly in summer and the Kabschias are fried.

I concluded that the most practical option would be raised beds, with cover to protect the plants from winter wet and shading during summer. My first bed was only partly successful. I used a mini polytunnel for winter protection, which cut out most of the airflow, with netting for shading, which actually trapped heat. I also used a few token rocks to make the plants feel at home.

In fact around 75 per cent of the plants had no rock within touching distance. A 383

PRACTICAL GARDENING

major mistake was to use a John Innes mix for the compost, which becomes too wet in winter and too dry in summer. I had to learn from these mistakes.

In 1992 I decided to build a 50ft by 5ft sand bed two feet deep and incorporating around three tonnes of tufa. At last we were getting somewhere. Many of the Kabschia hybrids flourished, especially those planted directly into the tufa. Even S. burseriana, which is difficult to get to a good size and age in a pot, started to look healthy.

For the next eight years I was unable to give any time to the saxifrages at Waterperry. My good friend Dr John 384

Whiteman looked after the collection while I was away. In 2002 I was asked to return to Waterperry to rebuild the collection. I accepted the challenge and immediately put my faith in raised beds.

Three frames that each held around 2,000 pots were emptied and the frames and the plants dumped. It is not easy to throw away more than 5,000 saxifrages, but I was determined to start again with raised beds and the appropriate cover.

Waterperry held an NCCPG National Collection of Kabschia saxifrages and the NCCPG (now Plant Heritage) generously provided funds for the wooden structure that supported both THE ALPINE GARDENER

KABSCHIA SAXIFRAGES

Saxifraga burseriana, opposite, thrives on tufa.

Right, S. buseriana ‘Snowflake’, a markedly serratepetalled clone

the acrylic sheets to protect from winter wet and the wooden slats for summer shading. I wanted to display the saxifrages in a garden setting and move away from rows of pots, so I built a second raised bed around 60ft long and invested in three tonnes of Welsh tufa. The compost this time was 20mm ballast (sharp sand mixed with gravel) and moss peat in a 50-50 mix, which would allow me to grow a wide variety of alpines. The tufa was half buried and covered much of the surface area of the bed, creating a stable environment for the plants.

Our shading system is a throwback DECEMBER 2013

to Victorian times – wooden slats two inches wide with a two-inch gap between them. This works well. We had used Rokolene netting but found that although it did provide shade it also trapped heat. The wooden slats give the plants a much cooler environment with the same amount of shade. In winter the slats are replaced by acrylic sheets to keep off most of the rain. The sheets and slats are six feet above the ground, allowing plenty of light and airflow around the plants.

By this time I had realised fully the importance of rock for saxifrages. My trips to the mountains had rammed 385

PRACTICAL GARDENING home the fact that European Kabschias are strongly saxicole, growing on and in rock. How had I ever thought that a four-inch pot full of John Innes No. 2 would be a good substitute for a high alpine cliff? There is no John Innes in the mountains. In fact the best saxifrages grow on pure rock with their thread-like roots burrowing deep into fissures and crevices. It surprised me to learn that they can penetrate as much as two metres. The roots pull the cushion tight against the rock surface, anchoring the plant firmly in the face of constant winds.

Many people ask me where they find food. A plant’s primary source of food is, of course, sunlight. We use balanced NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) fertilisers to ‘feed’ our garden plants, but all we do is supply the minerals and trace elements that they use to construct themselves. To obtain ‘food’ they must photosynthesise to produce carbohydrates.

The cliffs that are home to Kabschias contain plenty of minerals and trace elements which can be assimilated by microscopic hairs on the root tips. Deep in the rock the roots are constantly cool and moist, which means they function very effectively.

I hope you understand the difference between an alpine house in lowland Britain and a cliff 3,000m up in the Alps.

Natural conditions provide cool roots (most importantly in summer), low air temperatures around the cushions and pure light. High alpines such as Kabschia saxifrages can photosynthesise at low temperatures, down to 0C. Their natural transpiration rate is low because the 386

cushions remain cool and the starches produced by photosynthesis are stored for use during growth.

In lowland gardens they experience much higher temperatures so their food reserves are burned up rapidly as they expend energy trying to keep cool. The roots simply cannot supply enough water to the cushions to keep up with the water loss in hot weather. This is why it is imperative to keep Kabschias as cool as possible in summer. It is no good simply growing them in the shade because they will become etiolated and they must have good light for photosynthesis.

On my visits to the mountains I have seen many Kabschia and silver saxifrage species. S. caesia, S. media and S. aretioides in the Pyrenees are nearly always on rock. S. longifolia, a true saxicole, is found in the same area as S. cotyledon. S. longifolia is always on limestone, S. cotyledon always on granite (acidic) outcrops.

In the pre-Pyrenees north of Barcelona S. catalaunica peppers the conglomerate rock. The French Alps have the distinguished S. diapensioides and S. valdensis, both exclusively saxatile plants. In the Maritime Alps we find the only home of S. florulenta (the Ancient King) high up on north-facing granite.

Lower down S. cochlearis and S. callosa hug the hot limestone. In the Dolomites I saw S. burseriana on house-sized boulders halfway up the Schlern (Mount Sciliar), and on the Croce Domini Pass S. vandellii looks like part of the marble limestone.

The old Cima Tombea (now Cima Mattone) has many cliffs with S. tombeanensis and aristocratic bedfellows THE ALPINE GARDENER

KABSCHIA SAXIFRAGES

A well-flowered cushion of Saxifraga ‘Cumulus’

Daphne petraea, Physoplexis comosa, Primula auricula and P. spectabilis. In the south S. marginata var. marginata grows on limestone near Sorrento.

Greece is also a wonderful place for alpine plants including S. marginata var. boryi in the Peloponnese, S. spruneri on Parnassus and Olympus, S. scardica and S. sempervivum also on Olympus, and S. marginata var. marginata in the northwest at Vikos, all choosing limestone as their home.

The message could not be clearer: DECEMBER 2013

Kabschia saxifrages love rock, and many silver saxifrages also choose rock faces as their homes.

On our sand bed at Waterperry there is a wonderful S. scardica – not the large Greek form but a more compact one with bluish rosettes which was collected on Mount Crnogorski Maglic in Montenegro by Jan Bürgel (JB660B).

This has been living on a piece of Welsh tufa for 28 years. The cushion is nearly as hard as the rock and is beautifully floriferous. There are also 387

PRACTICAL GARDENING

The raised beds at Waterperry, showing the supports for the all-important slats

some specimens of S. x luteo-purpurea that I collected near Saleix in the French Pyrenees with Brian Arundel in 1991.

They have been on tufa for 25 years and are in very good condition.

The point is: how often do you see a large 15 to 20-year-old Kabschia looking healthy in a pot? It is easier with many of the newer hybrids to raise large plants but for how long will they stay in good condition?

I have one of Winton Harding’s original plants of S. ‘Nancye’ that he gave to me 25 years ago. It has been on the same piece of tufa all that time and is still healthy. How many hybrids that include S. cinerea live for that long in a pot? If you want to grow good, long388

lived Kabschias, get them out of pots and into raised beds.

We do, however, need dedicated pot growers such as Karel Lang and David Hoare to continue showing awardwinning saxifrages. Raised beds are not portable and it is critical for as many people as possible to see wonderful plants, whether it be in Prague or at an AGS show.

At Waterperry we now have two large raised beds, one filled with just sand and the other with 20mm ballast and peat in equal proportions. I am convinced that good alpines can be grown outside in beds such as these without any humusbased compost. The fungal problems afflicting the Kabschias when grown in a THE ALPINE GARDENER

KABSCHIA SAXIFRAGES

Saxifraga ‘Jaroslav Horný’, a S. marginata clone named by Karel Stivin

John Innes compost have not returned.

There are other benefits, such as better root development and improved water management.

Many alpine plants have flourished in these beds, including Androsace studiosorum, Primula marginata, many Phlox species such as mesoleuca, bifida, colubrina, multiflora, stansburyi and nivalis, and I have recently added 12 further species of Phlox including nana and tumulosa. Daphnes have also been successful, such as arbuscula, DECEMBER 2013

cneorum, petraea, x transatlantica and x hendersonii.

Rick Lambert has kept me well supplied with Dianthus including D. haematocalyx and D. strictus var. pulchellus, which adore the conditions.

We have started to include selected monocots, and although some of these are not true alpine plants they do associate well with the saxifrages. Tony Hall was generous with a collection of Juno irises and aucheri, cycloglossa, orchioides, ‘Sindpers’ and willmottiana 389

PRACTICAL GARDENING are doing fine. Moraea spathulata is increasing well. I have introduced a few fritillaries such as pallidiflora, pudica and pyrenaica, and will add more.

I have been fortunate to receive a great deal of help and guidance over the years. Brian Arundel helped me a lot in the 1980s, and together we started the first specialist Saxifrage Group which evolved into the Saxifrage Society. Brian introduced me to Dr Radvan Horný, who spent 25 years studying Kabschia saxifrages and co-wrote the famous reference work Porophyllum Saxifrages, published in 1986, which provided the first full descriptions of all the cultivars.

Dr Horný sent me many reference plants for which I am most grateful.

Karel Lang is the best grower of Kabschia saxifrages that I know. Visiting his garden in the Czech Republic is a must for anyone interested in saxifrages.

He also has great skill as a hybridiser, using only the best forms to produce new crosses and then being highly selective before naming any of them. In the 1990s Karel enabled me to introduce some of his new plants to the UK; he has now introduced 77 of the very best cultivars available.

Jirka Novák has been generous with plants over the past 30 years and has also acted as a Saxifrage Liaison Officer, giving information, setting up garden visits and being a Czech Garden Ambassador.

John Byam-Grounds encouraged me to develop the collection at Waterperry and then set up the procedure for it to become an NCCPG National Collection.

We also benefited hugely from John’s vision in facilitating the English 390

publication of Porophyllum Saxifrages, which was greatly expanded from the Czech version.

Winton Harding visited me many times in the 1980s and encouraged me to develop the collection. He brought his new crosses to Waterperry for trialling before they were named, including ‘Red Poll’, ‘Nancye’ and ‘Citronella’. I was fortunate to have him and his wife Nancye as friends.

I never met Linc Foster but we did correspond and it felt as if we were friends. For several years he hybridised plants obtained from Dr Radvan Horný and produced some great new cultivars such as ‘Peach Blossom’, ‘Dwight Ripley’, ‘Moonbeam’, ‘Wendy’, ‘Timmy Foster’ and ‘Lusanna’. He was kind enough in 1981 to send them all to Waterperry.

Rex Murfitt is a friend of long-standing and a great alpine plantsmen. He ensures that North America is aware of saxifrages, distributing them far and wide. Of course Steve Doonan and Phil Pearson at Grand Ridge Nursery grew some wonderful specimens. I was unfortunate not to know them.

Ray Fairbairn picked up where Russell Vincent Prichard left off 60 years earlier and produced 73 hybrids, mainly primary crosses between two species that had not been hybridised before. I was fortunate to meet Ray at the beginning of this breeding marathon and was able to propagate ‘Kathleen’, ‘Allendale Joy’ and ‘Pearl’ for the saxifrage connoisseurs.

From the early days I have known Jan Bürgel. To say he is a saxifrage enthusiast is a huge understatement. Jan has raised over 60 cultivars including modern classics such as ‘Sherlock Holmes’, THE ALPINE GARDENER

KABSCHIA SAXIFRAGES

Saxifraga ‘Lemon Spires’ on tufa, a hybrid raised by Winton Harding

‘Your Success’ and ‘Tenerife’. He has also pioneered research into natural hybridisation beginning with the introduction of S. x karacardica, a hybrid of S. karadzicensis and S. scardica.

He is also an expert on Himalayan species and has published a paper in Phyton, The International Journal of Experimental Botany (Vol. 47). S. alpigena has been revealed as a hybrid of S. andersonii and S. quadrifaria and is now named S. x alpigena. S. x hetenbeliana is also published (S. andersonii x pulvinaria). Jan concluded by explaining that species introgression DECEMBER 2013

and hybridisation is a common event, not a rare occurrence.

Some of you would have known Sergio Bacci, and to know him was to love him. He was a crazy hair stylist from Florence who happened to be a great gardener. When he arrived in the UK from his native Italy, his passion was bearded irises. When he discovered Kabschia saxifrages he spent a lot of time at Waterperry studying the plants and transferring his hybridising skills to them. In a few short years he produced two dozen new cultivars but unfortunately did not live to see them 391

PRACTICAL GARDENING

named. A few weeks before his death, Sergio entrusted his new hybrids to me.

Several years were spent evaluating them and eventually 24 were selected and published. ‘Ottone Rosai’ and ‘Giacomo Puccini’ quickly became popular but his most significant hybrid was ‘Aldo Bacci’ using S. aretioides x marginata var. marginata ‘Sorrento’, the first successful crossing of these European species.

392

I would also like to thank Tony Hale for the many saxifrages he has shared with me. Mike Hall has been of immense help, rolling up his sleeves and getting stuck in to do the hard work. And, like me, Tim Roberts is a Lancashire lad, the home of many great alpine growers and nurseries. His help on field trips and guidance on cultivation has proved invaluable.

THE ALPINE GARDENER

KABSCHIA SAXIFRAGES

Three of the 73 hybrids raised by Ray Fairbairn. Above, Saxifraga ‘Allendale Bravo’. Right, S. ‘Allendale Charm’ and, on the opposite page, S. ‘Allendale Enchanter’

DECEMBER 2013

393

PRACTICAL GARDENING

HOW TO GROW IT

T

Tropaeolum sessilifolium

ropaeolum is a genus of about 80 species mainly originating from South America. The best known example is the common garden nasturtium. Tropaeolum is the only genus in the family Tropaeolaceae.

Like most of those we grow in Europe, T. sessilifolium comes from Chile. It is perennial and grows from a tuber that burrows itself deep in the soil to obtain protection from cold and hot weather.

In its native habitat it has been reported as usually growing in harsh conditions at up to 3,000m among scattered bushes and thickets (high Andean steppe), where it has to cope with hot and dry conditions.

This article is based on my own experience with this species. I grew it from seed supplied in 2007 by Jim and Jenny Archibald, which had been sourced in the wild by John and Anita Watson. My plants are kept on a balcony which benefits, or sometimes suffers, from a south-west exposure. These conditions, however, would not suit all the Chilean Tropaeolum.

The plant appears quite different in cultivation in our European climate than it does in the wild. This might be related to inadequate sunlight and variable weather. Wild plants have been described and pictured with short stems packed with small, sessile leaves, hence the species’ name. The flowers are comparatively large and are shown clustered at the top of the stems. In

394

A jewel from the Andes

By Jean-Patrick Agier of the Lyon Botanic Garden, France cultivation the stems are much longer and the leaves are often not truly sessile in that they have a short but well defined petiole. Pictures taken in habitat show the leaves having only three leaflets, yet my cultivated plants have five, with three upper leaflets broader than the two lower ones. The flowers look similar to those in the wild, having five petals. The two upper petals are slightly larger than the three lower ones and are streaked with orange-red. All the petals are white with a yellow throat, and just before opening they exhibit a pinkish hue. An unusual and rare pink form has been recorded in the wild. The calyx is greenish and the yellow spur is straight and thin, with the flower pedicels also longer than described in the wild.

Pollen is abundant and seeds are produced reliably on my plant, though I personally hand-pollinate the flowers due to the relative lack of pollinators on a balcony. After having tried T. sessilifolium unsuccessfully in a pot, I’ve settled it in a large container. To provide sharp drainage, the growing medium is THE ALPINE GARDENER

HOW TO GROW IT

Tropaeolum sessilifolium thriving on Jean-Patrick Agier’s balcony in France

a mix of potting compost, fine gravel, pouzzolane (a volcanic rock) and coarse sand with a top-dressing of gravel.

It grows alongside T. incisum and T. polyphyllum, which far from match the wonderful display T. sessilifolium produces in spring on my balcony.

Added protection is provided in winter when temperatures fall below freezing, but the plant can be considered hardy as long as its tubers are planted at least 30cm deep in a sharp-draining mix.

The best place for it would be in a rock garden mimicking its native conditions.

It is not invasive. Like all the Chileans it dislikes too much winter wet, which may lead the tubers to rot. T. sessilifolium DECEMBER 2013

has an inverted growing cycle in Europe, beginning to sprout in November/ December and flowering in spring.

The plant withers by early summer and remains dormant until autumn.

Propagation is mainly by seed. These can be sown at the moment they are ripe or in autumn. I’ve personally had better results with the latter. They must be exposed to the cold. I have not tried cuttings and don’t know whether they would work. As far as I know the tubers, which are small, do not produce offsets.

Seeds are sometimes, though not often, available through seed exchanges and from specialised seed companies.

Unfortunately, tubers are rarely available.

395

PRACTICAL GARDENING

John and Clare Dower regularly delight visitors to AGS shows with their miniature alpine garden. The concept of growing a host of alpines in just one pot is gaining in popularity and here John explains how to construct and care for a miniature alpine landscape of your own

Create a show-stopping garden in a single pot

I

built my miniature garden in 2005 and reconstructed it four years ago.

It had suffered badly during a long hot spell while we were on holiday and a number of plants had perished.

However, because I had used tufa in its construction, many plants survived and were kept as part of the revamped garden. One of the plants, Draba bryoides, has been in the tufa for at least eight or nine years.

In the bottom of the pot I used drainage material up to one-third of the depth, then a compost of John Innes No. 3 with the addition of 30 per cent grit.

Most of the roots will be in the top few inches and, since raising the overall height to at least four or five inches above the rim of the pot will enhance both drainage and landscaping potential, the contents of the bottom of the pot can be any free-draining material – even polystyrene beads if weight is important.

My wife Clare and I enter shows jointly now so we can carry the pot between us! Given that the garden will go largely undisturbed from season to season, it

396

is a good idea to add to the compost a long-term fertiliser such as bone meal.

Some miniature gardens contain just one piece of rock with plants growing on it. I find they look far more effective if the rock is broken into several pieces to allow plants to grow in gaps. This can give the appearance of one large rock and is more likely to achieve an effective display in a shorter time. It also makes it easier to remove or replace plants without major disruption. It is almost like a ‘chunky crevice’ approach to creating a landscape.

My garden is kept all the time on a south-facing patio with relatively little attention until show time, but nevertheless looks attractive all year round. In summer it receives full sun and in winter it is exposed to whatever the elements deliver. It is watered occasionally if the weather is very warm but does not need much attention in that regard. It is never fed. In other words, I don’t coddle it at all.

All this means that there will inevitably be losses, but over time the selection THE ALPINE GARDENER

CLIFF BOOKER

MINIATURE GARDENS

John Dower with the miniature garden he has been tending for almost ten years and which has won a fistful of first places at AGS shows

of plants that are more tolerant of the Cheshire weather means that the garden is ready to perform as soon as spring arrives. There is no doubt that many plants survive in the mini-garden much better than in the open garden.

My pictures on page 399 show the DECEMBER 2013

garden submerged in snow in March this year but followed just a few days later by the beautiful sight of the plants emerging from the snowmelt, already in good foliage and breaking bud.

Of course some of the plants do need ‘tidying up’ in spring. Primulas 397

PRACTICAL GARDENING

Some of John’s ‘nursery’ plants, used to replace any casualties in his garden

and others should have dead foliage removed and, where possible, should be either planted more deeply or mulched with gravel to enhance their appearance and to provide better growth prospects through the season.

A little Salix simply needs to have its dead twigs and leaves removed and can be left as a structural feature until the foliage arrives. The self-sown Geranium sessilifolium ‘Nigricans’, growing through the Draba, is left to provide colour variation and can be removed later if it becomes too dominant.

I often decide to add a couple of new plants to provide a burst of colour for the first show of the season. I have trays that I use as a ‘nursery’ for the mini398

garden, providing a steady supply of plants to replace any casualties and with the intention of providing colour throughout the season.

Once all the plants are in place I mulch with gravel. I find that something that contrasts with the tufa sharpens the whole appearance of the garden and for some time I’ve been using Derbyshire spar at around 3mm, which gives a smart finish.

In the photograph on page 401, taken at the Blackpool Show, a large, pink Saxifraga has replaced an Armeria that topped the mini-garden last autumn but which, after the winter, looked rather dry and unappealing. The Draba already mentioned is on the right.

THE ALPINE GARDENER

MINIATURE GARDENS

In March the miniature garden is covered with snow. As it thaws the plants are already in bud and starting to flower. By early April there is plenty of colour

This is the same garden that went to Chelsea to form part of an AGS display, though its little holiday under cover meant that several plants suffered from dehydration and etiolation. They soon recovered once outside again.

Plants that show up well in miniature DECEMBER 2013

gardens include small saxifrages (as cushions as well as in flower), primulas, androsaces, soldanellas, campanulas and Erinus. Tiny shrubs such as hebes can be pruned to be more ‘tree like’. Do remember, though, that trees are seldom seen on mountain peaks, so place them 399

PRACTICAL GARDENING

Three types of rock ideal for a miniature garden. From top left, clockwise, tufa, limestone and schist from Anglesey

with care at just the right height to form a ‘tree-line’. Similarly, remove moss from the top of the tufa but leave enough to form ‘meadows’ where appropriate.

Later in the season dwarf Dianthus make a great impact, their grey foliage remaining attractive throughout the year. Sedums provide a whole range 400

of options with good foliage colour, abundant flowers and the ability to cover the edge of large pots very effectively.

Our main garden also conveniently provides plants, even if they do need a bit of tidying up. Primula ‘Wanda’ is a convenient addition in spring as small offsets flower profusely over several THE ALPINE GARDENER

MINIATURE GARDENS

Another first place for John and Clare Dower at the AGS Blackpool Show this year

weeks. Other useful transplants from the main garden include Scilla, Erinus alpinus, Saxifraga cymbalaria and sedums.

Any type of rock can be used in a miniature garden. Three good examples are tufa, limestone and schist from Anglesey. All three have aesthetic appeal in their own right – especially the schist – and all can be broken and reassembled to accommodate small plants. The latter DECEMBER 2013

two are especially suited to crevice-type constructions.

Above all don’t be afraid to experiment.

Give plants the chance to survive hot summers and cold winters and see how they self-sow or run about, popping up where they feel happiest. This is a great way to grow alpines at their best.

And when you’re happy with the result, enter your garden in an AGS show to let others enjoy the fruits of your labour.

401

PHOTO ALBUM

T

he Alpine Garden Society’s slide library contains more than 40,000 images, the majority of which have never been published. In this, the third of an occasional pictorial series, slide librarians Peter Sheasby and Ann Thomas have chosen a selection of photographs based on the theme of close-ups.

In the slide library catalogue, images are categorised as either habitat, group, whole plant or close-up. The latter category covers a range of situations such as a photograph of a single flower in the case of large plants or a photograph of a whole plant in the case of smaller species.

These close-ups can be full of detail

Close-up encounters and are useful for identification. The pictures here have been taken in many different parts of the world. In fact the slide library contains images from 50 countries, most of which are in the temperate zones.

As well as showcasing photographs from the slide library, this feature brightens the bleak days of winter and whets the appetite for all the wonderful sights that we hope to see in wild places during 2014.

Nomocharis aperta at Napa Hai, Yunnan, China (Kim Blaxland) 402

THE ALPINE GARDENER

PLANTS IN CLOSE-UP

Schizanthus grahamii at El Planchon, Chile (David Haselgrove) DECEMBER 2013

403

PHOTO ALBUM

Fritillaria imperialis near Aligudarz in western Iran (Peter Sheasby) Below, the rosulate Viola sacculus in Argentina (David Haselgrove)

404

THE ALPINE GARDENER

PLANTS IN CLOSE-UP

The parasitic Sarcodes sanguinea in the western United States (Phil Phillips) DECEMBER 2013

405

PHOTO ALBUM

The pansy orchid, Diuris magnifica, at the State Botanic Garden in Kings Park, Perth, Western Australia (Peter Sheasby)

406

THE ALPINE GARDENER

PLANTS IN CLOSE-UP

Babiana rubrocyanea at Darling in the Western Cape, South Africa (Peter Sheasby) Below left, Lilium monadelphum in the western Caucasus, Russia (Peter Sheasby) Below right, Aquilegia glandulosa in eastern Kazakhstan (Peter Sheasby)

DECEMBER 2013

407

PHOTO ALBUM

Alstroemeria patagonica at Lagos del Furioso, Argentina (Peter Sheasby) Below left, Anemone speciosa in the western Caucasus, Russia (Peter Sheasby) Below right, Erythronium grandiflorum in Wyoming, United States (Phil Phillips)

408

THE ALPINE GARDENER

PLANTS IN CLOSE-UP

Banksia coccinea at Stirling Range National Park, Western Australia (Mike Baker) DECEMBER 2013

409

PHOTO ALBUM

The beautifully marked Oncocyclus Iris sari in southern Turkey (Peter Sheasby)

410

THE ALPINE GARDENER

PLANTS IN CLOSE-UP

Left, Melampyrum nemorosum near Rakvere, northern Estonia (Peter Sheasby) Right, Watsonia densiflora in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (Ann Thomas) DECEMBER 2013

411

BLACKTHORN

In the final part of our series on the garden of Robin and Sue White in Hampshire, Robert Rolfe focuses on the plants grown under cover at the former nursery, which has been a centre of excellence and innovation for 30 years.

Photographs by Jon Evans unless credited otherwise

The nursery that changed horticulture

F

ramed and displayed on a wall in Robin and Sue White’s house is an aerial photograph of their property, taken when Blackthorn Nursery was in full production. At that time, when the outdoor borders and plantings were much less extensive, there were seven polytunnels, aligned north to south, two net-clad and one serving as a stock-house. Other tunnels, open to the public and leading off from the car park, contained plants for sale and were regularly replenished with stock from ‘round the back’. The two carts employed for this purpose are still in occasional use and the range and 412

A gravel bed liberally planted with thyme alongside one of the large polytunnels at Blackthorn

rarity of the plants – some not offered by any other nursery – would tempt the choosiest of gardeners.

The photograph also shows two greenhouses. One was and still is used for growing tomatoes – and daphnes!

The other was the centre of operations where much of the Daphne-grafting was carried out, with propagating frames along one side nurturing large numbers of cuttings. This, a barn-style structure THE ALPINE GARDENER

with a gambrel roof (i.e. one with a change in the slant of the glass partway up), gave sterling service but had started to buckle towards the middle.

In June this year it was dismantled and replaced with a Keder greenhouse − the firm, based in Worcestershire, can be contacted at www.kedergreenhouse. co.uk − whose advantages include a galvanised tubular steel frame, a ten-year guarantee, generous side ventilation, DECEMBER 2013

and a covering made of a specialised air-bubble material offering good insulation, up to 83% light transmission and strong resistance to high winds.

This does not exhaust the locations where plants are given overhead protection. There is a shade tunnel, a trio of raised Access frames and a run of frames part-covered with wooden-sided lights. Three of the seven polytunnels remain, the rest having been taken down 413

BLACKTHORN ROBERT ROLFE

during the wholesale clearance that took place over spring and summer this year.

We will come to these in time. But given that the now-defunct main greenhouse still housed such a diverse and diverting selection of plants when the photographs accompanying this article were taken, it is there that this tour begins.

The barn-style glasshouse This contained two sturdy benches along each side and a double-width central run to a length of 60ft. Both on the waist-high staging and below, an extraordinary melange of hardy and near-hardy dwarf plants was amassed, some of them high alpines, a few not ‘alpine’ by any stretch of the imagination.

414

At one time you would visit in spring to find South African geophytes such as Cyrtanthus falcatus from the Drakensberg. By September more spectacular Cape species from further south were in flower, notably the red C. elatus and lemon-yellow Gladiolus trichonemifolius, often grown under the name G. citrinus. These were joined by Oncocyclus irises including the Syrian I. kirkwoodii, one of the taller and most intricately veined of these, and thriving potsful of terrestrial orchids. Serapias are grown in variety at Blackthorn, some of them hybrid swarms, but S. lingua subsp. duriaei – S. strictiflora is a frequently employed synonym – from the south-west of the Iberian peninsula, THE ALPINE GARDENER

BLACKTHORN

Serapias lingua subsp. duriaei, one of the most reliable of the genus.

Opposite, a selection of Blackthorn plants on a trolley, destined for an AGS show

Morocco, Algeria and disjunctly in Italy and Corsica, increases as reliably as any. In this house you would also find Fritillaria tubiformis subsp. moggridgei (aficionados of the genus have always held this in the highest regard), and one of the dwarfer Clematis marmoraria hybrids, this one involving C. marata.

C. ‘Lunar Lass’, its cream-green foam of slightly fragrant flowers tumbling over DECEMBER 2013

the edge of the benching in April, later produced a thistledown mass of seed heads.

By July all but the first and last of these would be dormant, but you might instead be met with that darkest blue of dwarf campanulas, Clarence Elliott’s almost 80-year-old Picos find, C. scheuzeri ‘Covadonga’, so thickly filling its black plastic pot that it almost burst the sides.

415

BLACKTHORN ROBERT ROLFE

A Cyclamen rhodium hybrid swarm at Blackthorn

It benefits greatly if divided every few years and fed well. Alstroemeria pulchra, one of the hardier and dwarfer of the numerous Chilean species, was also here, and a bold splash of rich purpleblue from Scutellaria scordiifolia in a noteworthy form advertised what an invaluable, underrated plant it is, notwithstanding warnings about its free-spreading ways in damp soil. Here also the marzipan-fragranced Albuca shawii perfumed the air simultaneously with the spicily scented Cyclamen purpurascens, also present in its forma album, a more vigorous and ‘cleaner’ representative of which the Whites introduced from Croatia in 1987.

416

By getting down on your knees and looking under the staging, you would find that the comparative cool, the subdued light and the gritty substrate (no doubt enriched by liquid feed that had run off from the benches) suited the requirements of numerous distinguished occupants. Most had arrived there by design; others had seeded down and found conditions much to their liking.

Cyclamen repandum and the allied C. rhodium in several forms spread around significantly and spontaneously, hybridising in the way that these close relatives are apt to do. They presented an array of likeable leaf forms, some plain, some with a hastate grey-green overlay, THE ALPINE GARDENER

ROBERT ROLFE

BLACKTHORN

Conandron ramondioides requires shading and humidity to stay in peak condition

some silvery-white speckled and freckled after the fashion of C. rhodium subsp. peloponnesiacum in its spittlesplattered, Jackson Pollock guises.

Predominantly pink, a scattering of albinos was present (assuming that you aren’t the sort of purist who deems the typically pink-tinted ‘nose’ of the corolla inadmissible under that heading). But they were all lovely, whatever their precise designation.

Close by, the pleated, instantly recognisable fan leaves of Cypripedium formosanum formed a mantle over the polystyrene fish trays in which their crowns were planted. This root insulation perfectly suited this species, DECEMBER 2013

one of the few cypripediums grown indoors at Blackthorn. The new shoots can be nipped by a frost that coincides with their emergence (minimal heating was laid on in the greenhouse).

Next to the orchids, a June-blooming, pure white form of Conandron ramondioides, donated by a Japanese nurseryman, is also happier if grown just frost-free. At one time both pink and mauve versions, equally largeflowered and from the same source, were also grown. Shading and humidity are necessary to maintain the fleshy, bright green foliage in peak condition.

The most sophisticated of shadeloving and generally hardy plants have 417

BLACKTHORN long been stock-in-trade at Blackthorn.

The Whites have championed the numerous, principally western Chinese accessions made over the past three decades by renowned Japanese planthunter, horticulturist and one-time RHS Wisley student Mikinori Ogisu. Since 1980 he has returned time and again to Sichuan in particular and scores of species, frequently new to science, have been introduced to cultivation.

An extended friendship principally involving Roy Lancaster (who lives not far from Blackthorn), Chris Brickell and the late Professor William Stearn meant that many of these plants first came to Blackthorn and prospered there. Ogisu’s double-figure Epimedium introductions (E. stearnii, from Hubei, jointly described by Ogisu and Martyn Rix in 2011 is the latest of these) have significantly upgraded the status of the genus in gardens. At one stage Blackthorn propagated these by the tunnel-full but most are now planted out in the woodland garden. Only special cases such as the large-flowered, virginal E. ogisui remain under cover.

Other Chinese newcomers, whose hardiness and adaptability to outdoor cultivation was being assessed, were kept here, both at floor level and on the central benching. The extensive area under the benches provided congenial conditions for plants that inhabit woodland or part-shaded cliffs: Bergenia emeiensis, for example, first collected by Ogisu on Mount Omei in 1982. It has been used by the Whites in an extensive breeding programme with one of Eric Smith’s pale-flowered, darkleaved composer series of hybrids from 418

a decade earlier, ‘Britten’, based on the western Himalayan B. stracheyi.

B. emeiensis has a usefully early flowering habit (March onwards in Sichuan; a month or more before then in southern England, under glass). Its white flowers – as seen in most if not all cultivated material, although there is also a pink version, var. rubellina – against dark green, orderly foliage make this an invaluable early performer in a free-draining soil enriched with leafmould, with ample moisture at the root.

Ogisu is also jointly responsible for the establishment in 1997 of the genus Heteropolygonatum, encompassing a small number of epiphytic species, five in all from western China until the addition, in March this year, of H. altelobatum, an inhabitant of mist forest at 1,500-2,500m in Taiwan. Once or twice enough material of H. roseolum, a narrow endemic from Guangxi, was propagated to enable a Blackthorn catalogue listing. The 2005 issue carries the description: ‘Elegant deciduous foliage, bronze-flushed when young.

Dusky pink flowers followed by large, greenish-orange berries.’ This produces arching stems 20-40cm long, whereas H. ogisui, described from Wawu Shan, Sichuan, at a dubiously hardy altitude of 2,700m in 2001, has fewer leaves per stem, these without a prominent midrib, and the broader, campanulate flowers are pink overall, lacking the greenish tips of the other species.

H. ogisui has no synonyms but others of this newish genus were previously included in Smilacina and, unsurprisingly, Polygonatum. It was received at Blackthorn as H. sp. nova THE ALPINE GARDENER

BLACKTHORN

Bergenia emeiensis has been used in an extensive breeding programme

OG 93054 with notes stating that it favoured moss-covered branches. A painstakingly contrived attempt to satisfy this predilection achieved little success, whereas it takes much better to conventional cultivation, surviving the past two winters in oak-sheltered sleeper beds but susceptible to late frosts. These connoisseurs’ plants are steadily gaining ground among savvy gardeners.

Demonstrably at ease both in the basement and upstairs was the clearly self-fertile Sichuan endemic distributed after its 1996 introduction (DJHC 687) as Corydalis curviflora var. rosthornii.

DECEMBER 2013

It has been reassigned to C. flexuosa, though in a dwarfish, notably lateflowering guise (it can be had in good bloom until high summer) it is for the time being identified as C. ‘Blue Heron’. Surely ants assisted its upperstorey occurrences at Blackthorn. It is inconceivable that any fluke updraft or inadvertent, hand-assisted spread might have caused its happy placement slapbang amid a golden-yellow clump of the remarkably obliging Daphne gemmata.

This species, from subalpine territory (400-1,500m) in northern Yunnan and neighbouring Sichuan, has sometimes 419

BLACKTHORN been placed in Wikstroemia on account of atypical features such as its predominantly five-lobed flowers, but is more sensibly positioned in Daphne not least because it affords a compatible stock for the grafting of the rarest Daphne at Blackthorn, the soon to be described (by Mathew, Brickell and Chinese taxonomist Li Zhen-yu) D. ogisui. D. gemmata has also been used as the seed parent in a Blackthorn cross with the fairly familiar D. calcicola.

Even since the publication in 2007 of the Daphne account in Flora of China, further species have been described.

Gardeners will be most familiar with Daphne wolongensis from western Sichuan at 1,800-2,000m, a name coined

by Chris Brickell and Brian Mathew in the same year but too late for inclusion in the above. One might also mention the lower altitude, white-flowered D. hekouensis (from Hekou County, Yunnan), related to D. axillaris and up to 2m tall.

D. ogisui denotes a remarkable find by Mikinori Ogisu in 2005 (he revisited the site, in Ebian County, Sichuan, the following year and again in 2012). This is a predominantly sturdy and singlestemmed lowlander from alkaline soils in just one valley at 550-750m, the elliptic leaves large (to 10cm long in cultivation) and rather Rhododendron-like, while the rich yellow flowers are presented in a much divided, many-flowered boss in late March to the first half of April.

A handful of plants are in cultivation, but some of these have been afflicted by virus while the remainder have not submitted easily to conventional propagation techniques. Decapitation 420

(not quite as extreme as it might sound) has failed to induce the anticipated flush of new shoots from parent plants, while grafting has not been straightforward, with that generally reliable rootstock D. tangutica unsatisfactory. D. gemmata is the best match to date. Its singular beauty justifies perseverance and further experimentation.

Other daphnes, in the main European species, or hybrids involving taxa from that continent, abounded, the majority home-raised or from introductions made by friends such as Peter Erskine.

The latter’s D. petraea ‘Lydora’, two stock plants of which filled their deep clay pots to the point of overflowing, is one of the richest-coloured clones identified to date. D. p. ‘Flamingo’, sourced two years later in 1999 by the same man, represents the opposite range of the scale, for the habit is less congested and the large flowers are paler with perianth tubes fully 2cm long.

Of the hybrids, some of the more promising were handed over to Robin

by Cyril Lafong. Scottish-raised crosses are few and far between and these are exceptional by any standards. Cyril, based in Glenrothes, has used D. petraea as both a seed and a pollen parent to great effect. I grow his D. collina x petraea ‘The Beacon’, usefully repeat-flowering through to mid-autumn. He has also produced, among others, the novel cross D. velenovskyi x petraea, named D. ‘Pink Diamond’, which is as faddish as its seed parent, and D. ‘Bonnie Glen’, a delicate pink child of D. petraea ‘Cima Tombea’ and D. x hendersonii ‘Rosebud’.

Blackthorn-raised, experimental and spontaneous hybrids have been legion, THE ALPINE GARDENER

BLACKTHORN

The remarkable Daphne ogisui ined., discovered in Sichuan by Mikinori Ogisu

some fully realising the potential of both parents, a few enticing in theory but underperforming in practice so far. In such cases, recreating the initial cross can sometimes pay off.

It was here, 20 years ago, that I first saw the chance seedling D. x whiteorum ‘Kilmeston’ (petraea ‘Grandiflora’ x jasminea) and its deeper coloured reverse cross ‘Beauworth’, at their best in early to mid-summer. But while good genes often lead to first-rate offspring, it can often be a case of try and try again. You might have high hopes if DECEMBER 2013

you had managed to effect the hybrid D. arbuscula x blagayana, for example, but the plant raised has not performed especially well, nor flowered prolifically to date.

The majority of the grafting took place in this greenhouse, the square black plastic pots lined out across the central benching once established, but the fledgling plants were at first ‘kept close’ under a length of frames covered in heavy-duty polythene.

Several rootstocks continue to be used, with D. longilobata the most popular 421

BLACKTHORN ROBERT ROLFE

Daphne ‘Bonnie Glen’ raised by Cyril Lafong

choice, except when preparing scions of species such as D. arbuscula, for which D. tangutica gives much better results.

Raffia was traditionally used to bind the grafts and is still used for small scions.

For larger ones, Robin uses the Japanese, biodegradable and highly elastic Buddy Tape. The rolls, 40m long and available both perforated and non-perforated and in 18mm or 25mm widths, can be obtained from Japan Concept Ltd, Stocksfield, Northumberland (www. japan-concept.co.uk).

The rose-tipped spout of a watering can was used to sprinkle water freely over the grafts on warm days. These were hardened off and sold the following year, along with plants on their own roots.

422

Among these one might highlight the western Chinese D. modesta, seldom exceeding a height of 30cm in cultivation but sometimes over 1m tall on rocky slopes in its native western Sichuan and Yunnan. The jasmine-like, axillary yellow flowers wreath the ascending, woody shoots from top to bottom. This species rather alarmingly sheds its leaves in the autumn; it is necessary to hold your nerve and water very frugally over the winter months.

Another dwarf shrub, very different in almost every respect bar its dislike of winter wet, Fabiana foliosa ‘Cliftonville Limelight’ has become established as a novel alpine house plant since its introduction in 2000 from Argentina’s THE ALPINE GARDENER

ROBERT ROLFE

Pots of grafted daphnes under cover at Blackthorn

Santa Cruz Province. Potentially longlived, it flowers reliably year after year and tidy-minded gardeners will have their work cut out removing the spent corollas every few days. Plainly it tolerates root restriction, for the tenyear-old plant, now with an impressively thick trunk, at Blackthorn has remained in the same pot for five years, winning a Farrer Medal in 2008 and still blooming as freely as it did on that occasion.

A fellow member of the Solanaceae, Petunia patagonica, sometimes grows alongside the Fabiana in the wild. Under the guise of Nierembergia patagonica it has been around in a few gardens much longer, where it stubbornly refused to yield even one of its distinctively DECEMBER 2013

veined flowers.

Reintroductions (F&W9243/9290) have bucked this trend, forming low hummocks that have occasionally covered themselves in flowers from at least Newcastle down to Southampton when grown under cover. Blackthorn joins the growing list of gardens where it has rehabilitated its reputation.

The years around the turn of the 20th century can now surely be declared vintage ones when it comes to the introduction of alpine plants and hardy bulbs, corms and tubers. Blackthorn has long specialised in Ranunculaceae − anemonellas, hellebores of every persuasion, hepaticas, thalictrums – and to this panoply should be added the 423

BLACKTHORN ROBERT ROLFE

The Access frames at Blackthorn, with greenhouses beyond

genus Anemone. Outdoors, as noted in the last two journals, A. nemorosa in a selection of clones and newly established plantings of A. pavonina are abundantly distributed.

Other species from Iran and Central Asia require drier summers and are starting to make their mark under cover.

Some readers may recall or will have read about importations of predominantly scarlet A. biflora from Iran and Afghanistan in the 1960s. Some of these did well for a few people, for a few years.

Mollie Dawson received a Farrer Medal for an exhibit at the 1977 Early Spring Show. There is scant evidence that any stock held on into the 1980s, let alone 424

the 1990s, when its place was taken by various Central Asian species, notably the pink, more easterly A. tschernjaewi, but catalogues also offered fellow members of subsection Biflora such as the yellow A. eranthoides, A. petiolulosa (both at one time deemed varieties of A. biflora) and A. gortschakowii. Some of these are interfertile, with A. petiolulosa x tschernjaewi, for example, recorded from Uzbekistan.

Other combinations seen in cultivation include A. eranthoides x biflora at Blackthorn. Jim Archibald’s 2001 Markzaki (north-west Iran) collection has led chiefly to the re-establishment of the species in British gardens and homeTHE ALPINE GARDENER

ROBERT ROLFE

BLACKTHORN

Ranunculus asiaticus, its white flowers tinged with pink, in an Access frame

grown seed is now occasionally produced in abundance.

The fleshy cotyledons emerge thickly the following spring after an autumn sowing, producing flowering plants as early as their third year.

The Access frames Rather more straightforward to grow, though less hardy, the predominantly eastern Mediterranean Ranunculus asiaticus is a longstanding speciality at Blackthorn, at one time offered in a riotous series of colours (red, orange, burnt copper and yellow) showing the introgression of cultivated forms.

Nowadays the Whites grow more purist DECEMBER 2013

red, yellow and whitish forms identical to those you might find in March in Crete, Cyprus and elsewhere (see the cover photograph of this issue). In the polytunnels these have proved resistant to heavy frost if grown ‘pot-thick’ – that is with scores of pots crowded together and part-plunged – but the best results now come from yellow and whitetinged-pink plantings in the Access frames.

This trio of frames houses numerous other generally dryland plants from Greece and its islands, the Near East and Central Asia. In summer you will find only lingering seedpods and a few driedup leaf remnants, but in September or 425

BLACKTHORN

Crocus goulimyi subsp. leucanthus from the Peloponnese 426

THE ALPINE GARDENER

BLACKTHORN

A Sternbergia, probably S. lutea, from the Aegean island of Kythíra

early October, after a generous watering and a drop in night-time temperatures, the crocuses and sternbergias will be in full force. Crocus goulimyi subsp. leucanthus is a quick-to-increase, subtly ethereal representative of this Peloponnese endemic, while Sternbergia sicula is so thoroughly at home that it seeds everywhere, colonising the plunge and any pots not filled with fresh compost every year.

Increasing clonally rather than seeding around is a good clump of what is probably S. lutea, from the Aegean island of Kythíra, with well-formed flowers. It came from John Fielding, an expert on the flora of the eastern Mediterranean, among other things, DECEMBER 2013

who has photographically documented numerous plants at Blackthorn.

Early in the year, several Corydalis species from Section Leonticoides give a good account of themselves, far more compact in growth than they would be in the greenhouses or polytunnels. By late March they are spent, but by then several yellow and reddish versions of Tulipa montana have taken over, in front of a mighty stand of the Turkish and Syrian Helleborus vesicarius, so much more impressive when its inflated seedpods are fully formed than when in flower a month earlier. An assortment of Turkish-Greek fritillaries adds to the picture, along with a few spikes of Orchis italica. In one frame, nestled up against 427

BLACKTHORN ROBERT ROLFE

The seedheads of Helleborus vesicarius escorted by Tulipa montana

the sun-struck outer edge, a greenishbuff chance hybrid between Iris sari and I. suaveolens has arisen and established itself in the sand.

The shade tunnel The first of the three tunnels is shaded, both by overarching trees and netting.

Although open at both ends, it provides shelter for plants that sometimes grow well enough outdoors but are much better if given overhead protection. They require moisture at the root the year round and shade to ameliorate high summer temperatures. Some are in pots while others are in a raised high-humus bed or in two calcified blocks of peat, 428

conditioned initially by soaking them for days on end in a moderate solution of calcium carbonate. Now lightly mossed over, the peat blocks have been thickly planted with x Jancaemonda vandedemii, while in their lime-free footings petiolarid primulas such as P. ‘Tinney’s Milkmaid’ and P. whitei have found refuge in a garden where they cannot otherwise be maintained.

In the raised bed you might expect to find, in the first weeks of spring, Sebaea thomasii in bright yellow bloom on an outer ledge, the elfin Soldanella minima taking gradual hold, and Shortia uniflora in a good pinkish form, modestly represented to date. Give it time!

THE ALPINE GARDENER

BLACKTHORN

Sebaea thomasii occupies a raised bed in the shade tunnel

Returning to the winter months, Helleborus thibetanus echoes the much larger numbers of this species that were once produced at Blackthorn, while in a hotchpotch of later-blooming occupants, that showiest of New Zealand buttercups Ranunculus lyallii flaunts its large, glossy white flowers atop sturdy stems up to a metre tall. By mid to late June it is joined by the elegantly pinkspotted Nomocharis aperta, received as N. forrestii (but since reduced to synonymy) from Mikinori Ogisu. It is difficult to prevent inter-fertilisation between species grown in proximity, but most gardeners would be very happy with the progeny. Seed of this is DECEMBER 2013

best sown immediately it ripens or by mid-autumn. While mature bulbs can be moved even in early growth, careful excavation and a sizeable surrounding clod of leaf-soil is advisable.

The remainder In one of the two other remaining polytunnels, one side is planted with peonies and larger daphnes while the other is given over to dwarfer representatives of the latter and a selection of alpine plants. A highpoint comes when Paeonia rockii erupts into short-lived bloom: the voluptuous white flowers, dark-stained at the centre, last only a few days but are nothing short of 429

BLACKTHORN

Nomocharis aperta thriving in the shade tunnel 430

THE ALPINE GARDENER

BLACKTHORN a sensation. The multi-branched plant at Blackthorn perhaps produces more flowers – up to 50 have been recorded – than in any other garden in southern England, among which some sort of unofficial competition is held annually.

Ron Beeston tells me that the stock came originally from Lady Anne Palmer, who gave her Devon garden, Rosemoor, to the RHS in 1988. Among the tree peonies, it has no equal. It is one of several species given shelter here.

There is also a mighty plant of the much dwarfer P. cambessedesii, which had long since rooted into the ground from its modest plastic pot and would have been difficult to transplant. If you are forced to tackle a similar problem, do so in earliest spring, having watered the area well a day or two beforehand. Even if the main plant fails, fragments left behind may sprout a month or two later.

Tiered sleeper beds in the tunnel are colonised by daphnes and a range of other alpines. In the lower level, partly mounded with tufa blocks, Primula marginata has established, but close at hand are cushions of Draba longisiliqua and a sizeable mat of the Turkish Asyneuma pulvinatum, dating back to a MacPhail and Watson introduction made 35 years ago, which sometimes covers itself in short-stemmed, light blue clusters of flowers; in other years it remains barren. Towards the fringes, and at the base of tufa blocks, Primula allionii and that rather choosy Balkan gesneriad Ramonda serbica have found congenial niches.

This area is also home to fairly recent Czech sendings of Daphne arbuscula ‘Brno’ (a robust, markedly hirsute DECEMBER 2013

variant) and D. a. ‘Zizkov Star’. There is also D. a. ‘Diva’, dating back at Blackthorn to 1994, as well as further selections of D. cneorum. One, from the environs of the Alpes Maritimes ski resort of Gréolières les Neiges, has mid-pink flowers of good size and holds particular promise. These have all been planted out and appreciate the deep root run, though they are inevitably not quite as compact as repeat plantings outdoors.

It would be remiss not to mention D. x transatlantica (= caucasica x collina of gardens) ‘Eternal Fragrance’, in both its standard whitish form and a pinkish variant (‘Pink Fragrance’), which have been propagated in quantity and exported to various parts of the world.

The most widely popular of the many Blackthorn hybrids, tolerating both low and high temperatures, these have proved to be, since their raising in 1995, adaptable to a wide range of climates.

Despite a prophylactic methyl bromide fumigation when sent to Australia, it came through very well (49 of the 50 plants survived) and is now widely grown there, with similar success beckoning in North America. If you are in search of a resilient, reliable hybrid of medium height, look no further.

Elsewhere, marketed over the past couple of years as house plants but perfectly cold-hardy and coming into bloom without any artificial spring heat, several Rhodanthemum (= Leucanthemum) gayanum and hosmariense hybrids have been named.

These first flower from early March through to May, but have a repeatblooming tendency if grown in a welldrained compost and kept reasonably 431

BLACKTHORN ROBERT ROLFE

A promising Daphne cneorum from Gréolières les Neiges in the Alpes Maritimes

moist. Their dissected, greyish foliage is attractive the year round. R. ‘Casablanca’ is perhaps the pick of these, with goodsized white blooms, but the darker centred R. ‘Tangiers’ and R. ‘Marrakech’, with narrower-rayed, pink flowers, have also found favour.

Set to follow in their wake, a series of hybrids with Roscoea purpurea forma rubra ‘Red Gurkha’ figuring largely in their parentage are being trialled.

Some have been selected as much for their beetroot-flushed foliage as their flowers, which range in colour from pale salmon-pink to red and purple.

The name R. ‘Royal Purple’ has been coined for one of these. A batch of three selected seedlings was sent to a nursery 432

in the Netherlands, where they grew splendidly, but tissue-cultured plants didn’t fit in with the two-year production cycle. Newly returned, the rows and rows made quite a sight, even out of flower, in midsummer, but many have now gone to Ashwood Nurseries. John Massey has returned several selections to the Dutch laboratory, where they are showing signs of successful and rapid multiplication.

Work along similar lines with other groups of plants continues. Showgoers will recall the semi-double form of Callianthemum anemonoides seen at Harlow in 2011, a fluke though not altogether unexpected given the large numbers of this species raised from seed at Blackthorn. The Whites grow THE ALPINE GARDENER

ROBERT ROLFE

BLACKTHORN

A new series of Roscoea hybrids on trial at Blackthorn

authentic material of C. kernerianum, traceable to a Monte Baldo gathering by Mike and Polly Stone, but feel that this species, rather later-flowering in their garden and with very ferny, green rather than greyish-purple foliage, has been much confused with C. anemonoides among plants in commerce.

More straightforward is the identification of distinctive Hepatica yamatutai, but different forms of this, too, are in the pipeline, based on selections with patterned rather than plain leaves, alongside hybrids with H. nobilis and others.

The range of plants grown at Blackthorn both outdoors and under cover over the past 30 years has been astonishing by any DECEMBER 2013

standard. The number of newly acquired or home-bred specimens signifies that there is no let-up in this connoisseurs’ hardy plant hothouse of excellence and experimentation.  The author would like to thank Robin and Sue White for their unstinting help with this and the previous two articles, Jon Evans for his numerous trips to photograph Blackthorn throughout the seasons, and Chris Brickell for his advice on Daphne ogisui.  Robin and Sue White regret that they are unable to accept visitors to Blackthorn.

433

Jackie and Pete Murray on the Popena, a rugged limestone ridge on the western side of Lake Misurina in the Dolomites

The lessons we can learn from plants in the wild 434

T

he Dolomites in north-eastern Italy are truly spectacular mountains, renowned as a winter wonderland for skiers and a summer paradise for walkers and climbers. They form the eastern part of the Alpine chain, with the highest peak on the Marmolada ridge 3,343m (almost 11,000ft) above sea level.

These mountains are also one of the best locations in the world to see THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE DOLOMITES

Finding out how alpine plants thrive in their natural habitats can provide many clues about how to grow them successfully in our gardens and alpine houses.

Pete and Jackie Murray, supported by an AGS Travel Award, spent six weeks in the Dolomites watching plants emerge as the snow melted in spring, and left with a new perspective on how to cultivate them

alpine flowers, which thrive due to the location, climate and unique geology of this region.

In the golden age of the plant-hunters, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, many plantsmen (very few women!) visited the Alps in search of garden-worthy species.

Reginald Farrer made annual trips to the area and described the Dolomites as having ‘peaks like frozen flames’. It was his account of exploring this area and DECEMBER 2013

of the huge diversity of plants that he found here that inspired us to make our first visit to the Dolomites in 1992.

We have been fortunate to return many times since then but, of necessity, these trips have usually been short and as such offered us just a ‘snapshot’ of the flora in our favourite locations.

We had always wanted to observe the progression of alpine flowering over several weeks during the snowmelt, so 435

M

AY

31

M

AY

23

THE DOLOMITES

436

THE ALPINE GARDENER

JU N

E

15

THE DOLOMITES

Opposite page and above: the progression of the snowmelt and alpine flowering on the Pordoi Pass over a period of three weeks

from mid-May until the end of June 2011 that is exactly what we did, making repeated visits to a variety of sites. We believe that the information we have gathered could prove useful for those wishing to grow plants from these mountains.

The geology of the Dolomites is fascinating in itself. Dolomitic limestone was deposited under a tropical sea more than 100 million years ago. Volcanic activity led to igneous rocks such as granite intruding into the limestone, resulting in the formation of some metamorphic rock. Plate movements from around 40 million years ago folded these layers and pushed them upwards to produce the Dolomites. Since then, DECEMBER 2013

continued upthrust and erosion has resulted in the distinctive jagged peaks and complex surface geology that we see today.

Winter brings many metres of snow to the Dolomites. As the day length increases and the average temperature rises in spring, the snowmelt begins, triggering the flowering season. The three photographs on these pages, taken from the top of the Pordoi Pass, show the progression of the snowmelt and plant growth and flowering over just three weeks, from May 23 to June 15.

The speed of plant growth and flowering is staggering once the snow cover is lost. It begins in the meadows in the warmer valleys, progresses 437

THE DOLOMITES

A colourful meadow habitat in one of the low valleys

quickly up the mountain sides into the high valleys, then on to the higher rocky screes and eventually the rugged mountain tops themselves. Many plants – Crocus, for example – can flower and set seed within a matter of days of the snow melting. Plants on open, southfacing slopes typically come into growth and flower before those on north-facing slopes or in shaded gullies.

The habitats The Dolomites can be divided into three main alpine habitats based mainly on altitude.

438

Low valley habitats (1,250-1,600m): The permanent human settlements are in the valleys, areas which would naturally be dominated by Picea abies forests. The mature forests are managed to produce clearings, allowing in enough light to support a diverse ground flora.

This woodland habitat is still dominant in the narrower valleys and on the steeper slopes of the wider valleys, where it helps to prevent erosion and avalanches. However, most of the floors of the wider valleys and their more gently sloping sides have been cleared for agriculture, with hay meadows and THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE DOLOMITES

The Val di Grepa, one of the higher valleys surveyed by Pete and Jackie

cattle grazing being the principal uses.

High valley habitats (1,600-2,000m): Above the tree-line, steep-sided hanging valleys flank the main lowland valleys. These are much more exposed to high winds and experience lower temperatures. Pinus mugo, Vaccinium and Alnus scrub is typical here among coarse grasses. These valleys are exploited for summer grazing, with herds of animals moved up from the lowland valleys from late May until September. The valley floors often have permanent, rapidly flowing rivers.

Areas adjacent to the rivers and springs, DECEMBER 2013

or poorly drained areas, support an accumulation of deep, springy, wet turf with characteristic wetland flora.

High mountain habitats (above 2,000m): The high mountain habitats are exposed to high winds and extremes of temperature and are usually under snow for over six months of the year. This type of habitat can be sub-divided into three categories: bare rock, loose rock scree, and stabilised scree. The highest summits, steep cliffs and rock outcrops consist of bare rock that supports crevice and cushion plants, including many that are associated with a specific rock type, 439

THE DOLOMITES aspect or altitude. The loose rock scree is produced by weathering of the bare rock and has a flora adapted to survive on a very mobile, free-draining surface.

Stabilised scree, usually confined to areas with a gradient of less than 30 degrees, is often completely covered with vegetation growing on a thin, humus-rich soil over rock debris.

A changing landscape Our snowmelt study was based in two areas of the Dolomites. The first was in and around the Val di Fassa, where we visited 11 sites, and the second around Lake Misurina, where we visited six sites. In each of the two areas we selected sites that reflected the range of altitude, aspect and topography found in that part of the Dolomites.

The alpine spring is very short and changes are rapid. When we arrived in mid-May, the upper valleys had large amounts of standing snow, with many of the walking routes impassable above 2,200m. The summits and the high screes were still blanketed in snow.

The timing of the snowmelt varies from year to year. It turned out to be an early spring in 2011 after lower than average snowfalls during the winter and an exceptionally warm April. Even so, there was an estimated melt of between two and five metres of standing snow over three weeks in the high valleys.

This variation in timing has implications for those writing about the flora here and for those reading such reports who hope to see the same plants in flower on a particular date. It is highly unlikely that you will match the findings of others within a short 440

window of observation. We have firsthand experience of this with one muchloved plant, Eritrichium nanum. In all our previous visits to the Pordoi area, we have only seen E. nanum from late July onwards. Yet this year, after a warm April and May, it was in full flower by early June.

Over the six weeks we witnessed how, at first, one species flowered and dominated an area with its colour. Two weeks later it had gone over with almost no evidence of its presence (unless you looked for leaves or seed heads) and was followed by a new drift of flowers as different species came into bloom.

This succession is most dramatic in the high, rough pastures, where humus has accumulated to support a rich and diverse flora. As the snow melts, the grass and sedge is left as a flattened, sodden mat of dead and drab foliage. Within days the ground is covered with the flowers of Pulsatilla vernalis, Soldanella alpina and Crocus albiflorus. These are followed by drifts of the yellow Pulsatilla alpina subsp. apiifolia and the pinks of Primula farinosa, Primula minima and Primula halleri. The blues of Gentiana verna, G. acaulis and G. clusii come next.

As these flowers fade they are replaced

by Polygonum and Trollius europaeus, and in turn these are followed by the orchids. Then there are drifts of Salvia species and, next, the composites.

We found the same pattern of succession in several areas, implying that different plants have specific growth rates following the snowmelt.

The snowmelt, and therefore flowering, also varies depending on altitude and aspect. A 6C drop in temperature per THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE DOLOMITES

Jackie and friend Barry Wright traversing the Sella Pass, another of the study sites DECEMBER 2013

441

THE DOLOMITES 1,000m of height gain not only affects the speed of the snowmelt; it also means that spring rain in the valleys can fall as snow at higher altitudes.

On May 28 it rained heavily overnight in the Val di Fassa. Above 1,500m this fell as snow with accumulations of 15-30cm in the high valleys and on the mountain peaks. This took one or two days to melt on the south-facing screes, but we found the fresh snow still standing on the northern slopes four days later. Many of the emerging Pulsatilla alpina subsp. apiifolia flowers were frosted, and the carpet of Crocus albiflorus flowers was gone.

Aspect is less important in the high mountains, where many open areas receive full sun. However, if high peaks cast shadows, or shadow is cast in deep gullies, then snow is retained for much longer in these areas. We crossed several high passes in late May to be faced with huge snowfields on the shaded northern sides, yet there were alpines in full bloom on the southern sides.

Another consideration is the amount of water available to plants as the snow melts. In many areas, run-off from the melt means that plants begin the growing season in semi-aquatic conditions, although the melt-water flows rapidly and drains away quickly. Where standing water does occur, usually due to the accumulation of a humus-rich soil which impedes drainage, a bog flora is more typical. The yellow flowers of Caltha palustris are a good indicator of such areas, with Trollius europaeus never far away.

As alpine growers we rarely appreciate the amount of water that alpine plants 442

have available, and require, during the early part of their growing season. Our failure to succeed with many alpines in cultivation may well be due to inadequate volumes of water or incorrect frequency of watering, as well as not providing a soil with the correct nutrient balance and drainage characteristics. In alpine houses we have often witnessed clay pots plunged in damp sand, which is supposed to provide moisture and mimic the well-drained scree that surrounds plants growing in a humusrich soil. How many of these sandplunged plants are actually potted up in a humus-rich compost, and how often do they receive sufficient water during their critical spring growth phase?

Anyone visiting the mountains and experiencing the alpine spring would appreciate the pivotal importance of water in the life of alpine plants, yet we rarely read about this in modern literature on growing alpines. Perhaps the attempts to build moraines documented by alpine growers at the turn of the 20th century, complete with complex watering systems, were not so silly after all. Were they merely trying to imitate the growing conditions they had seen in the mountains?

Not only is the volume of water important, but its physical properties and nutrient content are critical.

Coming from melting snow, the water is very cold. Cold, moving water has a much higher oxygen content than still, warmer water. This oxygen is important for the root growth and nutrient uptake of many alpine plants. Additionally, the water moves rapidly over rock that has been subjected to weathering during THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE DOLOMITES

Crocus albiflorus emerging through a nutrient-rich cowpat

winter and becomes enriched with dissolved nutrients.

Plants are much less numerous on rocky outcrops and on the screes, and minerals dissolved in melt-water must be their primary source of nutrients.

There is unlikely to be any significant contribution from animal waste above the grazing levels or any significant accumulation of plant detritus to make additional nutrients available.

In areas covered by thin soils, and where larger numbers of animals graze, DECEMBER 2013

it is a different story. Here, additional organic matter comes from leaf litter from the more abundant ground vegetation and from animal droppings.

At higher altitudes it is unlikely that any organic matter has undergone much microbial breakdown during the subzero temperatures of winter.

In spring, however, the previous year’s frozen droppings melt and begin to decay as the temperature rises. We saw evidence of manure slurry from sheep and cow droppings washed into 443

THE DOLOMITES

The widespread Primula minima prefers the eroded edges of turf

the thin soils by the melt-water. In the high, rough grazing we saw ‘delightful’ montages of beautiful spring flowers, such as Crocus, growing through thawed cowpats!

In the light of these observations we are now reconsidering our methods for growing alpines. We are increasing irrigation with cold, nutrient-rich water provided more frequently, and attendant improved drainage. This will, if all goes to plan, lead to more success with the difficult ‘high alpines’. We will not, however, be investing in a herd of cattle!

444

Plant observations At the beginning of our study, in the last two weeks of May, Primula farinosa was widespread and abundant in most areas. In addition it appeared frequently in rough gravel by the roadside. It seemed as if it was covering the turf of the whole of the Dolomites from 1,400m to around 2,200m. With this abundance one could easily assume that it would be easy to please in cultivation.

With more careful observation, however, it became apparent that the plant grows best and most frequently in THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE DOLOMITES

Primula auricula is found on limestone in small, dense colonies

areas of good drainage, although with plenty of water available. It was most common in a sort of shingle substrate (limestone or basalt), with little or no humus, hence its frequency in roadside gravel. When it occurred in short turf, this was generally over a very thin soil over rock. This plant prefers a wet but well-drained gritty substrate.

Primula halleri was not a common or very abundant plant, but we did encounter it often enough from mid-May to early June to draw some conclusions about its growing preferences. It was DECEMBER 2013

always located in short turf over a thin soil with some humus but with perfect drainage. It was only ever seen on limestone rocks, never basalt or granite.

Towards the end of June, as P. halleri was going over and P. farinosa had just about finished, we encountered a few plants in the area of the Sella Pass which seemed to have characteristics in common with both. We believe they could be hybrids of the two species.

These plants all grew in an area of short turf within a few metres of both parents.

Primula minima is widespread and 445

THE DOLOMITES fairly common in the Dolomites, often forming large patches 50cm or more across. A plant of humus-rich turf, it appeared to favour basalt rock rather than limestone, although due to the depth of the soil and turf it was often difficult to discern if the type of rock was significant. It consistently favoured a position on the eroded edges of turf.

Where, for example, the turf fell away on an unstable bank, hole or depression, the colony of plants would always be on the upper edge. Being such a small species, it must presumably establish in this position rather than trying to compete with taller plants in the flatter turf. It might be worth trying to cultivate this species on a broken turf slope, or attempting to mimic these conditions within a large pot or trough.

Primula auricula is a localised plant, always found on limestone and often in small, dense colonies. It usually grew on the sloping sides of rocky outcrops or boulders (2-3m across or more), in deep cracks or on ledges. Only in one place did we find it growing in coarse limestone shingle.

Its position suggested that snow cover was unlikely for much of the winter, so the plants would be exposed to cold and desiccating winds. In spring, water would be provided only by rain running down the rock face and along the crevices. After flowering, the plants would be exposed to drying winds during summer. A crevice garden would

Primula glutinosa, top, and Ranunculus glacialis, growing on a granite scree 446

THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE DOLOMITES

Ranunculus seguieri thrives on limestone with a plentiful supply of water

probably be the best way to reproduce these growing conditions, but with generous watering.

Primula glutinosa was found at just one site in the Monzani valley. It was growing in the Val de la Sele on short, grassy turf at a high altitude and on a granite substrate, exactly as Reginald Farrer had described in his book The Dolomites. Even though the geology of the Monzani valley is complex, with bands of granite and limestone, this Primula was found only on granite and was not present on limestone or marble, so it is clearly a lime-hating plant in the wild. In cultivation it requires an ericaceous compost and good drainage.

Ranunculus glacialis was found at just one site, a granite scree on a steep DECEMBER 2013

slope at high altitude in the Monzani area. On either side of the granite, within a distance of just 200m, the rock type changed to marble and then limestone. The plant stopped abruptly at the boundary of the granite and limestone, where it was rapidly replaced

by Ranunculus seguieri.

R. seguieri was found at many other high mountain sites, always on limestone. Although scree may appear to be a very dry habitat, in fact the plants were located mostly at the base of the scree and had received copious amounts of water as the snow had melted on the slopes above. Under the surface stones, the substrate was quite wet and water was still flowing down, both from melting snow high above and from run447

THE DOLOMITES off from heavy spring rainstorms. This would indicate that the plant requires a large quantity of moving cold water to start it into growth and flowering, followed by a progressive drying out.

R. seguieri and R. parnassifolius have a lot in common with R. glacialis in that they were only ever found at high altitudes in areas that would initially have been very wet when the snow melted, followed by a progressive drying out. Their growth, also like R. glacialis, must have been very rapid following the huge volume of cold, moving water available during the snowmelt, in that they were in full growth and in flower when the substrate was still very wet.

We conclude that R. seguieri and R. parnassifolius are strict lime-lovers, always found on limestone, never on basalt or granite. Being quite small plants they were never observed on rough scree, only on the fine shingle that occurs after a lot of rock erosion and offers a more consolidated growing medium with better moisture retention.

The shingle where they occurred had little or no soil or humus and was coarse enough to be free-draining.

Pulsatilla vernalis and P. alpina subsp. apiifolia grew in grassy turf over quite a thick layer of humus-rich soil. Often these areas were used to graze cattle in the summer and therefore the soil was enriched by droppings. P. vernalis flowers first. Indeed it is one of the first plants to bloom after the snowmelt and is already ripening its seeds as P. alpina subsp. apiifolia comes into flower.

The areas where these pulsatillas grow are covered in snow for many months 448

of the year. They are often found in gently sloping, undulating turf on the shoulders of the cols or at the base of screes. We made observations to find out if the plants preferred depressions in the terrain (wetter) or raised areas (drier).

Both species occurred in often large colonies, sometimes covering many acres, and generally within each area we found as many flowering on raised areas as in the depressions, although in places where the snow was retained for longer the plants tended to flower later.

The permanently wet hollows or gullies with flowing water were not occupied by either species.

The best chance of getting these two pulsatillas to flourish for the grower would be to provide a deep, humus-rich, well-drained soil where there is good rainfall (or plentiful watering). It may even be worth trying to plant seedlings into short, rough turf.

Cypripedium calceolus is quite widespread in the lowland valleys of the Dolomites. Although plants of various sizes were found, some very mature, it was never common at any location.

Sadly the flowers are still picked in spite of its supposed protection in the region.

Its growing position was always similar and it was possible to predict where it would be found: coniferous valleys, usually in mature woodland that had an open canopy and with sufficient light to support a herb layer on the ground.

The sites were often flat and it was never found on steeply sloping ground.

C. calceolus always grew in dappled sunlight at the margins of the woodland or at the edges of the larger clearings, where it co-existed with other ground THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE DOLOMITES

Cypripedium calceolus relishes a soil rich in coniferous humus DECEMBER 2013

449

THE DOLOMITES

Paris quadrifolia, which is always present near Cypripedium calceolus

vegetation. The association of C. calceolus with conifers was an absolute.

Usually the companion trees were mature Picea abies but in some areas it grew with Pinus mugo.

Under both tree species there was a deep layer of rich humus containing much coniferous material and it was in this that the Cypripedium flourished, mature plants often making very big clumps (17 blooms was the best), with smaller, single-bloom specimens around them, indicating some seeding. The only deviation from this was in the deep gorge that is the Sottoguda, again in the 450

forest zone, where it was found on wide rocky ledges deeply covered in humus, including conifer leaf litter. These ledges offered the dappled shade of the woodland sites with restricted sunshine due to the depth of the gorge.

Growers must mimic this dappled shade and, although it may be possible to use other evergreens or even deciduous species to achieve this, the other essential is a soil with the addition of well-rotted pine leaf litter (often known as ‘pine duff ’). As well as producing a humusrich soil and helping with moisture retention, it is probably important in THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE DOLOMITES

Linaria alpina is rapid in growth and usually short-lived

promoting the growth of mycorrhizal fungi that are associated with the roots of Cypripedium and are known to be important in the plants’ nutrition.

We rapidly learned to look for cypripediums wherever we found Paris quadrifolia. While Paris was much more abundant and widespread than the cypripediums, we never found the orchid in an area without Paris. We assume that the growth requirements of both plants are the same, requiring semi-shade, winter protection and a soil rich in pine humus.

Linaria alpina grows on the most DECEMBER 2013

inhospitable terrain. It favours basalt as a substrate although it is also found on well-drained limestone scree and shingle above 1,700m. It was always very floriferous and on the most unstable areas of scree and, quite often, on the edges of gravel paths, with little retained ground water and no humus. This plant seems to be a primary coloniser of unstable areas, rapid in growth and usually short-lived.

For cultivation, rather than confinement in a pot, it would seem that L. alpina would be best sown into a large, coarse granite ‘scree trough’ in a sunny place with frequent watering.

451

THE DOLOMITES

Soldanella pusilla, seldom well-flowered in gardens

Soldanella alpina appeared to be the most abundant plant of the high valleys and mountains. One of the first plants to flower following the snowmelt, it was often found on the edges of snow patches and even flowering through the snow. There are differing opinions as to whether it pushes flowers through the snow or is re-covered with falling snow as it flowers. Certainly there were heavy snowfalls well into June and a lot of snow left from winter, so from our observations both of these are possibilities.

S. alpina always occurred on humus452

rich soil in short turf, usually in locations where cattle graze later in the year. It was usually found on shallow slopes offering moving water and good drainage through the shattered rock beneath the soil.

For the grower the important points to note would be a cold, dry winter (snowcovered in the wild for many months) followed by abundant cold water in spring, equating to the snowmelt.

Finally, good drainage and a compost high in nutrients will be required.

S. alpina and S. minima shared the same habitat and were both fairly THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE DOLOMITES

Thlaspi rotundifolium growing on unstable limestone scree

widespread and abundant. S. pusilla, far less common, was found in smaller groups. The diminutive S. minima tended to favour humus-rich ledges in rock crevices and occasionally humusrich shingle rather than turf, where presumably it cannot compete.

Vitaliana primuliflora appeared to be very choosy about where it grew. It was found only at high altitudes above 1,900m on the top of cols and over saddle-type ridges, always on flatter areas of basalt shingle, where it was one of the primary colonisers of bare areas among the turf. It seemed to require DECEMBER 2013

the stability of a flatter area. Some of the patches were over 40cm across and looked as if they had been there for some time. These areas would be alternately covered and uncovered by snow during winter because high winds strip the snow from such exposed places.

Plants can grow very well unprotected outdoors in the British Isles, especially if planted in tufa.

Thlaspi rotundifolium is a plant of unstable limestone screes. For such a small species it was surprising that it grew between large rocks. While most plants were individual spikes – 453

THE DOLOMITES

Geum reptans appears to prefer a low-nutrient growing medium

suggesting a short-lived, almost annual growth – there were some quite large clumps in more stable areas. We also found white-flowered variants.

The manner and position of its growth suggested that T. rotundifolium would be suitable for sowing directly into a crevice garden or trough rather than the usual method of germinating seed in a pot followed by pricking out.

Good drainage and a deep root run are required, so this plant would be suited to a deep scree trough.

Geum reptans and G. montanum 454

appear at first to be almost identical, their main distinction being the red runners of G. reptans. The grower, therefore, might expect to cultivate them in the same way but our observations show that they prefer very different habitats.

G. montanum was always found on short turf over a rich, well-drained soil, but on a variety of rock. G. reptans was only ever on open, rough, granite screes with little humus, suggesting a dislike of lime, a need for even better drainage, a low-nutrient growing medium and provision of a deep root run.

THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE DOLOMITES

Advice for visiting the Dolomites

S

urprising as it may seem to plant enthusiasts, May and June are a quiet time in the Dolomites. In fact the area is mostly shut down between the ski season, which finishes in April, and the summer holiday season, which begins in early July.

In May and June most hotels, bars, restaurants and many shops are closed.

Most tourist information offices are closed or on reduced hours, the local buses do not run to the mountain passes, and the cable cars and mountain huts only open in the last week of June or first week of July. Many villages are like ghost towns and we were the only occupants in our block of 15 apartments. The larger settlements of Canazei and Campitello have shops, cash machines, bars and cafes, and some were open. Many hotels open only if the weather is good. Wi-fi was not generally available.

Most garages have automated fuel pumps, for which you need cash (good notes, not coins) or a bank card (UK cards often don’t work). These pumps dispense a fixed quantity of fuel so it is important that you have enough money and that your tank has enough room!

Anyone contemplating a trip ‘out of season’ is advised to book accommodation in advance and it is vital that you have your own transport in May and June. Flying from the UK and arranging vehicle rental is an option.

The nearest airport, at Treviso, is about three hours’ drive from the Dolomites.

A good tourist map is essential. Kompass maps or Tabacco maps at 1:25,000 scale are best, but the 1:50,000 maps would avoid having to take so many sheets. Maps are available at Stanfords (www.stanfords.co.uk).

Crocus albiflorus was one of the first plants to flower following the snowmelt on high-altitude cow pastures. It produced a beautiful but short-lived display in vast numbers over large areas of the flatter turf on the cols and at the foot of screes.

We were surprised at the huge amount of water present in its favoured locations, which had presumably triggered flowering, although it was moving and draining rapidly. C. albiflorus also appeared to benefit from the nutrients from the recently thawed cowpat slurry.

DECEMBER 2013

A high availability of nutrients and a large volume of water during spring growth and flowering, followed by a progressive drying out, would appear to be the best way to grow this bulb.  We would like to thank the AGS for its financial contribution towards this study. A full list of the study sites and details of species and flowering times can be found on the AGS website by following the link for The Alpine Gardener.

455

PLANTS FROM OUR SHOWS HEATHER SMITH

ULSTER

Leontopodium pusillum was brought across the Irish Sea

by Tim Lever.

Right, Gordon Toner’s Trillium chloropetalum won the Farrer Medal

S

pring was still running two or three weeks late at the end of April and didn’t catch up until at least halfway through May, though conversely some plants performed strictly to schedule.

This meant there were bumper and varied entries at all five shows discussed here. The determination of some exhibitors to transport their plants long distances added a very diverse geographical element to the mix.

At the Ulster Show, by way of illustration, more than 100 plants came over on the ferry, contributing to a substantial entry.

Leontopodium pusillum has seldom been exhibited before in Ireland, or England either for that matter, and is one of a number of fairly recently introduced Chinese species, native to Qinghai, western Sichuan, Xinjiang and

456

All mixed up after a late spring Xizang at 3,500-5,600m, although its distribution also extends to Sikkim and Kashmir. Originally described as a subspecies of the familiar L. alpinum, it produces numerous tomentose flowering stems from a cushion-like mat only 2-7cm tall and, given the altitudes involved, is in peak bloom during August and September, though it performs a few months earlier in c u l t i v a t i o n .

THE ALPINE GARDENER

HEATHER SMITH

ULSTER

SHOWS FEATURED: Ulster, East Anglia, Malvern, Southport, Summer Show South COMPILED BY ROBERT ROLFE FROM REPORTS BY: Billy Moore, Robert Rolfe, Eric Jarrett, Peter Cunnington and Martin Sheader

There have been several introductions: in 2009, for example, Vojtĕch Holubech sent back seed from Qinlian Shian in Qinghai, where plants 3cm tall colonised ‘rocky alpine grassland’. This plant’s owner, Tim Lever, advised that typically they die back in late autumn and look moribund until February when, all being well, new shoots will push through the previous year’s trimmed, withered r e m n a n t s .

DECEMBER 2013

The Leontopodium received a Certificate of Merit, as did Tim’s Benthamiella patagonica, surely the most variable of the genus and now represented, from collections made in the main at the turn of the century, in forms varying from milky-white to lemon through to bright or mustardyellow – this was of the latter persuasion.

The regions of Argentina and Chile (from the eastern slopes of the Andes to the Atlantic coast) which it inhabits have a steppe-type climate, so alpine house conditions and seasonally frugal watering are mandatory.

Irish exhibitors gave an equally tremendous account of themselves in all sections. At the most experienced end, Harold McBride had an assured large six-pan including a lovely example of Primula rosea, raised from wild-sourced 457

PLANTS FROM OUR SHOWS

FARRER MEDAL WINNERS ULSTER Trillium chloropetalum (Gordon Toner) EAST ANGLIA Trillium grandiflorum (Chris Lilley) MALVERN Not awarded SOUTHPORT Daphne calcicola ‘Gang Ho Ba’ (Cyril Lafong) SUMMER SHOW SOUTH Salvia cyanescens (David Richards) HEATHER SMITH

ULSTER

Fritillaria acmopetala subsp. wendelboi shown by Mac Dunlop 458

seed and selected for its vibrantly rosered flowers (rather than simply bought as a job lot in its popular cultivated form ‘Grandiflora’ and crammed together).

Also showing clear evidence of longterm ownership was Pat Kennedy’s lifted chunk of Sanguinaria canadensis f. multiplex ‘Plena’ in her Intermediate Section six-pan (water well before strategic chops with a spade a day or two beforehand when the buds are swelling but have yet to break, then water again when settled in the pot, and hope the flowers come to full glory on the morning of the show).

New to the game – having first exhibited only last year – Mac Dunlop had a good stand of Fritillaria acmopetala subsp. w e n d e l b o i .

The mass of basal leaves denoted the presence of numerous well-tended bulbils and a possibly spectacular massing of bloom some three years hence. It won the C.H. Hammer Trophy for the best plant in flower in the Novice Section, and is distinctive among the various examples of this mainly Turkish THE ALPINE GARDENER

DOUG JOYCE

EAST ANGLIA

Pleione Tolima gx. exhibited by Rod and Jane Leeds species in its lime green coloration and juxtaposed chocolate brown ‘eye’ and ‘mouth’ markings.

Gordon Toner’s Trillium chloropetalum received the Farrer Medal at the Ulster Show and, a week later at the East Anglia meet, Chris Lilley for a third year in succession received this award for his mighty T. grandiflorum. In the week beforehand he had relentlessly carted the pot around his garden to shun strong sun and high winds, administering a fine spray of rain water every evening to keep the foliage and the mossy topdressing verdant. The display now numbers over 80 flowers and these were still resplendent enough a week later to secure ‘best in show’ status at Malvern, a second Farrer not being allowed for the same plant in the same year. The possibility of detaching a few offsets from the edge of the clump in late summer has been contemplated, for DECEMBER 2013

most stocks presently on sale fail to measure up in either ‘petal’ size or s u b s t a n c e .

At this time of the year, one would normally expect to admire the first of the cypripediums. They were scarcely through the ground in some collections, but a good array of other hardy orchids was evident. A spectacularly large, shallow pan was filled to overflowing with over 100 Pleione Tolima gx. in peak flower, shown by Rod and Jane Leeds.

This cultivar, involving P. formosana ‘married’ with P. pleionoides, was first registered by Ian Butterfield in 1979, one of his earliest hybrids. Many repeats of the cross have been carried out since, but this unnamed version, with rather narrow-lipped purplish flowers, the labellum with two lemon-tinged, parallel ridges and a sparsely lacy fringe of lamellae, was one of the very best performances one can recall from the 459

PLANTS FROM OUR SHOWS

460

EAST ANGLIA

DOUG JOYCE

genus at AGS shows over the past 30 or so years. Not long after its raising, Ian wrote a ‘How to grow Pleione orchids’ pamphlet, which included the sound advice: ‘A layer of the coarse compost (six parts of sieved orchid bark, one part coarse grade perlite and one part chopped sphagnum moss) is put in the bottom of the pan and a good dusting of fine grade bone meal put on top. The pseudobulbs are stood upright on the compost, allowing around 3/8in around each... The fine compost is poured around the pseudo-bulbs until they are almost covered... As the sun gets stronger towards the end of February, and the temperature starts to rise, the compost should be moistened... in order to make the new roots grow strongly, looking for m o i s t u r e . ’ On a smaller scale, terrestrial orchid specialist Barry Tattersall had some notable entries. These included a single spike of the bolt upright, almost woodystemmed South African Satyrium corrifolium. Its orangey-yellow hooded flowers have fluked, chrome-yellow lips and it is hardier than some suppose but has perhaps been exhibited just once previously. Barry also showed an elegant trio of purple Anacamptis laxiflora, also seldom exhibited and which needs damp conditions for it thrives in wet meadows and bogland. He won a Certificate of Merit for a vibrant grouping of Serapias x godferyi (= neglecta x cordigera), representing just two clones raised by Richard Manuel, one with a much deeper, redder lip but both intricately veined and complementary in their coloration so that the intermixed spikes didn’t jar.

Barry Tattersall’s Serapias x godferyi

European high alpines also made a strong showing. In particular a long tom was filled with an exemplary Daphne petraea ‘Grandiflora’, which was promisingly plump in bud when I first saw it three days earlier while judging a Derby Local Group Show run by its owner, David Charlton. In my rambIing round-up following judging, not knowing whose plant it was, I suggested that if watered well and kept in a warm place it would be in peak flower for the East Anglia Show. For once someone actually listened to me, for there it was, victorious in a fiercely contested class for a plant native to Europe, and the likely recipient of an award for the best plant in a 19cm pot (given at most shows but, curiously, not here).

Just a day or two earlier, that same THE ALPINE GARDENER

DOUG JOYCE

MALVERN

Cassiope lycopodioides ’Beatrice Lilley’ grown by Dave Mountfort

accolade might have gone to John Richards’ remarkable Primula carniolica, whose count of 18 heads of pin-eyed, substantial lilac-pink flowers with white paste centres was easily the highest I can recall for this rarely cultivated auricularelative from a few stations in Slovenia.

Raised by Brian Burrow, it has lived in Newcastle for the past eight years, enjoying a more shaded position than its near-relatives P. marginata and P. hirsuta, with regular repotting to satisfy its healthy appetite. How welcome to see its glossy green foliage untouched by c h l o r o s i s !

In the Intermediate Section, the more thickly flowered (though not the larger) of Michael Sullivan’s two Androsace cylindrica x hirtella gained him the Suffolk Trophy. He had received the seed DECEMBER 2013

under other guises. While sent to seed distributions in good faith, many listings of A. cylindrica, A. hirtella and A. pubescens represent this cross, whatever their labelling. Confusion is also evident when it comes to the designation of wide-ranging species: some of the subspecific and varietal names attached are fanciful. A. villosa, spread from the mountains of Spain eastwards throughout Europe and into Turkey, the Crimea and the Caucasus, has at least half a dozen such to its credit and can form anything from the tightest of buns to mats, the white flowers sometimes pink-flushed with age. Lionel Clarkson, who has latterly exhibited several notable androsaces, all in black plastic long toms affording good root depth and water-retaining properties, had an 461

PLANTS FROM OUR SHOWS DOUG JOYCE

MALVERN

Saxifraga pedemontana subsp. cervicornis exhibited

by Mark Childerhouse and, right, Lionel Clarkson’s Androsace villosa var. taurica

exemplary plant of var. taurica (a narrow-leaved, Crimean outlier: no reason to query the identity) with multiheaded flowers of generous size on 1cm tall stems, upholding a tradition of fine examples of the genus at the Malvern Show, held in the second week of May. A frost-free week enabled Dave Mountfort’s Cassiope lycopodioides ’Beatrice Lilley’, seemingly at its peak when shown the week before, to return to the fray, receiving the Bill Tubbs Trophy for the best pan of Ericaceae at Malvern. If any of the bells had dislodged, then they and their upright pedicels had been meticulously removed. Sid Lilley did much to popularise the genus among gardeners, first bringing this plant to attention almost 50 years ago, noting its lacquer red (instead of green) calyces and its compact, low-growing habit, and 462

naming this chance seedling after his full-of-fun sister (not wife, as is sometimes recorded). During the 1960s and 1970s, Bill was deeply involved in the organisation of the Society’s shows.

Another white hummock, but in this case dome rather than mat-forming and with larger, up-facing flowers, Saxifraga pedemontana subsp. cervicornis was shown by Mark Childerhouse. This Corsican/Sardinian endemic is certainly one of the finest expressions of a species that elsewhere ranges spasmodically from the High Atlas (subsp. demnatensis) to the Cévennes, the Maritime Alps, the Balkans, the Romanian/Ukrainian borderlands and, while not yet officially recorded there, the Caucasus. Dieter Zschummel sent back impeccably sourced material from that range 30 years ago, before political changes enabled him to travel freely to western THE ALPINE GARDENER

Europe. As an early recipient of that material, I struggled then to distinguish it from the mid-Mediterranean subsp. cervicornis, and am not alone in continuing to do so.

Typically the large-flowered, vibrantly violet Pinguicula grandiflora ornaments showbenches in May and early June.

This is easily the most obliging of the European species, for all that less hardy species from Mexico and beyond embellish carnivorous plant nursery stands at RHS flower shows. The most wide-ranging of the Europeans, P. vulgaris, is found through to western Ukraine and across Siberia to northern Asia. It also occurs throughout Scandinavia, Iceland, eastern Greenland and Alaska, much of Canada and down through the eastern USA as far as New York State. Along the western USA coastline (and China and Japan, for that DECEMBER 2013

JON EVANS

DOUG JOYCE

MALVERN

MALVERN

Pinguicula macroceras subsp. nortensis shown by Don Peace 463

PLANTS FROM OUR SHOWS DON PEACE

SOUTHPORT

One of two immaculate pots of Androsace cylindrica shown by Geoff Rollinson matter), it is replaced by P. macroceras, distinguished by a more ample calyx, larger corolla and longer spur. Don Peace’s exhibit of subsp. nortensis, with a limited distribution along the westernmost California-Oregon borders, was described as a new taxon in 1997 and had been received from the AGS Seed Exchange in 2009, the seedlings grown on in a mixture of Cambark, perlite and ‘Swedish’ peat. The pot stands in a saucer of rainwater and is only irrigated with the same. It comes from an area where winter temperatures plummet to around -20C, so its hardiness is not in question.

A memorable run of androsaces continued at Southport, where Geoff Rollinson brought along two large halfpans of A. cylindrica so plastered with 464

snowy-white flowers that the foliage was entirely hidden, and so closely matched that there was a lengthy debate over which was the better of them. Fairly straightforward in its first few years, it becomes less easy to keep in good humour with age. All too often either sections of the cushion die back or the root ball in part shears off during repotting. Much quicker to form a sizeable plant, A. studiosorum ‘Doksa’ (shown by George Young) has a stoloniferous, mat-forming habit but must be grown ‘hard’ in a fairly lean mix if it is to produce a frothing mass of whitish flowers, in this case umbellate rather than held singly. Introduced from the northern Himalaya by Henry and Margaret Taylor in 1991, it remains one of the best introductions of recent years, THE ALPINE GARDENER

ROBERT ROLFE

SOUTHPORT

George Young’s Lewisia stebbinsii, a Californian that is seldom seen at shows at home in the alpine house but also in a raised bed or a large trough if sheltered by a pane of glass in winter.

George also entered a floriferous Lewisia stebbinsii which, like his Androsace, received a Certificate of Merit. This rarely seen Californian, seldom grown and seldom mentioned in this journal, has a rather slender rootstock issuing a few rosettes of fleshy, lanceolate leaves that die away soon after the short-lived display of rose-pink flowers, borne on short, peripheral stems, comes to an end. Very locally native to the fine shales of the North Coast ranges at around 1,900m, it was described only in 1967, but has been grown, off and on, for the past 40 years.

Dating back at least a decade earlier, Saxifraga x malbyana ‘Hedwig’ DECEMBER 2013

(exhibited as S. diapensioides, but conjecturally this hybrid with S. aretioides) was a tour de force. Shown by Ian Leslie, it differs from its European Alps parent in its ‘wide and longer leaves, longer flower stems bearing slightly smaller cup-shaped flowers, with ivory to creamy petals’ (Porophyllum Saxifrages, 1986). Named for a photographer from Woodford (Essex), Reginald Alfred Malby, a friend of Reginald Farrer, it is a late-flowering member of the Kabschia clan. Sadly S. diapensioides itself has not been exhibited in vintage form of late, and is now seldom offered by nurserymen, whereas at one time Joe Elliott and others made stocks available annually without fail.

Even more recherché, the ‘mossy’ 465

JON EVANS

PLANTS FROM OUR SHOWS SUMMER SHOW SOUTH

Saxifraga fachinii shown by Rick Lambert Saxifraga fachinii was shown by Rick Lambert at Summer Show South a fortnight later, its pale yellowish (but sometimes, records suggest, purple) flowers held one to four on glandularhairy stems about 2cm above compact cushions with a silvery-grey tinge.

Restricted to a small area of the Dolomites, and found in stabilised scree and consolidated debris, it has a certain appeal, akin to the more widespread S. muscoides. Like that species it is less spectacularly showy than contemporaneously blooming species such as S. cebennensis, but is worth a place in specialist collections nonetheless.

A change of continent: George Elder can always be relied upon to bring to the show bench seldom-seen plants in 466

immaculate condition, and one of his more notable submissions this year was Gladiolus floribundus in a creamy-yellow form (it can also be white or pinkish).

The 3-8 flowers per spike – which develops horizontally, rather than increasing in height – have a dark, elegant median streak. One of around an astonishing 110 species from the Cape floral region, it inhabits sandy flats and limestone slopes from the Cederberg Mountains to the Eastern Cape. Some forms are barely 20cm tall, making them very suitable for a cool greenhouse, where the corms increase steadily if kept j u s t f r o s t - f r e e .

Staying and concluding with the offbeat, David Richards won a first Farrer Medal with Salvia cyanescens after several THE ALPINE GARDENER

JON EVANS

SUMMER SHOW SOUTH

close run-ins in recent years, its blueviolet spikes of even height sitting neatly over the silver-grey foliage. This IranoAnatolian perennial subshrub, one of a number of the genus which should be seen more often in gardens, can be anything from 20-60cm tall. This rather slow-growing, dwarfish variant, traceable to a collection made at 800m west of Goynuk (Bolu Province) on shale slopes in the mid-1980s, has set seed reliably since then. In drier climates it will happily survive outdoors, though in British gardens cover the year round is advisable.

JON EVANS

Salvia cyanescens won a first Farrer Medal for David Richards SUMMER SHOW SOUTH

George Elder’s Gladiolus floribundus

Full show reports and more pictures can be seen on the AGS website DECEMBER 2013

467

BOOKS

H

ow many books do you need on gardening and plants? Or, for that matter, how many plants do you grow in your garden? Both are personal to garden and gardener, but a garden can only become increasingly rich with time, and bookshelves more crowded. They become more crowded in variety and subject as well as number, and with this comes a sense of how gardens develop and how different gardeners see plants differently.

Go into any good second-hand bookshop and you will find a wide selection of guides on alpine gardening from the early 1900s onwards. Some, The English Rock Garden by Reginald Farrer and The Present-Day Rock Garden by Sampson Clay, will not be cheap. But many others, including those by renowned alpine plantsmen such as Frank Kingdon Ward (Common Sense Rock Gardening) and Wilhelm Schacht (Rock Gardens & Their Plants), will be on offer for just a few pounds.

All of these books were written during the classical years of the development of rock gardening, described in detail

by Graham Stuart Thomas in his book The Rock Garden and its Plants. For this reason, it is easy to dismiss them as less applicable to the present day, but that would be to ignore the fact that they were written by innovative and enthusiastic growers. Farrer, Robinson and Jekyll still resound with wise words from the early days of the 20th century, a time when all gardeners were developing a more intimate understanding of plants, from which we benefit to this day.

Alpine gardening after the Second

468

Books that enhance our gardening adventure The latest gardening and plant books may be on your wish list this Christmas but, says Tim Ingram, many older volumes should not be ignored

World War changed, as society in general did, and became more egalitarian.

Books on alpines were more personal, such as Alpine Gardening by Roy Elliott, Alpines by Lionel Bacon and Collectors’ Alpines by Royton Heath. Monographs written for gardeners, like A Handbook of Crocus & Colchicum by E. A. Bowles, were rare before the war. A proliferation of these has come only in recent decades.

This must equate with a developing sophistication among gardeners and the diversity of plants that we grow, as well as greater affluence and leisure time to devote to the garden. All along there have been books by travellers and collectors, giving a sense of the origins of plants, but these have been ignored by the majority of gardeners.

THE ALPINE GARDENER

BOOKS

Gardening with alpines is unusual in spanning all of these aspects, as well as the practical skills of propagating and breeding plants. Roy Elliott and Lionel Bacon introduce their respective books in distinctive but complementary ways. The former writes: ‘Why is it, I wondered, that so fascinating a subject should always be paraded in so dreary and monotonous a fashion?’ The result was a book that he set out to write ‘like a novel’ and which combined his great experience of growing plants with his wider reading and erudition.

Lionel Bacon’s book is more traditionally based and also very practical but, as he says: ‘This subject is a vast one and there are still a great many unanswered questions about alpine plants and their cultivation. The longer one gardens, and the wider the range of plants cultivated, the more does one encounter puzzles and inconsistencies DECEMBER 2013

which cannot be disentangled by reference to the literature’. In other words, gardening comes down to personal experience, which will always be guided by the experience of others.

Personal books like these are rare on my shelves. The many monographs and plant encyclopedias feed my wonder at the immense variety of plants in the world, but the former tell you much more about what a garden really is, in the same way that esteemed gardeners such as Margery Fish, Beth Chatto and Christopher Lloyd have written about plants.

Seeing new plants is exciting; growing them yourself even more so. As you learn more about the natural communities of plants around the world, how they are related and the ways they might be put together in the garden, it is inevitable that you come to view plants in an ecological rather than just an individual sense.

469

BOOKS

Some of the books that best capture this are by nurserymen and growers who have also studied plants in the wild. This was true in the past with such figures as Clarence Elliott and Will Ingwersen, and is now with contemporary growers such as Jim Jermyn (The Himalayan Garden and Alpine Plants of Europe) and Dan Hinckley (The Explorer’s Garden). One book, Alpine Plants: Ecology for Gardeners by John Good and David Millward, is unique in placing a scientific emphasis on the way plants grow in mountain habitats, which most of us sense in a more intuitive way, but less accurately.

Ecological principles as guides to gardening have come more to the fore in recent years. They echo the ideas of William Robinson from over a century ago but, at the same time, show a sensitivity to the environment very much of the present day. Keith Wiley’s 470

book On the Wild Side describes his experiences of gardening at the Garden House. It is especially imaginative in drawing inspiration from natural landscapes, using these as models for more ornamental plantings. The New Perennial Garden by Noel Kingsbury was a forerunner in this trend. As far as alpine plants are concerned, these ideas best relate to the more recent developments of crevice and sand gardening as well as, more classically, the woodland garden.

Does any of this have significance for our gardening now? Well, only to the extent that any gardener is stimulated by the experiences of others – every garden is different and personal. If you are really fascinated by plants, it is only natural that you will also be fascinated by the ways others grow them. Alpine plants are immensely varied and some of the most thought-provoking writing comes THE ALPINE GARDENER

BOOKS

from gardeners such as Graham Nicholls and Robert Nold, who describe plants from the dryland climates of North America, which are very different from the better known Alps and Himalayas.

Nold’s book, High and Dry, is in a great tradition of other books by American authors, including Lester Rowntree and Claude Barr, who combined practical experience of growing and collecting plants with the personal style extolled

by Roy Elliott. For a British gardener, it is intriguing to read of plants suited to the continental climate of parts of North America, with its extremes of summer heat and winter cold.

Although only available at present in Swedish, Peter Korn’s beautifully illustrated book on his garden and the natural precepts underlying it takes alpine gardening forward into the 21st century. It shows how a garden can be adapted to grow plants from the world DECEMBER 2013

over in ways that many of us can only marvel at. Few gardeners have the wherewithal to garden on such a scale or with such energy, but the principles behind it can apply on many scales and in many different situations.

Probably the book most lacking in the rock gardener’s library now is one that can take the mantle of The Peat Garden and its Plants by Alfred Evans, or looks in more detail at dwarf ericaceous plants in particular. If this gap relates to the concerns about gardeners using peat, then it somehow misses the point.

Learning about plants and becoming more sensitive to the natural world can only lead to more care in the general use of resources.

The British Isles has always boasted a remarkable variety of gardens but you only have to leaf through The Collector’s Garden by Ken Druse to see that there is equal or even greater freedom of 471

expression and plantsmanship in North America. One of the most striking gardens is that made by Gwen and Panayoti Kelaidis in Denver.

This could not have a more exciting entrance through ‘berms’ planted with eriogonums and acantholimons. There are many other gardens that will inspire, such as those of Geoffrey Charlesworth and Norman Singer and of Fred and Roberta Case, which is so famous for trilliums. Wide carpets of Phlox feature in the Pennsylvania garden of Lee Raden.

In The Plant Hunter’s Garden, Bobby Ward takes a different view and looks at all those who have introduced plants which have enriched our gardens.

Most are little known outside the world of plantspeople and specialist plant societies. As Ward says in his Introduction: ‘I hope here to preserve a bit of information on the contributions 472

made by contemporary plant hunters.’

Both these books are almost like gardening societies in themselves. They describe people and gardens and show the thirst for discovery and creativity that lies behind much of our gardening.

The truth is that books fill our shelves in the same way that plants fill our gardens.

Both enrich our lives and surroundings and in them we share the adventures of others.

As Frank Ronan wrote in an introduction to In My Garden, a collection of the writings of Christopher Lloyd: ‘This is about pleasure and nothing else.’  The Himalayan Garden, The Explorer’s Garden and Alpine Plants: Ecology for Gardeners are still available from the AGS book shop. To order, see AGS News or visit our website.

THE ALPINE GARDENER