The Alpine Gardener - March 2013

331 THE ALPINE GARDENER

Alpine Gardener the

JOURNAL OF THE ALPINE GARDEN SOCIETY

VOL. 81 No. 1 MARCH 2013 pp. 1-118

ISSN 1475-0449

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

Volume 81 No. 1

March 2013

Alpine Gardener THE

CONTENTS 38

3 EDITOR’S LETTER 5 ALPINE DIARY

Robin and Sue White, the 2012 Lyttel Trophy winners; readers’ letters; book reviews.

15 ROBERT ROLFE

Journeys in the Alps and transporting plants by train.

38 INTERVIEW:

STEVE FURNESS John Fitzpatrick visits a nurseryman who has transformed a nondescript piece of land into a remarkable rock garden.

52 BRITAIN’S

WILD FLOWERS

52

Robert Rolfe seeks out native British plants and considers the impact of modern life on their habitats.

66 SWEDISH GARDENS

John Noakes revels in an AGS tour of beautiful gardens.

76 PLANTS IN LESOTHO

76

Miroslav Řičánek savours the flora while camping in the Drakensberg Mountains.

March 2013 Volume 81 No 1

PRACTICAL GARDENING

22 CONSTRUCTING A SLATE TROUGH

Doug Joyce finds out how to make distinctive troughs.

102

30 THE STATELY

CREVICE GARDEN Ross Barbour on the creation of an alpine haven in an aristocratic setting.

86 SHOW REPORTS

Last year’s Malvern, Southport, Summer South, Summer North, Summer Mid West, Autumn South, Loughborough Autumn and Newcastle shows.

COVER PHOTOGRAPHS

Front: Disa fragrans in Lesotho (Miroslav Řičánek) Back: Allium bodeanum exhibited by Ivor Betteridge at Southport Show (Jon Evans) ON THESE PAGES Left: Steve Furness’s rock garden; bicoloured Orchis mascula; Sebaea sedoides in Lesotho Right: Calochortus clavatus var. recurvifolius at Summer Show Mid West; one of Norman Read’s slate troughs; Henrik Zetterlund’s summer cottage

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66

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) £28* Family (two people at same address) £32* Junior (under 18/student) £10 Overseas single US$54 £30 Overseas family US$60 £33 * £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 £6.00 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

JON EVANS

The marsh helleborine, Epipactis palustris, thriving in Hampshire (see page 52)

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hank you to all the members who got in touch after reading my Editor’s Letter in the last issue of The Alpine Gardener, in which I asked for ideas about how the AGS could become involved in conservation.

Your suggestions and enthusiasm have been very encouraging, so much so that the Society has decided to set up a working group to oversee its conservation efforts.

I am pleased to report that the group will be led by Professor John Good, an ecologist and plantsman with a deep interest in preserving natural habitats and the flora that survive in them. In the

MARCH 2013

A role for the AGS in conservation Editor ’s letter next issue of The Alpine Gardener, we will launch the first AGS conservation initiative.

In the meantime, Robert Rolfe’s article about British wild flowers on page 52 of 3

EDITORIAL this issue offers much food for thought.

And please read the Letter from Cynthia Ingram on page 10, in which she suggests that Local Groups should contact their local Wildlife Trusts to offer help in conservation projects. This is an excellent idea. As well as benefiting wild flora and fauna, it would also help to spread awareness of the AGS and perhaps bolster membership of Local Groups.

At national and international levels, the AGS is already exploring links with conservation organisations and we hope to develop these over the months and years ahead. We are still keen to hear of any projects in which the Society could become involved, so please keep the ideas coming in. The more we raise our profile in this way, the more interest we will generate in alpines and associated plants.

I

am writing this in mid-February, when the weather here in the west of England has taken a sudden turn for the better. The garden is dry for the first time in months, at least on the surface, and the toll taken on alpine plants by the wet and humid winter – on top of last year’s wet and humid summer and autumn – is all too plain to see.

Saxifrages, androsaces and others are looking bedraggled, so I’ll propagate from the healthy parts that remain or, in the worst affected, remove the plants altogether. What lifts the spirits is the emergence of plants that can always be relied upon in our climate – the snowdrops, winter aconites, crocuses, dwarf Narcissus, Cyclamen coum and 4

Anemone blanda. It’s a delight to see them once again, these old friends that visit once a year and never let us down.

Y

ou will notice that there are more than the usual number of show reports in this issue of The Alpine Gardener – eight, to be precise. But this takes us neatly to the end of the 2012 show season. From the next issue, we will introduce a new format for covering our wonderful shows, and this will allow more space to be made available for a wider range of articles on a wider range of subjects. Don’t forget that you can visit our website for up-to-date show results and reports throughout the year.

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his year’s issue of the Alpine Garden Society’s Plant Awards Supplement, which reports the awards given by the Joint Rock Garden Plant Committee, will be published within the next few weeks. It will be sent to all members who receive the Shows Handbook and to other members who have requested a copy. If you do not fall into either category but would like to receive a copy, please email or phone the AGS Centre.

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 page 2) or email editor@agsgroups.org.

THE ALPINE GARDENER

JOHN MASSEY

ALPINE DIARY

Robin and Sue White, champions of daphnes, hellebores and so much more

AGS honour for the two artisans of Blackthorn

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he Lyttel Trophy, the Alpine Garden Society’s highest honour, was first awarded in 1940. The Reverend Professor who bestowed it, Edward Shefford Lyttel, taught history at the University of Southampton and retired to garden to the north of the city at Chilworth. Some ten miles north-east of that Hampshire village, Robin and Sue White have been responsible for one of the most influential British nurseries of recent times: Blackthorn.

The ears of any savvy gardener

MARCH 2013

LYTTEL TROPHY WINNERS 2012 will prick up at the mere mention of Blackthorn, just as Broadwell (Joe Elliott) and Gravetye (Will Ingwersen) defined the locales of hugely influential nurserymen who long ago received the award.

Specialist nurseries are often family run – both Elliott and Ingwersen had equally 5

ALPINE DIARY illustrious parents who specialised in alpine plants – and fittingly the 2012 award was jointly bestowed, for Sue White has played a large part in the success of Blackthorn Nursery and ‘has done outstanding work in spreading interest in alpines’ (another stipulation that the award’s founder laid down). Her talent in propagating demanding alpines and her artistic eye, which has governed their deployment in the Whites’ private garden, is second to none.

Moreover, Sue has lectured to countless gardening groups. Although officially retired, she still propagates plants in large numbers, taking them along to events such as one-day conferences or waving off her husband at first light (he has staunchly supported several AGS shows for many years) while she stays at home to tend an exemplary garden.

Lyttel was emphatically catholic in his choice of plants, particularly admiring, as he wrote in an early article, ‘a large number of woodland plants, which enjoy the shade and moisture, and which are in keeping with the less formal parts of the garden’. This chimes very well with swathes of the Whites’ garden, where such plants abound and are given free rein, although it should be said that their interest in generally dwarf, hardy plants runs far wider. They have created diverse congenial habitats in the grounds of the nursery, some outdoors and others under cover in an assortment of frames, glasshouses and polytunnels.

The award’s terms of reference were deliberately couched to encompass a wide range of activities, including candidates who are ‘prominently successful with difficult alpines, or...

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[who have] ... enriched the alpine world by collecting new and rare alpines of merit’. Well, on the first count few can claim greater experience or success than Robin and Sue, for they have jointly been responsible for propagating and distributing in large numbers plants such as Callianthemum anemonoides, Campanula zoysii, Daphne petraea ‘Tremalzo’ and Viola delphinantha – plants that very few others can increase year after year with any degree of certainty.

And while they have in the past travelled to various mountain ranges, from Africa to Nepal, the Whites in the main have amassed plants ‘collected’ through their acquaintance and friendship with planthunters and horticultural authorities such as Peter Erskine, Roy Lancaster, Mikinori Ogisu, Chris Brickell, Peter and Penny Watt and the late Professor William Stearn. From such sources, and from fellow nurserymen including Peter Chappell, John Massey and Keith Wiley, have stemmed many worthwhile introductions that have prospered at Blackthorn, a nursery that had its beginnings 40 years ago and was never exclusively alpine, although from 1995 onwards (the last full season of retailing) the number of shrubs and half-hardy plants offered was reduced, with alpine and near-alpine plants forming the bulk of the list.

Visitors (mail order was never an option) could select from orderly rows of plants that they would struggle to source anywhere else, some very generously sized. As was explained in the introduction to the 1995 list: ‘We like to keep plants growing in their THE ALPINE GARDENER

JON EVANS

ALPINE DIARY

Saxifrages growing in tufa on the edge of the ‘Daphnetum’ at Blackthorn Nursery

containers, not letting them starve or get a constricted root system, so many may be potted on during the growing season.’

The emphasis was always on growing plants to the highest standards, and to this end the nursery was open only on Fridays and Saturdays, starting in February with a Hellebore weekend (Cyclamen, daphnes, snowdrops and a few other early risers were also available) that drew enthusiasts in their droves from far afield. The melees that resulted are the stuff of legend.

Hellebores had a boom in the 1990s, and Blackthorn was among the few nurseries (Elizabeth Strangman at Washfield Nursery was another prime influence) that brought this about, both by championing species such as an earlyMARCH 2013

flowering H. odorus and by breeding hybrids including the audaciously semidouble H. x hybridus Party Dress Group and H. x sternii Blackthorn Group (an Award of Garden Merit selection).

Although living not far from Winchester, from where there are fast trains to London, the Whites much prefer village life, but they staged a number of exhibits in the Royal Horticultural Society’s Halls in the 1990s, some of them 12-pan entries of daphnes at the AGS London Show. There were also stand-alone displays of hellebores in the main and, in an RHS Journal of the time, there is a photograph of Robin being presented to the Queen Mother, who was clearly captivated by the display.

A number of first-rate hybrids have 7

ALPINE DIARY been raised at Blackthorn, some of them deliberately brought about.

Several exciting seedlings using Roscoea purpurea forma rubra ‘Red Gurkha’, one with beetroot-red stems and pale salmon flowers, are about to be unveiled. Others, including the hitherto unrecorded Viola delphinantha x cazorlensis, occurred by chance. There are selections of Hepatica x schlyteri and H. x media; Phygelius x rectus ‘New Sensation’ (the parents from high in the Drakensberg); dactylorhizas, including the excellent D. ‘Robin’s White’, a much-improved seedling of ‘Eskimo Nell’; and, of course, the many, many daphnes.

Robin White is a leading authority on the genus Daphne. It can be said with utter confidence that no one else has grown and propagated them anything like as successfully. His mastery has been demonstrated repeatedly and is ongoing, for he is now trialling dwarf clones of Daphne cneorum, evaluating new hybrids raised at Blackthorn and elsewhere, and achieving a level of success with relative newcomers, such as the Chinese D. modesta, that is unmatched.

Such work has left little time for lecturing or workshops, though he made a very telling contribution to the ‘Daphne 2000’ AGS/RHS event held in that year, while his 2006 book, Daphnes – A Practical Guide for Gardeners, is indispensable. He has also written or contributed to many articles.

The list of hybrids he has bred and distributed is a lengthy one, including D. x susannae ‘Cheriton’ and ‘Tichbourne’ (1988, the epithet referencing Sue White), D. x whiteorum ‘Kilmeston’ (a 8

novel 1989 cross between D. petraea ‘Grandiflora’ and D. jasminea), D. x hendersonii ‘Blackthorn Rose’ (1993) and ‘Marion White’ (1997, the only albino available, named for his mother), and D. x suendermannii ‘Blackthorn Gem’ (1992).

Eclipsing them all when it comes to widespread popularity has been D. x transatlantica ‘Eternal Fragrance’ (D. caucasica x collina). Produced in 1995, but only distributed from 2005, it has been a runaway success in this country but also as far afield as Australasia, opening the eyes of non-specialist gardeners to the rewards of the genus.

The Whites are both gardeners of long-standing and they have sensibly fallen into the practice of taking responsibility for different areas of the garden and nursery. Sue specialises in trough plantings – providing niches for plants as diverse in their requirements as Saxifraga oppositifolia and Teucrium aroanium – and in the propagation of alpines from around the world. These include Oxalis laciniata ‘Seven Bells’ and Fabiana foliosa ‘Cliftonville Limelight’ from the southern Andes, Salvia albimaculata and Asperula daphneola from western Turkey, and Jeffersonia dubia ‘Alba’ and Corydalis kokiana from opposite ends of China.

Now that the nursery is no longer open to the public, and principally involved with wholesale projects, the garden has been greatly developed. In spring the choicest of woodland plants are in abundance, including large drifts of erythroniums, another genus in which the Whites specialise. The highly regarded E. hendersonii ‘Pacific Clouds’ is THE ALPINE GARDENER

JON EVANS

ALPINE DIARY

A mingling of Narcissus pseudonarcissus, Fritillaria meleagris and Anemone blanda in Robin and Sue White’s garden

a Blackthorn raising. An alpine meadow has been created where once there were stock beds. Everything from bird’s-foot trefoil to Mediterranean anemones, Serapias lingua and Rhodohypoxis baurii to Lilium monadelphum can be found, and the display is developing as the years unfold.

While there is no traditional rock garden, alpines are abundant at Blackthorn, in tunnels, troughs, glasshouses, raised beds, borders, mounds, slopes and scree frames. Robin and Sue have contributed greatly to the world of alpines through unstinting hard work, coupled with enormous flair, and they have grown with conspicuous success plants such as Nomocharis MARCH 2013

aperta and Corydalis cashmeriana that one associates not with gardens in southern England but those north of the border, as at Branklyn, where the Rentons once presided. They were the first couple to receive the Lyttel Trophy, 50 years previously, famously growing and propagating plants to a standard that astounded their contemporaries.

The same can be said of their very worthy, most recent successors.

Robert Rolfe  An important three-part series on Blackthorn Nursery and Robin and Sue White’s garden will begin in the June issue of The Alpine Gardener.

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ALPINE DIARY

From Mrs Cynthia Ingram, Coventry

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congratulate your editor on pricking the consciences of those who have in the past despoiled native populations of plants (Editor’s Letter, December 2012).

I wholeheartedly hope that his words are heard and that they galvanise AGS members into action.

I would like to take this one step further and ask that each AGS Local Group contact its local Wildlife Trust to help take steps to redress the depletion of Britain’s wild flowers. Many farmers are well paid to leave a substantial edge to ploughed fields as a sanctuary for wildlife. Some of these areas are fairly well stocked with native flowers and grasses and this is beginning to pay dividends for our insect and bird populations. These sites, however, could be improved in many ways and I see alpine growers as being the ideal people to help towards this end.

Wildlife Trusts should be able to supply information about native plants in their localities, point to places where seed can be collected safely and suggest sites for replanting to give the maximum benefit to wildlife. I am sure we all want to preserve our native bees, butterflies, moths and other insects, not only for their inherent place in the wildlife foodchain but for their usefulness to us all, particularly as pollinators.

From Ian McDonald, Doncaster

I

read with interest the Editor’s Letter in the last issue of The Alpine Gardener.

I agree entirely with John Fitzpatrick’s views on habitat destruction but think 10

AGS Local Groups should help wild plants Letters that mention could have been made of the part played in this by local authority planners. Planning departments, in their ignorance, think that it is acceptable to allow the destruction of habitats and the wildlife that has taken centuries to evolve therein. Local authorities think that biodiversity can be destroyed and then rebuilt using foreign species of plants from foreign suppliers and that everything will be OK in a matter of weeks. Is this a responsible attitude? I have for many years been searching for and photographing our wild flowers and have been lucky enough to have seen many rare and beautiful plants.

On another matter, the use of peat or peat substitutes in seed compost is providing me with poor germination success from the seeds I have, over many years, been able to obtain through the AGS Seed Exchange. It is time that seed composts were once again soil-based.

THE ALPINE GARDENER

ALPINE DIARY

Two of Ian McDonald’s photographs of British native plants.

Left, the bogbean, Menyanthes trifoliata.

Below, the early marsh orchid, Dactylorhiza incarnata

The argument against this is that soil is heavier. The answer is to ask someone at the garden centre to load the compost into your car for you. Also, ask someone to unload it when you get home. A few centimetres of soil removed from a field would make little difference to the overall depth of soil and also provide the landowner with extra income. This soil could then be sterilised for use in compost.

From Susann Nilsson, Mariannelund, Sweden

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ow! As a new member (but a member of three other societies as well) I can only say what a perfect, incredible and outstanding online seed ordering system. Thank you!

MARCH 2013

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ALPINE DIARY

PETER SHEASBY

Lachenalia:

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Lachenalia rubida growing in De Hoop Nature Reserve, South Africa 12

achenalia is a genus of about 130 species of bulbous plants from the winter rainfall area of southern Africa, mainly the Western Cape and Northern Cape provinces of South Africa with a few species from Namibia. They are placed in the hyacinth family and are known locally as Cape hyacinths. They vary in colour from rather muted yellows and browns to brighter reds, pinks and blues. Lachenalias occupy a wide range of habitats from coastal sands to stony mountains. For the springtime visitor to South Africa, identification provides a real challenge and this is where this new book will be so useful.

Previously the main aid was The Lachenalia Handbook, also by Graham Duncan. This short guide illustrated some 97 species and varieties, but most were photographed in cultivation rather than in the wild and it gave limited information on distribution, habitat and botanical detail.

The new monograph is a magnificent 479-page book with 288 photographs, mostly taken in the wild, 39 beautiful paintings and 134 most useful distribution maps. It describes and illustrates all the known species in detail, a significant number of which have never been illustrated before.

Graham Duncan is curator of the Bulbous Plants Living Collection at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town. He has made a lifetime study of the genus Lachenalia and has grown most of the species at THE ALPINE GARDENER

ALPINE DIARY

the definitive account BOOK REVIEWS The Genus Lachenalia by Graham Duncan, published by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, £120. ISBN 9781842463826

Kirstenbosch, so he is well placed to give advice on cultivation as well as identification. There is therefore an excellent chapter on cultivation and propagation. While lachenalias are best grown in containers, he lists 25 species that are frost tolerant to -5C (for short periods), and five species that will

withstand temperatures of -15C (for short periods).

In South Africa, a number of the brighter species are used for rock garden and bedding displays outside, but the need for dry conditions in the dormant summer period and the desirability of good light in the winter growing period make this difficult in northern climates. The answer for us is to grow them in containers in a cool greenhouse, conservatory or on a sunny windowsill, and guidance is given on this. Under these conditions species such as Lachenalia aloides and L. mutabilis can be grown well here, as is increasingly shown in the alpine house displays at Wisley and Kew. The book is beautifully produced and is a must for botanists and horticulturists interested in identifying or growing this fascinating group of plants.

Peter Sheasby

An expert’s guide to bulbs A Gardener’s Guide to Bulbs

by Christine Skelmersdale, published by The Crowood Press, £25. ISBN 9781847973764

MARCH 2013

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hose of us (me included!) who are deeply into bulbs have become more and more enchanted and interested in the rarer and more difficult species, which inevitably must be grown under carefully controlled conditions and therefore in pots.

It is very easy to forget that the majority of gardeners like to have colourful gardens and that bulbs are an essential part of these, especially in certain 13

ALPINE DIARY

14

PETER SHEASBY

seasons of the year. This excellent book admirably addresses this.

The author has been growing bulbs in her five-acre garden and running a bulb nursery – Broadleigh Gardens, near Taunton, Somerset – for more than 40 years. Her accumulated knowledge and experience is evident throughout the book, with all sorts of useful hints on what to plant where, and what goes with what. For example: the vigour of Cyclamen hederifolium leaves can overcome the (slightly) less vigorous C. coum. Or: tulips look unimpressive when dotted about the place (like they often are in the wild) and are better in a ‘mass’.

There is an introduction followed by four chapters on bulbs that flower in each of the four seasons. An easily understood table summarises the what, where and when of planting times, preferred positions in the garden, eventual sizes and flowering times.

The introductory chapter considers what bulbs actually are; their uses in the garden in various conditions (sunny borders, shady spots, grass, rock gardens, troughs and other containers); planting methods and aftercare. What became clear to me was the need for planning. I am often to be seen wandering the garden, trowel in one hand and a bag of bulbs in the other, looking for a place to plant them, only to return unsuccessfully to the potting shed and pick up another bag and repeat the futile exercise without proper planning.

I wonder if this book will get me out of such unconscious repetition.

The four seasonal chapters contain sections on each genus, with lists of

Narcissus cyclamineus at RHS Garden Wisley

the most growable and commercially available species and some worthwhile hybrids and cultivars, often with wise guidance on the particular requirements of each. I have certainly been encouraged to try planting a few different things in my garden.

The book is well written but there are a few little errors of spelling and mislabelling of pictures. There is even a picture of what looks like a virused Crocus etruscus. But these do not detract from a reasonably priced (less than the price of one of the Galanthus bulbs cited!) guide.

It will feature on my bookshelf and I can certainly recommend it for yours.

Bob Wallis THE ALPINE GARDENER

ALPINE DIARY

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ast September, north-east England’s latest landmark, designed by landform artist and architect Charles Jencks, was officially opened by the Princess Royal on the Blagdon estate. A quarter of a mile long and some 100ft high, Northumberlandia takes the form of a recumbent woman covered with grass to preserve her modesty but with a strong suggestion of sensuality in her extravagant contours.

Coincidentally, I read of this while on the train that takes the East Coast Main Line from London to Edinburgh, and which just south of Newcastle passes the much-loved Angel of the North, a steel statue 66ft tall with rigidly splayed arms like glider wings.

Erected on its hilltop site in 1998, the Angel surveys Gateshead, and in particular an area that is now a mix of housing, industrial estates, parks and shops. Twenty-five years ago this land had been left derelict by the demise of heavy industries and was earmarked for ‘urban regeneration’. And so, in 1990, the Gateshead National Gardening Festival was held there from May to October, though the Alpine Garden Society’s involvement was limited to a weekend show in late May. Among those present was Joy Hulme, a mainstay of the AGS garden that won a Large Gold Medal at the Liverpool National Gardening Festival in 1984.

She had worked tirelessly on that earlier enterprise, afterwards noting, with characteristic precision and unwavering directness: ‘None of those members who so ardently desire participation in the conduct of the Society’s affairs came MARCH 2013

Travels in the Alps and travails on a train ROBERT ROLFE forward to help, and the response from members generally and from some of our better-known growers individually was not on any scale commensurate with the size of the problem.’

Laudable in its aims, the Gateshead affair was decidedly ‘parks and gardens’ overall, and while I recall some good plants in the AGS show (including two wondrous exhibits of Geranium farreri, far finer than any I’ve seen since), it wasn’t a vintage display. There were also grumblings about the legitimacy of some of the exhibits. Ownership of rare or celebrated plants is often a tendentious matter, whether it involves comment from wistful would-haves, waspish have-nots or well-intentioned, ‘better left in the wild’ worthies. Not letting go also plays a part.

‘You’ve done well with my plant,’ onetime AGS vice-president and nonpareil grower of demanding alpines 15

ALPINE DIARY

The Crête de la Taillante in the Cottian Alps is well worth investigating for its flora

Eric Watson once told a friend who had entered in competition what had in truth been given as a single shoot from Eric’s Farrer Medal-winning Gentiana “alpina”. This was a remarkably floriferous, dwarf trumpet gentian, but was better labelled as a distinguished G. acaulis representative.

Joy knew Eric Watson well. ‘I’m visiting Eric to see some proper plants,’ she huffed after we judged together at Gateshead: he lived not far to the north at Wideopen. She always played by the rules. The legendary Connie Greenfield left her equally legendary Daphne petraea ‘Grandiflora’ to Joy with the qualifier: ‘Cherish it; propagate it; repot it if you dare. But please never show it because I’ve had it so long that it will always be mine.’ Joy did just that.

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Mrs Greenfield, another past vicepresident who specialised in high alpines, was not the bumbling little old lady some took her for. She was firm, determined and, to use the timehonoured phrase, ‘didn’t suffer fools gladly’.

Even so, her default predisposition was to be very generous indeed. Noticing me, a 14-year-old, at a show, she asked for help carrying her plants from the show bench back to the car. Then she instructed someone in the kitchen to provide a fork and spoon, and with these set about the peripheral parts of a spectacular panful of Pleione limprichtii and its fellow exhibit, Primula x forsteri ‘Bileckii’, gouging out divots from both.

Handing them over and beaming the meanwhile, in typical no-nonsense THE ALPINE GARDENER

ALPINE DIARY

Montpellier-le-Vieux, notable for a profusion of orchids and spectacular topography

fashion she told the show secretary: ‘Find him some plastic bags, why don’t you?’

I first met Joy at the AGS London Autumn Show in 1982. It was at that time held in Westminster and she was the AGS Publicity Officer, excelling in that role, for she knew everyone of note. She preferred to grow and champion true alpines and wildlings. ‘If I don’t grow them, who else will?’ she once said to me. A Francophile, she spoke excellent French, had many French friends and liked nothing more than scrambling up the higher peaks of the Pyrenees and the Alps in search of plants. Every year she would travel to one or the other with her husband Jack, taking photographs by the hundred.

We haven’t published many typical MARCH 2013

alpine scenes of late, so I’ve chosen one from her journeys in the Queyras (locate the Cottian Alps and you will be in the right area) that illustrates her many trips to the French Alps. How many who read this could identify more than a handful of peaks in the Alps, once picture-postcard ones such as the Matterhorn and the Eiger have been ticked off? But the Crête de la Taillante (3,197m, 10,500ft), a 4km long granite ‘wave’, is unmistakable and well worth investigating for its flora.

Its crests are home to what have long been puzzled over as atypical populations of Androsace pubescens (hybridisation with A. helvetica has been suggested). There are limestone intrusions hereabouts, and several hanging valleys that amply repay 17

ALPINE DIARY investigation. A trip up to Lac Foréant is particularly recommended, though even in June it can still be frozen over, with much surrounding snow.

Joy was a good friend of Lionel Bacon, whose Mountain Flower Holidays in Europe remains serviceable 34 years after its publication, and she was conversant with many of the areas covered in the book. Occasionally she detoured to less lofty but florally rich destinations such as Montpellier-le-Vieux, on the southern edge of the Causée Noir, Aveyron, formed of dolomite limestone and notable for its profusion of orchids and its spectacular topography.

Nonetheless, high alpines were Joy’s first love and she would tackle forbidding gradients to see them. I have a slide of Jack’s showing Saxifraga florulenta on high and another depicting Geum reptans abundant in the screes nearby. This she grew remarkably well in a refrigerated bench in her Woking garden, devised by Jack.

She once staged a glorious Campanula cenisia that came within an inch of winning a Farrer Medal. She remained outwardly composed when it didn’t, but inwardly she seethed. Not one to go in for large pots of what she considered ‘bloated alpines’, she regularly entered small six-pan exhibits of the highest quality.

Joy took plants to AGS shows in her husband’s Range Rover (when it once developed gear-box trouble, he straightaway phoned up the chairman of the company, tore him off a strip and demanded a new model: Jack was that sort of man).

The stories of the paces through which 18

he put his house guests are legion. I once took a bottle of wine as a guest’s gift. He was initially furious by this perceived insult to his hospitality, but within a few minutes saw reason and embraced me like a close friend. However, I was required to divine how many speakers were at any one time functioning in his state-of-the-art sound system. The inquisition went on until well after midnight. That said, the next morning he went out at first light to fetch my favourite newspaper and insisted that I should visit again at the earliest opportunity, following up with a ‘Thank you for staying’ card.

Joy was very personable and had many gardening friends. Among them was that gentlest, most unassuming of patrician gardeners, Bill MacKenzie, who was Curator of Chelsea Physic Garden for almost 30 years from 1946 after a distinguished stint at Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden (Gentiana ‘Inverleith’ was one of the plants he had a hand in raising). His Surrey home was not far from hers, and he once told me that her main bulb border, which stretched 20 yards or more down the left-hand side of the back garden, was the finest he had ever seen. He was courtesy personified and never one to flaunt his very considerable knowledge.

Though Joy travelled throughout Europe, France and northern Spain were her favourite destinations. I have a letter, dated July 12, 1985, when she had just returned from the Picos de Europa, having encountered wild daffodils in profusion, including ‘3.8 miles (she was ever a precisionist) of Narcissus nobilis on either side of the road – an unforgettable THE ALPINE GARDENER

ALPINE DIARY

Viola valderia growing at La Madone de Fenestre in the French Alps

sight’. A few years earlier, near the SwissFrench border, she had witnessed N. poeticus in similar profusion.

Alpine violas she also loved, for all that they wilted in the summer heat of her alpine house, ‘despite shading, water on the floor, three fans (one of industrial capacity), and a triple importation of the red spider mite predator Phytoseiulus persimilis’.

The greenhouse had been bought ‘second-hand from a neighbour who’d had it lying around in heaps in his garden for several years. Not only did we have to clean the aluminium with caustic soda and work out what went where, but Jack had to deduce the size of the brick base. He was successful to within half an inch’. For some years she grew Viola valderia very well (it is MARCH 2013

restricted to a small area of the French Maritime Alps and is at present very little known in gardens), along with the southern Spanish V. crassiuscula and the Pyrenean V. diversifolia. Who continues to champion and succeed with these nowadays?

Joy went up to the London shows by train, but, as mentioned, Jack transported her exhibits to other mainly southern shows by car. I, on the other hand, have much experience of transporting mine by rail. The hazards – some obvious, others surprising – are numerous. Harold Esslemont long ago wrote of a friend to whom a spectacularly floriferous Paraquilegia anemonoides was entrusted for the day, since he couldn’t attend the show himself. At the train station, all went well until the friend’s back 19

ALPINE DIARY was turned, during which brief time a bored child nipped over and plucked the flowers by the dozen.

Nothing like that has happened to me, thankfully, though I once had to defend a plant from a security guard’s zeal.

He watched me get out of a taxi, then struggle with a large pot of Saxifraga pubescens ‘Snowcap’ in full bloom across the near-deserted concourse (it was barely 5am) in order to buy my ticket.

Putting the heavy cargo down, I must have taken all of six steps to reach the counter. But when I returned to the plant, he strutted over, performed a carefully rehearsed ‘Is this item yours?’ routine, pointed out the danger of leaving objects unattended (as if a suspect device could be infiltrated within the flowery mound) and consulted with his superior over the phone before ‘Letting it go, this time’.

Not far away, a huddle of strung-out clubbers popped what I imagine were non-prescription pills, unchallenged by this hero of the hour.

And when the AGS held one of its autumn shows in Sussex, I would routinely get up equally early, catch the first train to London, then sprint to catch the Gatwick Express service from Victoria station, changing again to reach Horsham with just minutes to spare before judging began. Once I took along a panful of Crocus serotinus subsp. salzmannii forma albus ‘El Torcal’ (my favourite among the autumn-flowering species), so weighty that my right arm was in spasm by the time that I had gone up one set of stairs, down another and over to the taxi rank. ‘I don’t want a dirty pot in my car,’ said the surly owner of the only taxi present.

20

‘The pot is clean as a whistle,’ I countered. ‘Can you say the same of your car?’ My journey from station to show hall was conducted in an icy silence.

Yet mostly people say nice things about the cargo of plants, or do their best to assist. In northern England, at Darlington station (the nearest dropping-off point for the Cleveland Show), for five years on the trot I caught the same train there each Easter Saturday. The second time I was greeted by the same taxi driver who had taken me onwards the last time. ‘I know where you’re going – no need for directions,’ came the voice from the driver’s seat.

‘I’m an allotment gardener,’ he added, ‘but isn’t that a Primula?’ His eye on the mirror as much as on the road, he had correctly identified my Primula ‘Ron Beeston’, which upon arrival he helped to shelter from the driving rain.

A year went by: stepping from the railway carriage, I heard ‘I’ve been expecting you’ (he didn’t add ‘Mr Bond’) from the other side of the railings. And so the pattern was repeated, until I was given a lift from door to door and dropped the train journey. It felt like a small act of treachery on my part.

Similarly, my opinion of football supporters soared after two of the seemingly most belligerent of that breed came to my aid at Sheffield station.

Ex-Director of Shows Jim McGregor gave me a lift back there, helping me onto the relevant platform with the largest Campanula jaubertiana I’ve ever managed to grow.

All went well until a last-minute platform change. But as I hobbled towards the stairs, two men of the sort THE ALPINE GARDENER

ALPINE DIARY

Robert Rolfe’s well-travelled pan of Primula ‘Ron Beeston’

you might expect to see at the end of a match being pushed into the back of a Black Maria approached. They insisted on taking an end each of the container and carrying it – a little uncertainly, but I wasn’t going to complain – all the way to the right platform. And once on board the train, one of them bought me coffee, which out of politeness I managed to swallow. I’ve not had another cup since.

The tales they regaled me with on the 45-minute journey home were eyebrowraising and far from law-abiding.

There are many other means of transporting plants. At Wymondham last May, Kit Grey-Wilson brought along a huge glazed pot containing Rhodanthemum ‘African Eyes’, which I volunteered to carry the 100 yards MARCH 2013

from the car park. It was a decidedly cold morning, however, so the exterior of the pot was clammy and slippery and there was no possibility of using the thin rim to gain a proper grip. As I buckled at the halfway stage, another AGS vice-president, Rod Leeds, caught sight of me and came clattering over with a tea trolley, which with some steadying proved a handy means of completing the journey. Just as well, for the pot contained an ants’ nest, and the occupants began pouring out by the score in search of revenge – a lucky escape!

When it comes to manhandling sizeable plants any considerable distance, brace yourself for pitfalls and any number of tales of the unexpected.

21

PRACTICAL GARDENING

Learn how to build a stylish slate trough

E

ast Anglia presents some stiff challenges when it comes to growing alpines in the open garden. The climate is unsympathetic and there is an absence of suitable local natural stone. True, there are extensive stretches of chalk running across the region, but it is far too soft to emulate limestone and, save for the flints embedded within it, one has to seek out ‘glacial debris’ transported into the region from afar.

Flint has long been used to construct decorative walls and buildings, but as an integral feature for growing and displaying alpines it is much too hard and glassy. A few plants can be encouraged to flourish in mortar-filled spaces between flint, notably ivy-leaved toadflax or Kenilworth ivy (Cymbalaria muralis) and fairy foxglove (Erinus alpinus), but as attractive as these can be, they hardly equate to a rich alpine experience.

So the enthusiast has to be more creative and resourceful both to grow and to display choice alpines. Norman Read, a member of the Alpine Garden Society who belongs to the Norfolk Group and who lives twixt ‘The Breckland’ and ‘The Fen’, has satisfied both criteria by recycling and fashioning scrap roofing slates into decorative troughs with a distinctive appeal.

22

Real stone troughs are scarce and expensive, leading many alpine gardeners to create hypertufa substitutes. Inventive AGS member Norman Read has come up with an alternative – troughs built from scraps of roofing slate. Doug Joyce visited Norman to find out how he makes them What started as a hobby to satisfy his personal needs has now blossomed into supplying friends, AGS raffles, shows and conferences, and there’s even talk of his troughs being staged as part of a Chelsea Flower Show exhibit.

There is no lack of demand for such bespoke troughs, but there is a shortage of raw materials. Roofing slates, damaged or otherwise, are becoming noticeably scarcer.

On the following pages, we see how Norman constructs these troughs. Just follow the instructions and the pictures to make your own, or at the very least get in touch with Norman if you are ‘DIY-challenged’ but guardian to a stack of unwanted slate. He can be contacted through either the AGS Centre or the Norfolk Group.

THE ALPINE GARDENER

SLATE TROUGHS

A selection of distinctive slate troughs built by Norman Read

WHAT YOU WILL NEED Materials  A good supply of slate strips, cut to 3-4cm in width, to create the sides of the trough, along with a few additional strips 7-8cm in width to use as capping for the sides.  A suitably sized and polythenecovered board on which to build the trough.  A supply of cement, to which you will add soft sand (for mortar), sharp sand (for a screed), and sharp sand plus gravel (for the concrete base).

MARCH 2013

 Cementone black colouring agent and mortar plasticiser (for creating a smooth ‘black’ mortar). A consistent amount of colouring agent should be added to each batch of mortar to achieve the desired colour (two tablespoons per 4 litres of dry mortar).  A suitable reinforcing wire frame for the concrete base.  Some short lengths of plastic piping to create drainage holes in the base.  A heavy-duty tile adhesive such as Weber.set for attaching the slate capping (mortar is not strong enough).

23

PRACTICAL GARDENING

Cutting the slate into strips using a water-cooled tile-cutter (efficient and no dust). Left, the raw material

Tools  A tile-cutter or angle-grinder for cutting the slate into strips (take precautions against dust).  Suitable buckets and a barrow for mixing mortar and concrete.  A pair of pliers for fine-trimming the slate strips.  A small trowel, preferably with a short and rounded end.  A small home-made wooden float for finishing the screed.  A wire brush for the removal of excess mortar from the slate walls and to exposes the joints in a decorative manner.

24

THE ALPINE GARDENER

SLATE TROUGHS

A quantity of slate strips cut to 3-4cm wide and ready for construction

THE CONSTRUCTION Briefly, the construction is in five stages: 1. Cut and trim the slate.

2. Build 6-7cm high slate trough walls using the polythene-covered board as a base, overlapping the slate joints.

Use the enclosure as the mould within which to cast the reinforced concrete base, some 5cm thick and with the reinforcing wire and plastic drainage pipes inserted (the concrete mix should be ‘fairly sloppy’ so that it will flow readily into the corners). Allow to dry and cure, cleaning away any excess mortar from the slate.

3. Continue to build the slate walls to MARCH 2013

the desired height, using the blackcoloured mortar. Allow the mortar to dry overnight and remove any excess with a wire-brush, leaving the joints exposed in a decorative manner.

4. Apply the final capping-layer of 7-8cm wide slate using the tile cement. Allow a 2-3cm overlap on the inside of the trough walls for the screed, and a 0.5-1cm decorative overlap on the outside.

5. When dry, apply a screed finish to the inside of the trough using the innercapping overlap as a guide to thickness.

Smooth and finish the screed with the small wooden float. Allow the finished trough to cure for a minimum of two days before attempting to move it.

25

PRACTICAL GARDENING

A selection of polythene-covered boards on which to build the troughs. Below, preparing the decorative ‘black’ mortar by adding colouring agent and plasticiser

26

THE ALPINE GARDENER

SLATE TROUGHS

Norman constructs a retaining wall of slate within which to cast the concrete base.

Note the use of the blunt-ended trowel. Below, trimming slate to length with pliers

MARCH 2013

27

PRACTICAL GARDENING

Mix the concrete and trowel it into the mould, adding reinforcing wire and drainage pipes. Ensure the corners are well-filled. Below, build the walls to the desired height and attach the capping with tile cement. Use a wire-brush to expose the mortar joints

28

THE ALPINE GARDENER

SLATE TROUGHS

Apply the screed using the inner-capping overlap to determine its thickness. It should be about 3cm. Below, smooth-off and finish the screed with the small hand-made wooden float

MARCH 2013

29

PRACTICAL GARDENING

Crevice gardens continue to grow in popularity among alpine enthusiasts, but none can have a grander setting than the 60 metre-long bed built by AGS member Ross Barbour at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire. Ross, who is Ragley’s head gardener, describes how he tackled this large project

W

hen I first saw the crevice garden at the AGS Centre in Pershore in 2009, I knew I had to have one. I had always grown a few alpines at home and there had usually been some kind of ‘rockery’ in the gardens I had worked in, but not at Ragley Hall.

With 25 years of horticultural experience, including 14 years as head gardener at Ragley, I thought I knew a bit about alpines. It turned out that I knew very little – the plants I had tried were easily grown and widely available. So when I decided to turn the 60m x 1.5m (200ft x 5ft) border below the South Terrace at Ragley into an alpine garden, I really had no idea of the journey of discovery that I was about to take.

When 12 tons of Pennant sandstone was delivered from Mine Train Quarry in the Forest of Dean, my first task was to dig in some of the larger rocks.

By sinking them a good 30cm deep at intervals I could create strong anchors that would serve to hold everything together, a bit like bookends.

I then began placing the other rocks between these keystones and it was not long before I could see the structure taking shape. Pennant sandstone is an excellent material to work with and the big slabs are fairly easy to manoeuvre. It

30

Crevice garden in a stately setting is, however, very rough and I wore out several pairs of gloves during the build.

Most of the blocks I had were quite thick, and what proved time-consuming was splitting them into suitable thinner slabs. Sandstone is made up of layers and it is fairly easy to split with a hammer and a bolster chisel. Getting two or even three pieces from one rock is a satisfying job for a day or two, but it gets a bit tiresome when there are several tons to customise!

When placing these rocks it was a case of digging out or adding soil to achieve the desired height and to keep the overall shape and appearance that I wanted.

As well as creating high and dry spots for plants that dislike wet conditions, I designed sunken areas and shady niches THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE STATELY CREVICE GARDEN

The new 60 metre-long crevice garden on the South Terrace of Ragley Hall

for those that prefer a cooler aspect, out of strong sunlight.

As the crevice garden began to take shape, with all its nooks and crannies, I tried to do something a little different

in each section. Some had smooth contours, some areas were a bit more jagged in appearance and one section had a vertical face.

Crevices create a great root run for

RAGLEY DISCOUNT FOR AGS MEMBERS Ragley Hall, eight miles west of Stratford-upon-Avon, is the family home of the 9th Marquess and Marchioness of Hertford. The Ragley Estate covers an area of 6,500 acres and includes parkland originally landscaped by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. The 25-acre gardens feature a variety of planting styles. AGS members can receive MARCH 2013

a concessionary admission rate of £5 per person to Ragley Park and Gardens throughout their open season from March 16 to October 27, 2013, on production of a valid AGS membership card. Standard admission prices are £8.50 for adults and £5.50 for children.

For more information visit www.ragleyhall.com.

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PRACTICAL GARDENING

Ragley Hall head gardener Ross Barbour plants up part of the crevice garden 32

THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE STATELY CREVICE GARDEN

There is wide variety in the size of the stones and the gaps between them

alpines, allowing the roots to reach deep down into the soil, protecting them from excessive temperature changes.

The excellent drainage helps to stop the necks of the plants getting too wet.

I have built ten sections of crevices, each separated by expanses of scree. Each section is quite individual but I wish I hadn’t stuck to the same orientation for all the rock. It looks attractive and uniform but lacks that natural feel.

Since starting this project, I have examined many rock strata and formations. They all display uniformity but still manage to appear random. It would have been nice to mix things up MARCH 2013

a bit but to do so convincingly takes experience. Practice!

I back-filled each crevice with a mixture of gritty soil and sharp sand, pushing it down between the rocks. I found that the best tool for this was a piece of hazel rod with one end rounded and the other cut like the blade of a knife. This is also a useful tool for planting. In addition I was able to push in smaller slivers of rock, increasing the number of crevices and tightening the gaps. The soil mix was topped off with sharp sand.

Unfortunately, I filled the gaps to the top edges of the stones without thinking about top-dressing the crevices with 33

PRACTICAL GARDENING

Raised areas at the shady end of the bed will accommodate woodlanders 34

THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE STATELY CREVICE GARDEN

Ragley’s winter garden, which Ross has developed during his time there

an attractive grit. So I had to go back through the bed and scrape out about 6cm from every crevice to allow for this.

Very frustrating!

It has taken over three years to build this garden. There are 25 acres to manage at Ragley, including our rose garden, herbaceous borders, the winter garden, a summer meadow, prairie garden and the ‘Fumpery’ (a stumpery and fernery), so time is limited. Along the way I have learned a tremendous amount about the diversity of alpines and their needs.

After the crevice garden was completed came the fun of planting it up. Several hundred plants have gone in so far, including various saxifrages, MARCH 2013

sempervivums, daphnes, crocuses and the tougher androsaces. I must admit I was a little daunted by how many plants I might need and where I was going to source them, but it wasn’t long before I discovered all the fantastic specialist alpine nurseries and the first-rate plants they sell. Plants were also given by friends, colleagues and, of course, by fellow AGS members after I decided to join the Society.

At the start of the project all I had to go on was my memory and a few photographs from Pershore. However, over the past 18 months, I have been sucked into the amazing world of alpines and have discovered the enormous range 35

PRACTICAL GARDENING

Ross has made glass shelters to protect young plants susceptible to winter wet

and diversity of plants, as witnessed by the books, monographs and AGS Bulletins that can now be found all over my house and are much studied. I had so many burning questions, and the place to find the answers was among 36

the people who know. The AGS and its members have all been tremendously helpful and very generous with their knowledge.

Initially, the areas between each section of crevice were left as bare soil THE ALPINE GARDENER

THE STATELY CREVICE GARDEN

A young Daphne is lowered into place. Right, Galanthus ‘Lavinia’ at Ragley

for planting more vigorous plants, but as my knowledge has increased, so the alpine garden has evolved. All bar one of the spaces have been dug out and about five tons of soil has been removed to be replaced with sandstone chippings, topdressed with larger lumps of Pennant sandstone to create screes. Each scree is a little different – deeper, larger topdressing and so on – to accommodate different plants.

This has really set off the whole area and pulled it together. I have left one small area which in time I hope to turn into a tufa bed, but tufa is proving very difficult to find.

The last 20m of the border is quite shady, so I have left it free of crevice and scree. In this space I have created raised MARCH 2013

beds using branches from our tree maintenance work and incorporated large quantities of leaf-mould into the soil. This will be planted with lots of choice woodlanders that should do very well in these conditions. The final five metres I would like to make into a peat bed. I know it’s not PC, but think of the plants I could grow in it!

Learn how to build a crevice garden with this guide by Zdeněk Zvolánek, available from the AGS.

37

...

TH IS

FR OM

I

The making of

f you have built a rock garden, you’ll know that it involves hard work.

Manoeuvring boulders into position, digging grit and organic matter into the soil and top-dressing with gravel are time-consuming and strenuous activities. It’s one reason why alpine enthusiasts tend to have a rock garden on just part of their plots, even if they would like to devote entire gardens to alpine plants.

When, at the age of 27, Steve Furness used his student grant as a deposit for a house and an acre of land, he knew from the outset that he wanted to build a large rock garden packed with alpines.

Such was the impressive scale of his construction that the garden was given a coveted listing in the National Gardens Scheme yellow book while the work was still in progress. Steve recalls a comment 38

John Fitzpatrick drops in on Dr Steve Furness, who has single-handedly transformed a nondescript patch of land in Derbyshire into a captivating alpine garden and nursery from an underwhelmed woman who had journeyed a considerable distance to visit Fir Croft Garden in Calver, on the northern fringe of Derbyshire’s Peak District. ‘I haven’t come all this way just to see a huge pile of gravel,’ she exclaimed.

Another visitor observed: ‘It’s the most realistic scree I have seen. The plants are miles apart.’

Steve bought Fir Croft in 1981, when THE ALPINE GARDENER

TH IS TO ...

a rock garden

Dr Steve Furness in the garden that has been a labour of love for 30 years MARCH 2013

39

INTERVIEW

This photograph, taken in 1986, shows rockwork and the pond under construction

he was studying for a PhD in botany at Sheffield University. It is a steeply sloping, west-facing, rectangular plot surrounded by 370m (1,200ft) hills and is also the site for his nursery, The Alpine Plant Centre.

‘The first thing I did was put a rabbit fence around the area and create an amphitheatre by planting 450 conifers around the perimeter,’ he recalls. ‘I dug out eight large elms by hand and rotovated the entire site. It stayed that way until 1985, when I decided to start building the rock garden and open an alpine nursery.’

Steve’s interest in alpines was kindled when he was a boy. ‘In the 1960s, when I was growing up in Sheffield, all gardens 40

were the same – bedding plants and roses with a path down the middle,’ he says.

‘My grandmother’s garden was different because she grew alpines and dwarf conifers. She cultivated lots of lewisias before any garden centre was offering them. She taught me how to grow plants from cuttings, which I loved to do. As a Yorkshireman, getting something for nothing appealed to me.’

It took Steve two years to build the largest pond and the main section of the rockery, and another two to complete the scree in front of the pond. He set up floodlights so that he could work through the night after returning from a day at college.

‘The site is on pure clay and I THE ALPINE GARDENER

STEVE FURNESS

One of Steve’s exceptional photographs of a water shrew in his garden

encountered and overcame many problems during the construction,’ he admits. ‘I moved hundreds of tons of soil, rock and gravel in the process.’ He brought in 300 tons of limestone and gravel from local quarries.

In 1991 Steve completed work on a new scree above the main pond and has continued to develop the site into what is surely one of the finest rock gardens to have been built in Britain over the past 30 years. The work included a major renovation in 2007 when the large pond sprang a leak due to deterioration of the butyl liner.

Another problem occurred when the pond froze. Thawing around the perimeter resulted in what he describes MARCH 2013

as a ‘huge iceberg’. As it moved, it smashed concrete that had been used to construct the edges. The three ponds and cascade system have a capacity of 15,000 gallons, with 2,000 gallons of water circulated every hour around a 4.3m (14ft) head. Kingfishers and dippers are regular visitors, and Steve is rightly proud of the fact that water shrews have taken up residence. In fact he is the first person in Britain to have filmed them in the wild.

As Steve’s garden has developed, so has his business, and The Alpine Plant Centre now attracts between 10,000 and 12,000 visitors a year. ‘This is an obvious area in which to grow alpines because a lot of people have rock in their gardens,’ 41

STEVE FURNESS The main pond at Fir Croft Garden, which lies at the base of a cascade system with a 14ft head

he says. ‘Several of my customers have built fantastic alpine gardens, and many of them aren’t AGS members.’

His site has grown, too, and he now owns 15 acres. Much of it is given over to wildflower meadows, where the prevailing hues of the flora in spring and early summer change from white to blue to yellow. There is also a plantation of 8,000 Christmas trees.

Steve’s land lies across a convergence of gritstone and limestone – known locally as the Dark Peak and White Peak – resulting in different habitats and floras. In his rock garden the soil pH is an alkaline 7.5 to 8, but just 250m away and 45m (150ft) higher, the pH is a very acidic 4.5. This contrast can be seen clearly by the growth – and lack of growth – of the wavy hair grass Deschampsia flexuosa, which has a preference for acidic, free-draining soil and avoids chalk and limestone areas.

Running the nursery and keeping the garden in order take up much of Steve’s time, but his activities don’t stop there.

He teaches ecology and field taxonomy to students from primary school age to post-graduates. ‘I want students to learn that plants can tell us about the places in which they grow – how different mosses, grasses and lichens give us clues about the local environment,’ he says. ‘I hope that I help to stir in young people an interest in growing plants.’

He is also a keen entomologist, photographer and fly fisherman, and

43

INTERVIEW

These limestone outcrops are visible from Fir Croft Garden

serves as a river bailiff on a section of the River Derwent. He cares deeply about conservation and fought a 15-year battle to save, from quarrying, 350 acres of limestone habitat in the Peak District National Park.

Meteorology is another interest, and Steve admits to being obsessive about cloud inversions. ‘I have taken hundreds of photographs of them,’ he says. ‘You never see two the same. I’ve seen inversions from below head height, just a few feet deep, up to hundreds of feet deep. Quite often they occur when the temperature is below freezing. On 44

average we get frost on 110 days a year and in every month, even in August.’

Steve has between 3,000 and 4,000 species and varieties of plants in cultivation at any one time. ‘In any year I generally grow only 15 of each plant for sale because I don’t have the capacity to stock larger numbers,’ he says. ‘I don’t list plants in the RHS Plant Finder because I would be continually disappointing people. For the same reason, I don’t produce a catalogue. At AGS shows I can sell an entire year’s stock of one plant in an hour.

‘Sedums, saxifrages and sempervivums THE ALPINE GARDENER

STEVE FURNESS

The stream at the top of Steve’s rock garden supports a rich and colourful flora

are my favourite plants. My grandmother grew lots of them and her garden was just magical. Hundreds of children have visited the nursery over the years and the plants they always love and want to start to collect are sempervivums. They ignore all the colourful flowering specimens.

I have about 1,000 sempervivums and 100 jovibarbas in cultivation. I like to grow all the other staple rock plants such as Dianthus, Phlox, rock roses and, of course, dwarf conifers, of which there are more than 250 varieties in the garden. Some I’ve had for ten years or less, which isn’t long enough to assess MARCH 2013

their suitability as garden plants, while others are over 50 years old.’

Steve doesn’t attempt to grow the trickier alpine house plants such as dionysias, Primula allionii or androsaces.

‘As far as I’m concerned, the fact that they require such cosseting makes them less desirable,’ he says. ‘Everything I grow has to be hardy here. I don’t want an alpine house because I don’t have time to look after one, but I do appreciate the skill and dedication of those who keep fine collections of plants under cover.

‘I really do believe that alpines will be the most popular plants in the 21st 45

STEVE FURNESS

The remarkable yellow foliage of Jovibarba heuffelii var. glabra ‘Xanthoheuf’ and, opposite, part of Steve’s Jovibarba collection at The Alpine Plant Centre

century. The obsession with herbaceous perennials is crazy. Alpines can be used in all sorts of different ways – in pots, in the ground, in troughs, walls and even in hanging baskets. I appreciate that many alpines don’t flower for very long, but this means that an alpine garden changes from week to week.’

Steve used to grow all his nursery stock outdoors until the hard winter of 201011 left him with considerable losses. He now has a small polytunnel to protect young plants.

When it comes to compost, he makes MARCH 2013

different mixes for different plants. ‘I even use different mixes at different times of the year,’ he says. ‘The ingredients can include sterilised loam, grit, perlite, Osmocote and small amounts of peat. I make all my own compost, which is not very cost-effective, but it produces better plants. I mix in short-term or long-term Osmocote depending on the speed of a plant’s growth and the time of year it is being potted. I use as little chemical insecticide and herbicide as possible and rely on nematodes, applied twice a year, to control vine weevil.’

47

Two plants that were bred by Steve.

Saxifraga ‘Hare Knoll Beauty’ and, opposite, Gentiana acaulis ‘Arctic Fanfare’

Steve says he knows the provenance of every plant in his garden and nursery and has bred several cultivars of his favourite genera. He is responsible for giving us Saxifraga ‘Hare Knoll Beauty’.

The original plant, a cross between S. kolenatiana and S. paniculata, is 20 years old and growing on tufa in his garden.

Another creation is Gentiana acaulis ‘Arctic Fanfare’. Steve explains: ‘In the 1980s, Brian Burrow gave me G. a. forma alba but it didn’t have a strong constitution. I crossed it with G. a.

‘Coelestina’ to produce ‘Arctic Fanfare’.

It always flowers twice a year and seems to be bomb-proof.’

48

The plants, of course, do their own breeding. ‘Somehow I have ended up with a Saxifraga longifolia that is not monocarpic,’ he reveals. ‘It has exceptionally silvery leaves and as yet I don’t know what the pollen parent is.’

He has also bred many Sempervivum cultivars. Two of his favourites are ‘Black Cap’, which has lime green leaves with black tips, and ‘Fiery Furness’, which, as its name implies, has intensely bright red foliage. ‘I spent years trying to create it,’ admits Steve.

‘Black Cap’, whose rosettes form a neat cushion and which doesn’t flower, was the result of crossing Sempervivum THE ALPINE GARDENER

STEVE FURNESS

cantabricum and S. arachnoideum.

Steve collected the seed from one pod, germinated it and crossed the resulting offspring with each other to grow a range of cultivars.

‘I do think that there are far too many cultivars of some plants – Primula allionii, for example,’ says Steve. ‘Of course, that doesn’t apply to sempervivums!’

He has also done much work on helianthemums. ‘I appreciated the colours of some cultivars but the plants were too tall for my liking,’ he says. ‘So I crossed them back with our native rock rose, H. nummularium, to produce shorter forms while retaining the colour MARCH 2013

of the hybrids.’ During my visit, Steve drove me to nearby Monsal Dale, where we saw an extensive colony of native rock roses, their yellow flowers vibrant in the sunshine.

One noticeable aspect of Fir Croft Garden is that the plants are not labelled. But such is the number and variety of plants that an outbreak of labelling would probably detract from the garden’s appearance.

Steve, however, does have a planting plan and can tell visitors the name of every specimen. He says: ‘This garden is a testimony to alpine plants because I do nothing to look after them. I just 49

INTERVIEW

Saxifraga ‘Eulenspiegel’ flowering in the snow at Fir Croft Garden and, opposite, Helianthemum ‘Lemon Carpet’, one of Steve’s recent creations

STEVE’S DESERT ISLAND ALPINES Steve was asked to name his favourite alpines. After much deliberation, and resisting the temptation to pick only sempervivums and saxifrages, he came up with one each from his favourite genera by applying the following criteria: they are totally hardy down to -20C, easy to grow, flower prolifically and reliably, and are compact with decent foliage.

Sempervivum arachnoideum var. bryoides: A tiny form, superb cobweb foliage and one of the few semps that looks decent in flower.

Saxifraga ‘Dr Wells’: A diminutive form with attractive encrusted foliage similar to S. cochlearis ‘Minor’, but 50

slower, more floriferous and with larger flowers.

Sedum pluricaule ‘Turquoise’: Compact with superb foliage colour and masses of red flowers.

The others are all equally appealing and, says Steve, make excellent additions to any rock garden: Primula ‘Philip’ (a marginata hybrid) Aubrieta ‘Kitte’ Phlox ‘McDaniel’s Cushion’ Helianthemum ‘Strawberry Fields’ Dianthus ‘Whatfield Magenta’ Linum ‘Gemmell’s Hybrid’ Polygala calcarea ‘Lillet’ Gentiana acaulis ‘Arctic Fanfare’ Daphne x susannae ‘Tichborne’ THE ALPINE GARDENER

STEVE FURNESS

give them the right conditions to start with. They are capable of thriving in the most inhospitable places. I had a gutter blocked by a Jovibarba that had seeded there and silver saxifrages often pop up in my tarmac drive.’

Steve makes his own stone troughs using an angle grinder and chisels. He also makes hypertufa troughs and has some that are 30 years old and still in good condition. He enjoys creating landscapes in his troughs and several contain rocks and tufa that are a foot or more above the surface.

Contacting Steve can be difficult. He explains: ‘The nursery is not on the phone and I don’t do mail order. There is a small website set up by a visitor to the garden but I can’t see it because I MARCH 2013

don’t have access to the internet.’ With so many interests to keep him occupied, it is understandable that Steve has no desire to get bogged down with phone calls, emails and sending out plants by post. He prefers to meet customers faceto-face and let his plants do the talking.

51

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS

They may be under attack on many fronts, but Britain’s wild flowers are resilient and ready to exploit favourable opportunities, as Robert Rolfe reports

A meander among the wild flowers of Britain

L

ast year, cheeringly but rather surprisingly, British wild flowers came in for sustained television and press coverage. Weekend newspaper supplements carried frequent ‘what to see and where’ features. Country Life magazine ran a ‘Flora Brittanica’ series.

And there were any number of articles and television slots on gardening with native plants, even if these tended to gloss over the difficulties involved, airily suggesting that a flowery sward could be achieved almost overnight.

Taking its cue from the New York High Line – a public park built on a rail line above the streets of Manhattan – a High Line for London competition was held, with 20 entries short-listed, including some that envisaged the trellising of motorway flyovers with wild flowers and 52

other ‘countryside in the city’ schemes.

In September, a two-day conference, jointly organised by the Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI) and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, commemorated the 50th anniversary of the first Atlas of the British Flora. All THE ALPINE GARDENER

Silene acaulis clinging to rocks in North Wales.

Photograph by Tim Lever

this was evidence of a clear interest in native flora, even if a more pronounced emphasis on wild spaces would not have gone amiss.

Of course, an interest in native plants – whether for their medicinal, mythical, edible or aesthetic properties – stretches MARCH 2013

back many centuries. Witness the plethora of common names accorded and their prominence in literature, especially in Shakespeare’s plays and poems. But given that the British are nowadays accustomed to reports of plant-rich sites being bulldozed or wantonly trashed; of 53

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS county council operatives mowing grass verges in spring, long before the already rare orchids inhabiting them have had a chance to flower, never mind set seed; and of remnant populations preserved ‘behind wire cages, like animals in a zoo’ (as a 2012 Plantlife report observed), still there was cause for congratulation rather than the usual grounds for concern.

One reads that, for example, over 90 per cent of wild meadows have been grubbed up since the 1940s and that species such as the Hampshire endemic summer lady’s tresses (Spiranthes aestivalis) and the highly localised Irish saxifrage (Saxifraga rosacea, once found ‘on wet mountain rocks’) have become extinct during the present monarch’s reign.

So, in the year of her diamond jubilee, there was all the more reason to applaud the telegenic and imaginative plantings devised by AGS member Professor James Hitchmough, his University of Sheffield colleague Professor Nigel Dunnett and garden designer Sarah Price as a backdrop to the London Olympics. They were a triumph. The outskirts of the main site were cleverly landscaped, with boulevards margined by meadows full of poppies, cornflowers and the like. Pronounced, predictably, ‘a blooming triumph’ by the press, these demonstrated to a large audience the beauty of ‘unimproved’ plants and relatively simple, informal planting schemes.

Not all the components were native flowers. Apart from obvious foreigners such as Rudbeckia fulgida and Coreopsis tinctoria, consider the corn poppy, 54

Papaver rhoeas. This reached the British Isles in seed corn brought in by early Neolithic settlers, along with other cornfield pretender ‘natives’.

Snowdrops were first recorded from the wild on British soil only during the second half of the 18th century. Those at Dimminsdale, close to Calke Abbey on the Leicestershire-Derbyshire border, have been there for generations. Not so far away, at Broad Meadow, near Tamworth, Staffordshire, Fritillaria meleagris has one of its more northerly British sites. While not vying with the notable displays at Cricklade in Wiltshire and at sites in Oxfordshire, this population has been fostered of late by volunteers, whose efforts to remove coarse vegetation and adopt traditional hay meadow management saw the number of flowering plants increase to around 200 in 2012. Hypothetically an escapee from Tudor gardens, but widely championed as one of our own, 1736 is the earliest date that it is recorded as a wild plant in Britain.

The British have long been avid assimilators. In much the same way that we claim the brown hare (probably introduced by the Romans) and the little owl (dating from the late 1880s) as native species, so too various so-called native wild flowers are imports that have become thoroughly at home here.

Far too much at home in some cases, such as Oxford ragwort, Himalayan balsam and Chamerion angustifolium, the rosebay willow-herb. The last of these, a rare British native until the 19th century, has been invigorated by a lusty North American arrival. It is now found throughout much of mainland Europe, THE ALPINE GARDENER

JON EVANS

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS

Chamerion angustifolium, the rosebay willow-herb, pictured in the Cotswolds

even above 2,000m (6,500ft), where it co-exists with true alpines.

The longevity of last year’s spring and summer displays of wild flowers was brought about by abundant rainfall, relatively cool average temperatures and fewer pollinators on the wing than normal. Some of the spectacles were of vintage quality, and while it is true that in part these reflected the good work being done by county council ecologists (not all counties have one on their payroll, unfortunately), the incessant downpours made all the difference.

While I saw butterflies aplenty, the highpoint being a Buddleja davidii (another British immigrant) massed with peacocks, small tortoiseshells and MARCH 2013

commas, undeniably the downpours decimated some species, the red admiral in particular. The rain also hampered bees, moths and other pollinators, leaving unfertilised flowers to endure for weeks on end. On motorway embankments, cowslips bloomed in huge numbers. I saw the first of them in late March, on a stretch of the M1 in Yorkshire, where the north and southbound lanes lie at different levels, and the central reservation, wider than usual, takes the form of a sloping ribbon of grassland. Further south, in early May, other stands were still going strong for mile after mile to the east of Cambridge.

Later, in Norfolk, viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) staged performances 55

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS ROBERT ROLFE

A thriving population of Primula veris in Cambridgeshire

of an exuberance one normally has to visit southern Europe to enjoy.

Anyone passing through Norfolk should endeavour to visit the Old Vicarage at East Ruston, whose 32-acre gardens are open on selected days from late March to October. In high summer the annual cornfield, enclosed by semiformal hedging and with good views to nearby St Mary’s Church, is a delight.

Apart from a selection of annual meadow grasses and a few oats − but no corn − just four species of flowers are used. In truth these are ancient, accidental imports, regarded by our ancestors as a nuisance.

The late Dame Miriam Rothschild, a former AGS member who gardened with wild flowers in an influential way 56

at Ashton Wold, Northamptonshire, was an early advocate of such plantings, devising a mix she cheerfully christened ‘Farmer’s Nightmare’. Such plants are nowadays widely perceived as desirable, for they bring a sustained burst of colour in mid to late summer and require little maintenance. At East Ruston, corn chamomile (Anthemis arvensis) dominates the cornfield fringe, but there are also large sowings of corn marigold, Xanthopthalmum (Chrysanthemum) segetum, cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) and poppy (Papaver dubium). A perimeter grass path, kept neatly mown, allows the photographer close access to this sea of flowers.

Dame Miriam’s legacy is evident in THE ALPINE GARDENER

ROBERT ROLFE

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS

Just four species of wild flowers paint a captivating picture at East Ruston

the wide variety of wild-flower seed mixes available nowadays and in the seed-impregnated, biodegradable ‘wildflower gro-mats’. These you lay down like a roll of turf, water generously and wait for what the distributors claim are ‘guaranteed’ good results. Desist from adding any fertiliser, clear the planting area of weeds, consider laying down a layer of sand to suppress the weed seedbank and act as a bed for the incoming crop, re-sow selectively and turf out invaders judiciously.

A chief scientific adviser at DEFRA, Sir Robert Watson, has made the case for having wild flowers in the garden in order to benefit wildlife, remarking: ‘We’ve got [a wild-flower field] in MARCH 2013

Norwich at the University of East Anglia, and the number of butterflies and bees you see there is an order of magnitude above most areas... It looks a bit wild but it looks beautiful to me.’ Pertinently, while on the subject of the front garden, he spoke out against a trend to ‘concrete the bloody thing over’.

Displays of wild flowers are meat and drink to the alpine gardener, wherever they occur. Improbable locations sometimes yield glorious flourishes. Dr Alan Leslie, who for the past few years has been preparing a Flora of Cambridgeshire, has found that uncultivated, unimproved traffic islands make good hunting grounds. By far the best stand of Verbascum thapsus (the 57

DAVE MOUNTFORT

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS

Two images from Brassington, Derbyshire.

The burnttip orchid, Neotinea ustulata, and, opposite, cowslips with Orchis mascula, the early purple orchid

common mullein) I’ve ever seen was in full bloom in early July last year on the northern outskirts of Leicester train station, where on recently disturbed soil banks, and along the trackside for some 200m, the spectacle was astonishing.

Even humble lowland meadows occasionally bring to mind the glory of their alpine equivalents. In Derbyshire, not far from Matlock, the fields around Brassington in mid-spring are made colourful by a profusion of cowslips, intermittently joined by early purple orchids with albinos and bicoloured versions among them (see pictures on page 65). One favoured year, Dave Mountfort (whose photographs we are delighted to publish) also found some splendid stands of the burnt-tip 58

orchid, Neotinea ustulata. Just as well that his camera was to hand, for when he revisited the following year, cattle had been put out to graze and not a single spike had survived.

The current reference work for the British flora is Clive Stace’s New Flora of the British Isles (2010 edition). A much earlier book, based on almost 60 years of field work and tireless correspondence by the Reverend W. Keble Martin, The Concise British Flora in Colour, was first published in 1965. The plates largely take the form of sensitively coloured drawings (when the end pages are reached, some of the grasses are in black and white), and required decades to complete. During its lengthy period of gestation, the author braved ‘thorns and THE ALPINE GARDENER

DAVE MOUNTFORT

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS

steep places... dense clouds and sharp mountain thunderstorms or... tides and island crossings’. He dismissed these hindrances, championing the pursuit as ‘good fun and healthy’. This will strike a chord with anyone who has returned to their tent or holiday hotel after a successful day’s plant-hunting – tired, slightly weather-beaten perhaps, longing for a shower, but unshakeably happy.

Mention should also be made of Christopher Lloyd’s Meadows (2004).

The wild-flower meadows first set in place by his mother, the rather appropriately named Daisy, at Great Dixter have long been admired. Even in her time, Anacamptis morio and other orchids were disappearing from the nearby countryside, prompting her MARCH 2013

to bring in plants and recreate their habitats. One fondly recalls great slabs of flower-rich turf from there, carefully dug up by her son and his gardeners and displayed at table-top height in the Chelsea Flower Show marquee in the late 1980s.

Fast-forwarding to the year of his book’s publication, in Christo’s annual Country Life Chelsea round-up, he praised one of the show gardens (‘The whole of the lower level was delightful meadow (difficult to bring off)’, while shrewdly expressing some reservations when it came to the best-in-show entry nearby: ‘The planting was a bit weak,’ he sniffed, ‘which is to be expected of architecturally minded landscapers.’ As an aside and to set the record straight, 59

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS he was a great admirer of well grown alpines, whatever might have been said to the contrary. He once came hurrying over to me, full of admiration for Cecilia Coller’s exhibits at an AGS show in Vincent Square.

Of course wild-flower gardens are nothing new and have been featured at this show for decades. In 1993 – taking just one example – the Fiscars’ Sword of Excellence for the best show garden went to a maritime garden designed

by Julie Toll. A newspaper report summarised it as ‘a wide range of wild plants that are easily grown in coastal gardens, including... yellow horned poppy, thrift, sea campion and (on the dunes) harebells and creeping willow’.

Again, one could argue that the planting was somewhat feeble, for all that the designer’s heart was very much in the right place.

There can be no greater divide than between high mountains and coastal sites, you might think, but on the contrary such habitats have much in common. It’s no wonder that coastal cliffs often harbour plants that look ‘alpine’ in character, providing an equivalent habitat for species that are every bit as at home in upland areas. The cliffs themselves, the bedrock exposed and the strata often extravagantly arched and folded, or weathered into dramatic landforms, afford conditions broadly similar to those found at much higher altitudes. The thin soils, the innumerable crevices, gulleys, defiles and crags: all have a dwarfing effect. Add to this the high levels of sunlight, alternating in some areas with sea mists or frets that moisten and cool the coastline in 60

summer, and the sea breezes, and it’s easy to explain the pervasive presence of species that ascend to much higher altitudes inland.

Thrift (Armeria maritima) is a good example, found along the coastline countrywide, sometimes in short turf or salt marshes, and in every shade from pure white to deepish pink, but surely never more at home than in Cornwall, where in association with sea campion (Silene uniflora) it can put on a headturning display. Yet it also climbs much higher, as in the old Turf Copper Mine at Dolfrwynog in Coed-y-Brenin (Snowdonia), where the mineral-rich outcroppings are much to its liking. Its coastal companion – for long known as Silene maritima, not S. uniflora – is also very much at home on the rock garden.

As with the thrift, up to a dozen variants are available.

Another sometime seashore inhabitant, Parnassia palustris, I first saw on a grassy ‘hanging meadow’ halfway down a North Yorkshire cliff, but have since encountered at well over 2,000m in the Alps. In particular it grows in spectacular abundance on the flat at Newborough Warren on Anglesey. (Claims that it is most prolific further north, close to Formby in south Lancashire’s Ravenmeols Sandhills, overlook this and some hearty Irish populations.) The Newborough Warren nature reserve comprises an extensive dune system dating from the 14th century, when storm surges brought sand inshore, burying coastal farms but in doing so also laid down a habitat where Dianthus deltoides, Anagallis tenella, Pinguicula vulgaris and other ‘maritime THE ALPINE GARDENER

JON EVANS

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS

Thrift (Armeria maritima) and sea campion (Silene uniflora) in Cornwall

alpines’ now flourish. Epipactis palustris is in truly spectacular profusion here too. Rachel Lever of Aberconwy Nursery, who has visited the site time and again for many years, reports that, in 2012, Belted Galloway cattle, traditionally farmed in this area since the re-introduction of grazing in 1986, were joined by an increased number of other more omnivorous breeds, which munched indiscriminatingly. While the plants survived, often their flowers didn’t.

In mainland Europe Epipactis palustris can be found at up to 1,800m. In Britain, although rarely found as far north as the Central Highlands of Scotland MARCH 2013

and, much further south, sometimes abundant inland in old quarries and damp pastures, the finest colonies of this elegant orchid typically inhabit the dune systems of the western coastline.

Some can be found at Ainsdale, close to Southport (a 1m wide clump of a pure white aberration, var. albiflora, is reported from thereabouts), while aside from the Newborough site, to the south-east, on the other side of the Lleyn Peninsula, it abounds in dunes that have the imposing spectacle of the 13th century Harlech Castle as their backdrop. It is adaptable to garden conditions if these are tailored to its specific needs and is listed by around 61

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS TIM LEVER

Parnassia palustris at Newborough Warren on Anglesey

a dozen British nurseries. Once, at Hampton Court Flower Show, I chanced on a nursery selling three different forms, in full flower and by the score.

It was difficult to imagine, I’m afraid, that more than one in a hundred would survive, once sold.

Rather earlier in the year, from April onwards, Saxifraga granulata (the meadow saxifrage) blooms at Newborough in broad swathes across the grazed meadows, often within sight of the sea. Why its slightly clunky double form, distributed as ‘flore pleno’ or ‘flore plena’, and found uncommonly in the wild (Mitcham in Surrey is one 62

long-established site), should be more popular in gardens baffles me. It’s a fairly widespread species in the British Isles, which I know well from the Derbyshire Dales in particular.

While visiting Newborough, you can gaze eastwards across the Menai Strait to the mountains of Snowdonia, where in a few north-facing sites (Cwm Idwal most famously) S. oppositifolia flowers in March, echoing its Yorkshire and Scottish outposts. Several other saxifrages of note are localised around here, the most showy of them surely the mossy saxifrage, Saxifraga hypnoides, which habitually colonises rocky clefts THE ALPINE GARDENER

TIM LEVER

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS

Saxifraga hypnoides in a typical habitat in North Wales

and quasi-alpine environments. Keble Martin records it from ‘mountain rocks; Somerset and Wales to N. Scotland, and Ireland’. Its distribution is erratic further afield, for from Iceland it extends throughout the Faroes to western Scotland, Ireland (intermittently), northern England and Wales, with outliers in western Norway, Belgium and the Vosges. An upper altitude limit of around 1,300m is indicated.

Also highlighting the North WalesScottish connection, Silene acaulis is localised in the former but sometimes abundant north of the border. The clone ‘Mount Snowdon’ is offered MARCH 2013

by various nurseries, but how often does it perform as well in gardens as its wild cousins, which habitually cover themselves in bloom rather than yielding just a grudging speckling? At altitude the plants are typically slow to establish, clinging to windswept eyries and forming diffuse colonies rather than dense ‘bunneries’. Lower down, different plants exhibit different, more rapid strategies.

In favourable habitats, congenial sites can be colonised rapidly almost as soon as they stabilise, whether they are slag heaps, iron, tin or lead workings, power station tips or, to cite a recent success 63

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS

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JON EVANS

story, the spoil that has formed Samphire Hoe, created when the Channel Tunnel was mined, and now home to thousands of Ophrys sphegodes. Easy to find within minutes of leaving your car, courtesy of specially constructed walkways, the plentiful spikes of the early spider orchid are more vigorous at this site than their Dorset counterparts, and exceptionally can produce as many as 17 flowers apiece. Looking back through my records, I find that I flowered it four times on the trot in the 1970s, having been given the stock by West Byfleet plant-adventurer John Marr. But in how many – or, more to the point, how few – gardens can it be found these days?

To retain such pioneer plants in the wild in the long-term requires either skilled site management or a natural balance that inhibits the establishment of scrub and other vigorous vegetation.

What was surely Britain’s finest colony of Pulsatilla vulgaris has suffered in this respect, while another widely distributed, though by no means common plant, the August-September flowering Marsh Gentian (Gentiana pneumonanthe), is very vulnerable to land drainage schemes and incremental competition from other plants. The fine spike illustrated here was found on a heath near to Jon Evans’ Farnham home, but he warily notes that birch is gradually gaining the upper hand.

Without the intervention of a clued-up working party, an unhappy outcome threatens.

Seldom seen in cultivation nowadays, G. pneumonanthe is listed by at least two British nurseries at present. Yet when David Wilkie published Gentians

Gentiana pneumonanthe

in 1936, it was known in various forms – white, rose pink and deep blue in the case of a 45cm tall so-called ‘Styrian form’. And while he judged the ‘wide, upright bells... too large and heavy for the slender stems’ in some versions, Wilkie also considered the species ‘quite a pretty plant’ requiring ‘no special treatment ...[for] it will flower well in a peaty soil in moist conditions’.

Schemes such as the ‘Wild about wild flowers’ initiative for the RHS Britain in Bloom campaign have undoubtedly helped to concentrate minds on what we forfeit by building housing schemes, THE ALPINE GARDENER

ROBERT ROLFE

BRITISH WILD FLOWERS

Albino and bicoloured versions of Orchis mascula in Derbyshire

shopping centres, industrial parks and other developments on greenfield sites. Much of Britain, aside from its conurbations, derelict brownfield areas and expanses of prairie farming, remains home to a diversity of wild flowers. If we see these increasingly featured in cities, all well and good, but ousting them by design or default from their native habitats is a continuing cause for concern. And while the role of SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) is crucial, who would wish to see these wildlings confined to such hemmedin havens?

E.C.M. Haes, a frequent contributor MARCH 2013

to these pages 30 and more years ago, championed such natives, remarking that if ‘not high alpines... many of the more showy species are prominent plants in alpine or hill pastures and are familiar to anyone who has studied alpine floras’. A love of local wild flowers has often nurtured a much wider interest in plants, famously in luminaries such as Charles Darwin and Gilbert White, more modestly in the many others who each year walk the woodlands, uplands, heaths, meadows and shores of the British Isles, delighting in the plant communities that they encounter.

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SWEDISH GARDENS

Tour manager Emma Allen and tour leader Gerben Tjeerdsma.

Right, Håkan Wallin greets a visitor beside the raised bed built with Icelandic volcanic rock at the rear of his house

A warm welcome in these glorious Swedish gardens 66

O

ne of the pleasures of visiting different countries is exploring gardens that are open to the public. When you are given access to private gardens that are not normally open to visitors, the experience becomes even more special. At the end of May last year, a group of AGS members had the good fortune and privilege to visit a number of private gardens within driving distance of Gothenburg (Göteborg).

Our holiday was organised by AGS Tours, led by the enthusiastic and knowledgeable Gerben Tjeerdsma and managed by Emma Allen. Everywhere we went we were met with kindness and hospitality from the owners.

Gothenburg lies at about the same latitude as Inverness (58 degrees north) THE ALPINE GARDENER

SWEDISH GARDENS

In May last year John Noakes joined an AGS tour of private gardens in Sweden. Here he gives a flavour of the variety and beauty of the gardens visited and its climate is influenced by the Gulf Stream. Rainfall is high and the growing season is relatively short. Damp and rocky ericaceous woodland prevails, yet the gardens we visited varied considerably in their maturity and, intriguingly, in the personality and style of their owners. If there was a common thread, it was the use of local rock features with the addition of appropriate imported materials such as sand, grit MARCH 2013

and peat blocks. In all we visited 11 gardens. In this article it is impossible to do justice to the wonderful array of plants we saw. Instead I have tried to reflect the great variety of planting styles encountered in the gardens. Neither have I attempted to describe the worldfamous Gothenburg Botanical Garden, which we visited. This tour, after all, was focused on private gardens.

Our first stop was Håkan Wallin’s garden on the edge of woodland.

A narrow passage with a rock wall peppered with ramondas led to a lawn overlooking the garden, which was backed by the house. Various cypripediums and trilliums peered out from beneath drifts of rhododendrons.

Håkan has imported Icelandic volcanic rock to construct a raised bed below the 67

SWEDISH GARDENS

AGS members admire plants in a scree in Peter Korn’s extensive garden

house and has used local rock to do the same on the opposite side of the lawn. A variety of alpine plants thrive here.

Håkan has a central vegetable and fruit garden created out of raised wooden beds, below which is a pond and rill formed by imported schist rock from Norway. A number of hybrid peonies could be seen around the garden, one parent obviously being Paeonia tenuifolia. A particularly fine form of P. mlokosewitschii grew on the upper terrace.

After leaving Håkan we moved on to tour leader Gerben Tjeerdsma’s own garden. Gerben was in the process of moving gardens, transferring his plants to the grounds of a lovely old house. He had already established raised nursery 68

beds overlooking a beautiful lake – the perfect place to do one’s potting.

In a secretive shady spot, Gerben allowed us to see his increasing collection of cypripediums, which was a mouth-watering privilege.

The day ended with a visit to the amazing garden of Peter Korn at Eskilsby. Peter gardens on a vast scale and has cleared trees in a forest to create a variety of habitats within a fiveacre site. In all the contrived habitats, appropriate plants abound. In one area he has hewn down part of a rock face to produce a scree beneath, which is home to lewisias and true alpines. Elsewhere, Peter has excavated large amounts of soil to produce ponds and extensive boggy areas, and here Gunnera thrived. He has THE ALPINE GARDENER

SWEDISH GARDENS

An elegant Elaeagnus ‘Quicksilver’ in Martha and Karstan Ristrop’s garden

used the tree canopy to develop woody habitats (rhododendrons, trilliums and corydalis revelled in the conditions) and in the open has created meadow sites.

There seemed few micro-environments that Peter had not developed. It is incredible that this human JCB has done all this alone in just eight years.

Furthermore, he runs a large nursery.

The next day we travelled north to the area of Uddevalla, visiting the garden of Martha and Karstan Ristrop. Karstan is carpenter and has planned his lovely wooden house and garden to sit comfortably together, the garden offering a series of sections or rooms. Beautiful, lush and immaculate would sum it up. Within it were many botanical treasures planted with artistic MARCH 2013

flair. In shady areas ramondas grew in rock walls and trilliums sheltered under rhododendron bushes. A large shrub, Staphylea pinnata, provided cover for a variety of peonies.

There were many places to sit and enjoy different views of the garden.

A particularly desirable spot was a Japanese-like bed with a silver-leafed tree, Elaeagnus ‘Quicksilver’ (syn. E. angustifolia var. caspica), overhanging it.

A huge rock slab there was once used for drying clothes!

Roland Gustavsson is also based in Uddevalla. His garden initially gave the impression of a hot landscape – almost Australian-like – and he looked somewhat Australian in his shorts. Then, turning a corner, we saw Paeonia rockii 69

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Part of Lena Thuresson’s woodland garden, which offered many surprises 70

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SWEDISH GARDENS and some Roscoea, which dismissed the initial impression.

A sheltered seat overlooked a small pool, bringing more coolness, before the impression of heat returned at the back of the house where sempervivums and many cushion plants were growing in deep sand and grit. Like Håkan Wallin, Roland has imported a lot of volcanic rock from Iceland, which accentuated the feeling of heat in his garden.

His terrace, overlooking the garden, emphasised the effect with pot plants and cacti scattered about. Extraordinarily, flourishing in a crack between paving was the incredibly difficult to grow Dicentra peregrina, thousands of miles from home and 20 degrees further north.

The next day, Gerben had to return to water the plants in his nursery – yes, it does get hot in Sweden – and Christina and Leif Fryle became our guides.

Travelling south of Gothenburg we came to the rather flat region of Varberg.

We headed for a small farm, which seemed an unlikely spot for a garden.

Having crossed the farmyard we entered a clearing full of woodland plants sheltered under a thinned tree canopy.

This was Lena Thuresson’s garden, a work still in progress yet already mature in places. A shelter-belt of trees had been left and Lena, with help from her husband, was laying out water features and pathways around the extensive site.

There were masses of rhododendrons underplanted with primulas, and an already mature Magnolia obovata was coming into bloom. Scrambling up and through the shrubs were many varieties of clematis. Meconopsis were everywhere MARCH 2013

The diminutive Pyrola grandiflora in Lena Thuresson’s garden

and, creeping down to ground level, we came across the delicate Pyrola grandiflora.

This was a carefree yet managed woodland garden with surprises round each corner and it would be great to see it again when the construction work has been completed, but is a garden ever finished?

We took a short break on a nearby beach, which was in fact a nudist beach!

There were no takers among our party and, thankfully, no naked locals. It was cold and windy and much more enticing were the tea, coffee and cakes provided by our guides.

Christina and Leif Fryle’s garden was our next stop. Christina is a journalist 71

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Two images from Christina and Leif Fryle’s garden.

Hostas, ferns and grasses are included in a lush green planting and, left, Paeonia rockii

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A striking tree peony in Birgit and Curt Ellasson’s garden

and plant photographer who has enough material in her garden to fill a number of journals. They have jointly designed a garden which sits perfectly around their house.

On one side of the house, wooden steps descended alongside a stream, accompanied by hostas and ferns, providing a cool approach to the back garden. It opened up into a small shrubby area where a magnificent Paeonia rockii overflowed the path. A large gravel bed at the back of the house, between the lawn and the rear terrace, supported many true alpines and small plants. Following the garden tour we were treated to a marvellous lunch in their garden, all prepared by Christina.

Birgit and Curt Ellasson’s garden is hailed as one of the best in Varberg. They MARCH 2013

started their project in 1995 and now have about 200 cultivars and species of rhododendrons. Beneath and between, trilliums and primulas thrived in the lush microclimate. The garden sloped upwards from the back of the house to a rock wall draped with ferns and a large Hydrangea petiolaris. Nearby, the roof of a small summerhouse was covered with a selection of succulents.

This garden is fully mature and it is difficult to see how it could be developed further. In fact it doesn’t need to be changed because it perfectly expresses the personalities of its originators.

Kinnekulle lies 150km (93 miles) north-east of Gothenburg. Known locally as the flower mountain, it is really more of a plateau situated on the edge of Lake Vanern, one of the 73

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Part of a wild colony of Cypripedium calceolus at Kinnekulle

largest lakes in Europe. This creates a mild microclimate where a plethora of wild flowers grow. It was here that Gerben took us to see a large colony of Cypripedium calceolus. We were amazed by the numbers and perfect condition of these fabulous slipper orchids growing in open woodland. The site was within a nature reserve and it was encouraging to know the plants were protected and not plundered.

After such an experience we repaired to Sweden’s oldest inn for a local delicacy: freshly picked wild garlic and cream soup with bread rolls.

Nearby, at Hällekis, Hannu Sarenström gardens in a flamboyant and ornamental style. He admits to being a bon viveur.

He is a journalist, publishes cookery books and is a TV personality. Clearly 74

he leads a hedonistic lifestyle, never working after 6pm. This is reflected in his garden, which has a delightfully abandoned appearance.

Alongside his house ran a path leading the eye to two marble figures in the distance. Framing this vista was an old apple tree with a ladder leaning against it, while ferns and hostas grew on one side of the path.

Tree peonies and herbaceous plants rubbed shoulders with many old farm implements and a variety of statues. All this was accompanied by birdsong from the surrounding woods. Hannu’s life was summed up by two small sculptures of grapes on either side of his front porch.

One had a pair of secateurs at its base, the other a pile of his cookery books.

Lastly, in Kinnekulle, we visited the THE ALPINE GARDENER

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Henrik Zetterlund’s summer cottage is set in a magical garden

summer cottage retreat of Henrik Zetterlund, the horticultural curator at Gothenburg Botanical Garden. The underlying rock here was oil shale, evident from a worked-out quarry nearby. Henrik was not there but he trusted us to roam as we pleased. Though absent, his hand was everywhere.

Tree peonies, cypripediums, trilliums, smilacinas and many other treasures abounded. They mingled with native flora in an informal way around the cottage and adjacent barns. Some of these were inhabited by owls and we flushed out two as we walked by. These barns were in a delightful state of dilapidation and will be a major retirement project for Henrik!

This was a truly magical place and it was a privilege to be allowed into such MARCH 2013

a garden. Although in Sweden, it gave the impression of a Chekovian country dwelling where time stood still and the garden merged imperceptibly into the surrounding woods. It would be wonderful to revisit, if we can, in a few years to see how it has evolved.

Our final day was spent visiting the Gothenburg Botanical Garden. There we were escorted to the inner sanctum of the alpine section for a party organised

by Henrik and some of his colleagues. It was a generous gesture from them and a fitting end to a memorable week.

The whole visit was a credit to AGS Tours, our leader Gerben Tjeerdsma and manager Emma Allen. Most importantly, though, our thanks go to all our Swedish friends who so warmly welcomed us to their diverse and wonderful gardens.

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Miroslav Řičánek travelled to part of the Drakensberg mountain range in land-locked Lesotho in southern Africa to witness a rich diversity of flora

A land of orchids, bulbs and alpines

F

ar from civilisation, on a mountain pass in the Drakensberg, I’m lying in a tent, unable to sleep, with the canvas rustling noisily in the wind. Two weeks in Lesotho have passed quickly, with experiences that will stay in my memory for ever. They now come to mind, illuminating the tent canvas like the distant lightning storm: driving on a slippery, rough road; dancing with aboriginals; an early sunny morning that revealed our tents had been pitched in a remote mountain village; the breathtaking waterfalls at Maletsunyane and Bokong; a sleepless night during a thunderstorm. There are also sad images of degradation and soil erosion as a consequence of overgrazing in many places.

But what about the plants? Sky-blue 76

Gladiolus dalenii

flowerheads of Felicia drakensbergensis, fields of Rhodohypoxis baurii, huge spikes of showy Kniphofia caulescens and hundreds of others. It’s worth travelling over half the globe to see these wonderful plants in their homeland!

Sehlabathebe, so far the only national park in Lesotho, is the icing on the cake. Located in south-eastern Lesotho, near the border with KwaZulu-Natal, it is within the southern Drakensberg Mountains. It is part of the MalotiDrakensberg Transfrontier Park, which is under consideration as a World Heritage Site and is famed for its rich THE ALPINE GARDENER

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Kniphofia laxiflora was found growing in marshy ground

diversity of plant and animal life, spectacular landscape and outstanding San (bushman) rock paintings.

Sehlabathebe means ‘plateau of the shields’, a reference to a great battle that took place on a windy plateau. The winning tribe pierced the shields of their enemies and left them to die.

The park can be reached on foot, on horseback or by car. The simplest way is to hike some 10km (six miles) from Bushman’s Nek in KwaZulu-Natal (the route ends on the South African side, while on the Lesotho side you can either walk or ride on horseback). A three-day MARCH 2013

hike from the Sani Pass is also possible for the adventurous. From the Lesotho side, the park can be reached either by a rough 4x4 route over Matebeng Pass, or by an unpaved road from Qacha’s Nek. We chose the latter option.

The road follows the Senqu and Tsoelike rivers along Lesotho’s southern border to the village of Sehlabathebe. From here it is just a few miles to the park entrance.

The dirt road was full of potholes, muddy after recent rain, so dust wasn’t a problem. Just beyond the entrance, as if by magic, we encountered a landscape of lush green mountain meadows. How 77

EXPLORATION

The Kepising Ledge dominates the surrounding landscape

different this was in comparison with most Lesotho landscapes.

The land is ungrazed (after the park was established in 1970, it was fenced and grazing was prohibited). Even though fencing is absent in many places, this ban is respected. The path led through hilly terrain, where we stopped to admire the beautiful scenery and the wealth of flowers. Going over to a hill to investigate a huge stone block, as tall as a five-storey building, we were delighted to find, below the overhang, well-preserved San drawings of hunting scenes featuring many animals. The Drakensberg is famed for its large 78

number of rock paintings – more than 2,000 recorded sites containing more than 45,000 images dating from around 4,000 years ago. In Lesotho, such paintings are still freely accessible and well-preserved, but for how much longer?

Returning to the car, we drove onwards.

The uphill route, which had many switchbacks (you will definitely need a 4x4 here), crossed a saddle and reached a fantastic, dream-like landscape. The trail continued for a few more kilometres, ending at self-catering lodge that offers dated but comfortable accommodation.

All around were low, rounded hills, THE ALPINE GARDENER

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Baroa-Ba-Baroa (which translates as Three Bushmen) reflected in a lake

their slopes and tops featuring scattered rock formations that had been eroded into the strangest shapes and sizes. The Kepising Ledge, visible from quite a distance, predominates. But there are other such features – rock formations forming ‘mountain towns’ with natural lakes below. The largest lakes reflect the steep walls of Baroa-Ba-Baroa, which translates as Three Bushmen, rising majestically to 3,000m (9,850ft) above the landscape. On South African maps it is usually called Devil´s Knuckles. To the north-east, towards the famous Sani Pass, the Drakensberg ridge continues in a series of striking granite peaks. In MARCH 2013

the distance, another 3,000m mountain, the photogenic Wilson’s Peak, is visible.

Shallow rock pools contained several species of aquatic herbs, most commonly Lindernia conferta, with its floating rosettes of leaves, and Limosella inflata, both with white flowers. The meadows surrounding the pools yielded the rosettes of carnivorous Drosera natalensis, small plants of Senecio barbatus with purplish-maroon florets, yellow Berkheya macroceras and the more robust B. multijuga. These, together with the stout, 1m tall, yellow inflorescences of perennial Senecio macrospermus, with its large grey and 79

EXPLORATION

The carnivorous Drosera natalensis and, right, Huttonaea grandiflora, just one of many striking orchids native to Lesotho

woolly leaves, would make fine garden plants. On the walls of rock blocks, infrequently we found the dense, woolly mats of Helichrysum cf. glaciale with sessile, white flower heads.

Streams, fed by water from the lakes and the surrounding slopes, meandered here and there at lower altitudes.

Gladiolus papilio, over 50cm tall, has creamy yellow flowers with large purplish blotches on the inside and grows in surrounding marshy ground, as does Kniphofia laxiflora. Another Gladiolus, of similar height, G. dalenii, colonised meadows a few hundred metres higher. Its large, orange, redspotted flowers shone from afar. In the 80

early 1900s, this species was selectively bred to produce dozens of cultivars, now grown worldwide.

Also present was a black-faced orchid, Corycium nigrescens, and further on the pinkish-flowered Crassula natalensis, resembling a smaller version of the popular garden plant Sedum telephium.

After that we found the subtle but beautiful Gladiolus ecklonii, just 20cm tall. Its flowers are 4cm in diameter and heavily speckled red-brown or purple on a cream background. It deserves to be seen more often in rock gardens, as does the 40cm tall G. saundersii with big (at least 8cm) flowers, which are bright red with a broad, creamy mark THE ALPINE GARDENER

LESOTHO

and speckling on the petals. It always grew on dry, rocky, poor soils with good drainage, whereas other species required more moisture. In Sehlabathebe we found it in bone-dry soil under a huge overhang, where it didn’t suffer from competition with other plants.

But let’s return to the moist mountain slopes at around 2,500m (8,200ft). Here we found the greatest diversity of plants.

Streams cutting a few metres below the surrounding land were particularly species-rich. Here were Eucomis autumnalis, the conspicuous pink flowers of Hesperantha grandiflora and light lilac-blue Brownleea macroceras.

This orchid, rightly cultivated as an MARCH 2013

alpine species, was also found in grassy patches on steep cliffs up to 3,000m. A most beautiful Disa also reached this altitude. Strongly scented D. fragrans has a dense inflorescence of light to deep pink flowers, mottled darker pink or purple. It is easy to identify even out of flower because its distinctively shaped and purplish-red spotted leaves are reminiscent of the common European orchid, Dactylorhiza majalis.

Nevertheless, the greatest diversity of orchids was observed at around 2,400m (7,900ft). Here were Holothrix scopularia, Huttonaea grandiflora, Disa oreophila subsp. oreophila, Schizochilus angustifolius, several Satyrium species 81

EXPLORATION

Above, Gladiolus ecklonii; below, Disa fragrans, also pictured on the cover of this issue; left, Ornithogalum graminifolium

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LESOTHO

Part of the rocky but lush Lesotho landscape viewed through a rock window

and Pterygodium magnum. They grew in moist grassland, often accompanied by two species of Moraea – the rather inconspicuous, white flowered Moraea brevistyla and the much showier M. inclinata, its 3cm wide, blue-violet flowers easily visible, for the flower stems are 80cm high. Rather smaller (to 50cm) were the white flower spikes of Ornithogalum graminifolium, scattered here and there.

At higher altitudes, the height of the grass-herb vegetation is much-reduced.

We often saw solitary flower heads of Gazania krebsiana, mostly golden yellow but sometimes with a dark purplebrown blotch at the base. Helichrysum MARCH 2013

herbaceum – another member of the daisy family − displayed yellow or cream flower heads. Sebaea sedoides, a member of the Gentianaceae with flowers of a different shade of yellow, grew nearby.

Gravelly areas were inhabited by Dianthus mooiensis subsp. mooiensis, its last few pink flowers still apparent. In similar places Zaluzianskya microsiphon opened fully in the sunshine, its flowers white within but bright red outside.

On rocky outcrops we found the dwarf Campanula relative Craterocapsa tarsodes with solitary, pale blue flowers.

Infrequently, Albuca humilis (up to 20cm tall) sent up white flowers with the outer petals striped green.

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EXPLORATION

Eumorphia prostrata has silky woolly branches and scented leaves

Steep south-eastern slopes, which we climbed, had only a few flowering plants, but the views of the surrounding landscape were beautiful. Lush green grassland contrasted sharply with the black and brown basalt cliffs and rocks that rose dramatically skywards.

Looking eastwards, the slopes were rather rounded and interwoven with small, sky-blue lakes. By 1pm the sky, clear in the morning, was clouding over.

Finally reaching the ridge-top, we were surprised by the diversity of species (some of these more often seen in damp or marshy ground) and the presence of several bulbs. On a well-drained ridge 84

Kniphofia caulescens and Rhodohypoxis baurii (with dark purple-pink flowers) were present. Nearby was a Delosperma species with purple-pink flowers. I dare not guess its identity, having seen the great variety of the genus in Lesotho.

Shrubby Eumorphia prostrata, with silky woolly branches and white flower heads, was frequent. While not rare, I very much like its compact cushions and the unique scent of its leaves. We also found here the dwarf Eucomis schijffii, growing at a higher altitude than any other of its genus in Lesotho.

It inhabited moist basalt, gravelly spots or humus-rich places at up to around THE ALPINE GARDENER

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This unidentified Hesperantha species grew just 10cm tall

3,200m (10,500ft). Apparently, cattle like it: in several places outside the park we saw plants severely damaged by grazing.

The leaf rosettes, consisting of three to four leaves, are 10-15cm in diameter while the flower spikes, looking like small pineapples, are only 7cm tall, bearing dark purple flowers around 2cm wide. A few dark purple leaf rosettes were seen, their coloration probably not permanent but caused by extreme conditions. In gravel, a Massonia with two prostrate, dull green leaves, covered with soft prickles, displayed sessile white flowers at their centre. A few steps away, a small population of a MARCH 2013

pink-flowered Hesperantha was barely 10cm tall. Distant thunder disrupted our photographic efforts. At almost 3pm there were dark storm clouds over the main Drakensberg ridge, soon forming a menacing front of thunder and lightning. Despite retreating, the fury of the Drakensberg’s Draco left us soaked to the skin. Nothing unusual: it’s a daily routine in these mountains.  Miroslav Řičánek’s next tour to Sehlabathebe National Park will be in February 2014. For more information please visit www.lesothojourney.wz.cz 85

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AGS joins four-day festival of gardening

he AGS Malvern Show is held on the Saturday of the fourday Malvern Spring Gardening Show. This event, organised by the Three Counties Agricultural Society in conjunction with the RHS, draws the largest potential audience of all our shows: over 20,000 people attend on the Saturday alone. In 2012 the AGS was allocated a more prominent position on condition that the Society also filled the space over the other three days.

As such, planted troughs and containers occupied the benches on the Thursday, Friday and Sunday. About 50 exhibits, ranging from troughs to miniature gardens, were on show, alongside a raised

MAY 12, 2012 Report: John Fitzpatrick Pictures: Doug Joyce and Jon Evans

bed created by Brian and Jo Walker and members of the Warwickshire and Birmingham Local Groups. Jo also gave demonstrations showing how to make hypertufa troughs. Simon Bond (Thuya Alpine Nursery) contributed two large tubs, one planted with dwarf conifers, the other with a mixture of alpines.

Jean Morris, who started her botanical embroidery work 12 years ago, put on a 170-piece display and received a Large Gold Award, with a Certificate of Merit for a depiction of

Jean Morris beside part of her display of 170 pieces of embroidery, which won a Large Gold Award

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Saxifraga pubescens ‘Snowcap’ won the Farrer Medal for Mark Childerhouse

Sempervivum calcareum ‘Guillaumes’.

Jon Evans’ extensive photographic display also drew the crowds.

There was plenty of colour to lure admiring visitors, coming particularly from lewisias, cypripediums, pleiones and rhododendrons, though there were fewer of the latter than is customary at this show. The colours were punctuated by splashes of white from pans of Saxifraga pubescens ‘Snowcap’, one of which received the Farrer Medal.

Mark Childerhouse reared his plant from a cutting taken 13 years ago. The cushion had a noticeably low profile (others can resemble the crown of a bowler hat) which he attributed to good ventilation in the alpine house, boosted by the draught from an electric fan most MARCH 2013

of the time. The plant, grown in a 50-50 mix of John Innes No. 2 and grit with a little added leaf-mould, had benefitted from the cold spell in mid spring, the flowers lasting well, with no deadheading required before the show and many buds still to open. A sequestered iron fillip is administered before the buds develop.

In the class for three rock plants requiring similar cultural conditions, John Richards showed three Chinese monocarpic Meconopsis species: M. delavayi in flower and M. punicea and M. rudis in bud. Cross-pollination ensures a good seed set. This presupposes ownership of enough plants for at least two to be in flower simultaneously, with pollen transferred from the anthers of one to the stigma of another in both directions. Harvested seed is fridgestored in glassine packets until early January, when it is sown, covered with grit and placed outside. In March, the 87

MALVERN SHOW

This pan of Allium shelkovnikovii won the Ashwood Trophy for Ivor Betteridge Opposite, Robin Pickering’s Cypripedium Gisela grex Below left, Meconopsis rudis, shown

by John Richards

pots are brought into an alpine house as the seedlings emerge. At the ‘two true leaves’ stage (late April) these are ready for pricking out. Placed outside again and liquid-fed every two weeks, by late June they are generally ready for their final positions, either in a pot for exhibition or in a raised, semi-shaded site. A limefree, humus-rich compost is required.

Open-ground plants are covered with a cloche during winter, whereas potted plants occupy a semi-shaded plunge, with frame lights deployed from November until March.

Flowering occurs the following May. Ivor Betteridge won the Ashwood Trophy for the best plant in a 19cm pot with the Iranian Allium shelkovnikovii.

Three bulbs bought in 2005 had doubled up within two years and have continued to multiply since. Grown in a mix of 88

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one part John Innes No. 2, one part peat and one and a half parts grit, they are repotted every year and reside in a cold frame, surviving the hard winter of 201011 untroubled. The bulbs are fed before rather than after flowering because, like many alliums, the foliage wanes before or soon after flowering takes place. This is an excellent form; the lilac-blue flowers vary in shapeliness and tone, with some guilty of bulbil substitution – a warning sign where this genus is concerned.

Robin Pickering underlined his prowess with cypripediums, winning a Certificate of Merit for C. Gisela grex, inherited from his mother and tended for 17 years. During that time the plant has been well rewarded, with Farrer Medals in 2007 and 2011 and now this seventh Certificate of Merit. Robin’s mother used a potting mixture of two MARCH 2013

parts John Innes No. 2, one part leafmould and one part grit: her son prefers two parts John Innes No. 2, one part composted bark, one part perlite and two parts grit, repotting every second year.

The plant is kept under the alpine house staging from October to February, then moved into a shaded part of the house.

In very warm weather it goes back to the basement. A Chempak high-potash feed is given two or three times before and after flowering. Last year, 16 crowns were detached in a first attempt at propagation. It still managed to produce 43 flowers (compared with 48 in 2011).

Of the 16 divisions, all but three flowered in 2012.

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A welcome boost from out-of-season plants

W

eather forecasters proclaimed that May, with its unseasonal dull and cool weather, was experiencing temperatures on average 2C below normal. The show day was no exception.

Many exhibitors commented that plants normally in flower for this show were still in bud. Campanulaceae and Caryophyllaceae classes lacked entries, but, on the other hand, exhibitors were able to stage plants normally in flower weeks earlier.

Viola lutea, grown by Brian Burrow and exhibited in the small-pan class for a rock plant from Europe, was a reminder of just how close some of us live to our native alpines: it occurs

May 19, 2012 Report: Chris Lilley Pictures: Robert Rolfe and Don Peace

within 50 miles north-east of Southport, in the Yorkshire Dales and elsewhere.

Brian Russ, a local member, staged a tiered, Gold Award-winning display of porcelain and china decorated with alpine flowers and bulbs that occupied half the rear wall of the hall. The unpacking and staging surely took far more time than preparing plants for exhibit!

A plant now seldom seen on the show bench, Dionysia involucrata ‘Gothenburg White’, took advantage of the unseasonal weather by remaining in flower (sometimes it carries on in

Dionysia involucrata ‘Gothenburg White’ earned a Farrer Medal for Geoff Rollinson 90

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The honey-scented Allium karataviense, exhibited by Diane Clement

bloom until June) and gaining a further Farrer Medal for Geoff Rollinson. The long-tubed, pure white flowers gave the appearance of jostling with one another in tiers above a 15cm diameter cushion.

Considered difficult to coax to this size in cultivation – cushions up to a metre across are recorded in the wild – this plant was a descendant of an albino parent reared two decades earlier at Gothenburg Botanical Garden. It was here that the predominantly lilac-pink flowered species was first sent in 1975.

From Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, D. involucrata is mainly a plant of limestone cliffs, but has also been reported from sandstone and granite substrates at up to 3,400m (11,150ft), the species unique in being the only one (as far as it is known) in which the corollas are all of the same type, neither pin MARCH 2013

nor thrum-eyed. As a result seed is set more readily than in any other Dionysia.

The 17 exhibits of Allium species present were, in the main, also Central Asian. All were still in good leaf, for a lack of sun had inhibited withering of the foliage.

The largest pan, Allium karataviense, exhibited by Diane Clement as part of a large three-pan entry for rock plants from any one continent, gained her the Bill MacKenzie Trophy. Eight large whitish globes in tight formation exuded a scent of honey. White forms in cultivation often derive from the selection ‘Ivory Queen’, but like the foregoing Dionysia this is ordinarily a more richly coloured plant (through to reddish-purple variants in Uzbekistan), with umbels up to 20cm in diameter. Seed germinates well and comes true, so that nowadays various distinct races are grown.

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Brian Burrow’s slow-growing Jurinea humilis

Iran, too, has yielded a number of dwarf ornamental onions, some of recent introduction, others lurking in specialist collections for several decades.

Allium bodeanum, shown by Ivor Betteridge and illustrated on the back cover of this issue, was sent back by Paul Furse, but has been maintained from a 1970s collection by Anne Ala. Endemic to Khorāsān, Golestān and adjacent Turkmenistan and akin to a squatter version of the well-known A. cristophii, it isn’t as widely grown as its charms deserve, probably because the seedlings are rather slow to reach flowering size and blooming is not guaranteed every year. So, despite having been cultivated for four decades, for many it was a novelty. The umbel can reach up to 12cm across, the purple tepals toning 92

with the deep purple stamens. Found on gravelly slopes at up to 2,300m (7,500ft), this plant is a true sun-lover.

How and why it had performed so well in such a wet year is a mystery!

Entered in the small-pan Campanulaceae class by Brian Burrow, Edraianthus serpyllifolius was a homing beacon among neighbouring plants with its large, intensely blue-violet, upfacing, bell-shaped flowers. Found in Dalmatia, it is reliably early-flowering and as such an excellent plant for shows in mid to late May. The tubby-belled selection ‘Major’ dates back to Farrer’s time and is still seen occasionally, but relatively new introductions, dating in the main from 2002 and 2006 and sourced in the Biokovo range of Croatia, overlooking the Adriatic coast, are more THE ALPINE GARDENER

A well-flowered Genista pilosa var. minor grown by Frank Dobson

compact, the Campanula-like flowers carried on shorter, red-flushed stems above deep-green mats of linear leaves.

The same exhibitor’s Jurinea humilis drew attention in a three-pan entry in the new or rare in cultivation class. A single, stemless flower of pale pinkishpurple, taking the form of a delicate thistle, squatted on a leaf rosette.

Reported from southern Spain (the source of the plant seen) and Portugal, but with a Pyrenean subspecies, and also as far east as Sicily, then across the Mediterranean to Algeria, it has a complicated history of synonyms, the genera Carduus and Serratula chiefly involved. The infant plant seen had been slow to develop, though mats 30cm across can form over many years. In a genus often deemed more interesting MARCH 2013

than beautiful and little-represented in gardens, this certainly fell into the latter category, giving the appearance of a starburst at a firework display.

A Certificate of Merit was awarded to Genista pilosa var. minor exhibited

by Frank Dobson in the Intermediate Section. Many wondered how he had managed to flower it so well. The sessile blooms were crammed along the congested branches, which showed no signs of trimming. This is the most condensed version among various selections, some of them given clonal names. They are generally not grown in pots because they are deep-rooted and loathe disturbance once wellestablished.

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Voluptuous Campanula leads a dazzling field MAY 26, 2012 Report: Bob and Rannveig Wallis Pictures: Jon Evans

A

fter a very cool spring, the week before the show was sunny and humid, with temperatures in the upper 20s, but this did not seem to have adversely affected the plants.

The benches offered a delightful array that included the voluptuous, the downright gaudy and the seldom-seen, grown to perfection by the exhibitors.

The hall at the Queen Elizabeth School in Wimborne has undergone a substantial facelift. This has not been without its problems but has resulted in what must now be one of the best venues in the country for a show. A light and airy foyer is large enough to accommodate all the nurserymen and the hall is very well lit by natural daylight.

The first thing we noticed on entering the hall was the largest saxatile Campanula that I think that we have ever seen. It formed the centrepiece of an excellent AGS Medal-winning sixpan class and duly wrested the Farrer Medal for those Campanula experts, Lee and Julie Martin. In fact this was Lee and Julie’s 33rd Farrer, equalling the record set by Geoff Rollinson.

Campanula sp. MELJ 200944 (referencing a Mevlyn Jope collection) had been introduced as seed from a

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The flowers of Phlox adsurgens ‘Mary Ellen’, exhibited by Graham Nicholls

north-facing cliff near Nafplion in the Peloponnese and a few seedlings had been passed on to the exhibitors just two years ago. It is one of the monocarpic examples to be found in rock crevices, which represent a sizeable contingent of Greece’s 70 or so species. They are dwarf and floriferous enough to make them seem like bona fide alpines, though some grow at very low altitudes and can THE ALPINE GARDENER

Campanula sp.

MELJ 200944, grown from seed by Lee and Julie Martin

be found on cliffs almost down to sea level. Their taxonomy is challenging but this one seems to have greatest affinity with C. andrewsii, a biennial species close to C. topaliana and C. celsii, ‘star fish’ species that radiate numerous procumbent stems from a rosette of softly hairy to tomentose leaves, set with flowers for most or all of their length.

The seedlings were pricked out into individual pots filled with one part loam, half a part leaf-mould, two parts grit- sand and half a part perlite and MARCH 2013

then kept growing by frequent repotting.

The award plant had been moved on six times during its short life. The only other treatment is removal of the central, upright, leading flower shoot at an early stage, encouraging the stems to radiate outwards to yield the fabulous blue cascade on view. Although only 40 per cent of the flowers had been out for the Malvern Show a fortnight earlier, it still received a Certificate of Merit there. The potful had been moved around to keep it shaded ever since, to great advantage.

This was not the only outstanding plant: Certificates of Merit went to Joy Bishop’s Tropaeolum sessiliflorum, a mature, full-of-flower Dionysia involucrata 95

SUMMER SHOW SOUTH

Polygonatum aff. prattii, shown by Ivan Pinnick, is just 15cm high

‘Gothenburg White’ (Paul and Gill Ranson) and a prodigiously flowered Salvia cyanescens (David Richards).

Cecilia Coller habitually exhibits unusual southern hemisphere plants and seems to have secured close to a monopoly in the dwarf shrub classes.

The southern African Selago galpinii was part of her three-pan entry. It makes a dome of frothy blue flowers, its delicacy belying its hardiness. It was no surprise that a host of other wellgrown plants allowed her to win the Stanton Award (for most first prizes in the Open Section), an AGS Medal for six 19cm pans and the Roger Smith Cup for six plants grown from seed.

Rhododendrons are still in full flower in parks and gardens in early summer and two superb dwarf species shown by 96

Dave Mountfort made their presence known for quite different reasons. R. kiusianum, raised from NARGS seed sown in 1996, was completely covered in small flowers, hiding the tiny leaves, whereas R. lowndesii was noteworthy in that this recalcitrant species had produced any flowers at all. The latter, a very difficult plant to flower well, had yielded a succession of flowers over the previous few weeks thanks to growing it (in fact both species) in dappled shade rather than full sun.

Automatic watering ensures that the ericaceous mix is kept constantly damp, which is greatly to its advantage.

Polygonatum aff. prattii (shown by Ivan Pinnick) would be a fitting companion for the above. There are some tall species emanating from China but THE ALPINE GARDENER

Ian Robertson’s Pleione chunii enjoys a two-stage feeding regime

this is quite the opposite, being a mere 15cm high with rather sombre, 1cm bells dangling beneath, and the added bonus of quite a strong almond scent.

Also from China, and at the very tail-end of the season for these semiexotic orchids, Pleione chunii (shown

by Ian Robertson) is one of the later flowering species. Grown frost-free in a compost comprising pure sphagnum moss peat, the pseudobulbs are fed regularly with quarter-strength fertiliser (high nitrogen before July and high in potassium afterwards, until dormancy sets in by the autumn).

We had not seen Phlox adsurgens ‘Mary Ellen’ before, for all that the clone ‘Wagon Wheel’ is well established in cultivation. This very compact form from southern Oregon was introduced MARCH 2013

by Rick Lupp of Mount Tahoma Nursery. Graham Nicholls maintains it in a moisture-retentive soil of three parts ericaceous mix and one part grit in a shaded spot where it thrives, as long as the local molluscs are kept at bay.

Although the Wessex Trophy for the most first-prize points in the Intermediate Section was won by Clive Dart, the plant which advertised its presence most stridently was the bright orange-flowered Ornithogalum dubium, grown by Russell Beeson.

This was an excellent example of how a well-grown pot of readily obtainable, reasonably priced bulbs can provide a prize-winning exhibit.

Andrew Ward won the John Blanchard Cup for the most first-prize points in the Novice Section.

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SUMMER SHOW NORTH

Cecilia toasts the Queen with a patriotic entry

T

he first Summer Show North I attended was held in a Methodist church hall near Huddersfield 30 years ago. Since then it has migrated to Headingley, Pudsey, back to Headingley, back to Pudsey and now, after a couple of fallow years, east to Pontefract.

On the journey up, Union Jack flags and bunting were much in evidence – draped from upstairs windows, crisscrossing narrow streets, fluttering from cars and even festooning a mobility scooter that whizzed along a short distance from the show hall. While some of these were in honour of a football match, the majority celebrated the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, which had

JUNE 16, 2012 Report: Robert Rolfe Pictures: Robert Rolfe and Don Peace

culminated less than a fortnight earlier in a rain-lashed pageant along the Thames.

I mention this because Cecilia Coller, the reigning queen of the show bench and a staunch admirer of the Monarch, put together a patriotically Jubilee-themed, red (well, pink in part, but never mind), white and blue assemblage involving Ramonda myconi in white and mauve-blue forms, Scutellaria indica var. parvifolia, Pimelia ferruginea and Sutherlandia montana.

The last-named is the hardiest of an

One of Cecilia Coller’s specimens of Ramonda myconi, which formed part of a Jubileethemed entry

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THE ALPINE GARDENER

Verbascum ‘Letitia’, grown by Barry Winter, was voted Best in Show

exclusively African genus spread from Namibia across to Botswana, south to the Cape and the Drakensberg. A subshrub of up to 60cm, but in some forms only half that height, the heads of showy scarlet pea flowers to around 5cm long are carried bolt upright from the upper half of its tomentose shoots.

Past AGS president Jack Elliott grew it successfully in his Kentish garden from a 1987 collection (CDRX 131) made at Naude’s Nek in the Eastern Cape at 2,250m (7,400ft) – probably the same source as the plant shown. It has been recorded from Kwazulu-Natal, Lesotho and adjacent areas south to Barkly East (Eastern Cape), growing in veld between grass tussocks on dry slopes, or among rock outcrops. The attractive, inflated seedpods are also noteworthy.

Cecilia was victorious not just here but also in the other two small sixMARCH 2013

pan classes, easily winning the Ridings Salver for most first-prize points in the Open Section. Her plants of Ramonda myconi, grown in part shade so that their foliage was immaculate, were all from an August 1994 sowing and in full flower a month later than usual (though my 1983 diary entry records that on that occasion, too, one plant was in its prime). Seed straight from the pod germinates within a few weeks if sprinkled on a humus-rich compost, the pot placed under a propagator hood.

One Ramonda appeared in the large three-pan class, along with Roscoea humeana ‘Inkling’ and a 40cm tall, billowing Nierembergia pulchella JJA.2.655.500, from seed collected at 4,000m (13,125ft) in Catamarca Province

by John and Anita Watson. This northwest Argentinian endemic produces a mass of whitish, bluish-centred, 99

SUMMER SHOW NORTH

The cascading flowers of Jim and Wilma Wright’s Sarmienta repens

crumple-petalled flowers in early to mid-summer. It is one of several exciting members of the genus from an area of the Andes very lightly represented in cultivation, roots easily from unripe cuttings, flowers in its second year from seed, but hates hard winters, despite its provenance. After the main flowering, the top growth should be cut back by at least a third to rejuvenate the plant.

This show was well supported and well attended, but drenching weather beforehand had hampered the efforts of exhibitors. So while several plants were considered for the Farrer Medal, the award was reluctantly withheld. Of the contenders, Jim and Wilma Wright’s Sarmienta repens was magnificent if viewed side on, but less densely flowered at the back and on top. George Young 100

had a very accomplished Edraianthus dinaricus, sown in November 2008 and almost covered with deep violetblue flowers. The plant voted Best in Show, Barry Winter’s 50cm-across Verbascum ‘Letitia’, was both mature and well-furnished but just slightly past its peak, so that although every single withered flower had been meticulously removed, the judges noted the vacated calyces lower down the flowering stems, commiserated and wished that the show had been held just a few days earlier.

This hybrid between V. dumulosum and V. spinosum, discovered as a chance seedling at RHS Wisley just over 50 years ago, is reliable both under glass or outdoors, where a raised bed or a southfacing, well-drained slope in the rock garden provide suitable homes.

THE ALPINE GARDENER

Arisaema ringens, native to the Far East, shown by Ivor Betteridge

There was a further 1983 echo: in that year three Soldanelloides Section members of Primula were exhibited (P. cawdoriana, P. reidii var. williamsii and P. flaccida, which at that time was still under the name P. nutans).

In 2012 only the last of these was shown, though to very good effect, for Pamela Anderson’s five-stemmed clump – obtained only a couple of years previously from Edrom Nurseries – won the Charles Graham Trophy for the best plant in the Intermediate Section.

A Chinese representative of this most distinguished coterie within the genus, all of them powerfully scented, it can be short-lived but sets a generous amount of seed to mark its passing. What a pity that it isn’t more often exhibited.

Lionel Clarkson’s Androsace aff.

MARCH 2013

hookeriana, with flowers in white, pale lilac and mauve-pink, depending upon their age, was an alluring, high alpine analogue of the biennial Viola tricolor ‘Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’. The species-complex occurs from eastern Nepal through to Assam, and further introductions are adding to its mutability.

Ron McBeath’s celebrated 1987, CLD introductions of Roscoea humeana forma alba were twice shown (Pat and Fred Bundy), immaculate from afar but slightly pock-marked by rain when inspected closely. Best of all, Ivor Betteridge’s Arisaema ringens (Chinese in part, but also from Taiwan, Korea and Japan, predominantly at low elevations) won its class against stiff opposition, gleaming in the muted, fitful sunlight.

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SUMMER SHOW MID WEST

The blues shine amid a rainbow of colour JULY 14, 2012 Report: Jo Walker Pictures: Doug Joyce and Jon Evans

T

his was the day that a rainbow brightened 2012’s summer gloom. Every colour was represented at Tewkesbury. Vibrant red and orange were contributed by several Andean cacti. Yellow was provided by Goodenia, a mainly Australian genus of annuals and perennials, a number of them suitably dwarf. Pink was represented by Ourisia x bitternensis (though this can also be red, orange, yellow or creamy-white) and a plant from much closer to home, Ken Aslet’s Dorset find, Anagallis tenella ‘Studland’, which unsurprisingly had found the damp weather much to its liking, since it does well if the pot is kept on capillary matting so that it never dries out.

Ferns and conifers, well represented, offered every shade of green. And blue came courtesy of a couple of first-rate Trachelium asperuloides but most of all from the pale blue to the dark violet of the campanulas. One of these, C. zoysii won the Farrer Medal, 11 years since the last time the species received the award.

Winning a Farrer Medal it is always something special. But when it is your first Farrer, you discover what the term ‘walking on air’ means. Peter Farkasch, who had come tantalisingly close with

102

Eritrichium canum, shown by Anne Vale, has an identity crisis

Campanula tommasiniana four years previously, secured the honour with surely the most offbeat member of the genus. It is typically a plant of limestone crevices in the south-eastern Alps.

Triglav is a well-known locality, where it can be found in abundance higher up, occasionally seeding down into dry THE ALPINE GARDENER

Campanula zoysii won a first Farrer Medal for Peter Farkasch

The monocarpic Campanula pelia, exhibited by Graham Nicholls

riverbeds. In cultivation it likes frequent repotting and, as this plant proved, it is often better trimmed to remove the spent stems, then divided. From time to time a vigorous form is reported, but this has always been one of the more demanding saxatile species to keep in good health, even when aphids and MARCH 2013

molluscs (its two principal enemies in cultivation) have been kept at bay. Peter obtained it as ‘Clone B’ from Blackthorn Nursery and had grown it on for three years. Grown in a fairly standard alpine compost but fed with Vitax Q4, liquid seaweed fertiliser and Tomorite, it lives in a south-facing plunge bed.

Two other north Italian, lime-loving species, C. raineri and C. morettiana, are never found together in the wild, but under glass in the Cotswolds they hybridised spontaneously to give Campanula ‘Joe Elliott’, named for the owner of the onetime Broadwell Nursery where it occurred. Colin and Kathleen Billington’s promising potful won the Wessex Water Trophy for best plant in the Novice Section. Flowering continues until the autumn but the main flush appears in the first fortnight of July.

A well-flowered plant of the Greek Campanula pelia, exhibited by Graham 103

SUMMER SHOW MID WEST

Nicholls, represented a seedling left over from a sale batch that he took pity on and potted up. The seed had been given to him by Lee and Julie Martin, gathered from a large specimen that had won them a Farrer Medal. Be warned: it is monocarpic, so in order to build up a large plant you should remove any flowering stems for the first couple of years and repot frequently.

Other than this treatment, a standard alpine compost, good light and alpinehouse protection are all that is needed.

Another eye-catching plant, Eritrichium canum, was brought along

by Anne Vale. This Central Asian and Himalayan species has the bright blue corollas typical of the best of its genus, but instead of forming a cushion it is of upright habit, to around 20cm as seen, with the flowers in branched clusters.

104

Anne’s plant is two years old and grows in a raised bed filled with grit and sand, where it has seeded around. Seed sown late in the season will germinate rapidly, the plants over-wintering and blooming from early summer onwards.

Sow in late winter and it will come up the same spring, flower within a few months and then die. (Robert Rolfe writes: The identity of the plant shown is uncertain. It doesn’t match those few illustrations of E. canum published, and may well belong to a related genus such as Cynoglossum or Lindelofia.)

Cecilia Coller never ceases to impress with the breadth and depth of her plant collection. Again she won both sixpan classes and various others as well, hence gaining the Hilliard Cup for most first-prize points in the Open Section.

Among her small six-pan entry, a THE ALPINE GARDENER

Roscoea purpurea ‘Royal Purple’, bred and shown

by Robin White.

Opposite, Calochortus clavatus var. recurvifolius from Bob and Rannveig Wallis

vibrant Delphinium tatsienense, together with an unusual, almost white version that had just the faintest touch of blue, stood out. Native to Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan, this easy-going species has been in cultivation for many years, growing well outdoors and often selfseeding. For good measure, a delicate pale pink Pelargonium havlasae, which she sowed on February 4, 2010, won the AGS Seed Distribution Trophy.

Bob and Rannveig Wallis received the Frank Badrick Trophy with a fascinating three-pan bulb entry. Its plum component was a lovely clump of Calochortus clavatus var. recurvifolius, a very showy Section Mariposa member with rich yellow, up-facing flowers on wiry, branched stems. Other examples of the species can reach up to a metre in height, but this narrow endemic, from MARCH 2013

California’s San Luis Obispo County, seldom exceeds 30cm, and since the leaves have withered away by flowering time, the floral display is very striking.

A plant of coastal chaparral, it requires a dry but reasonably cool summer.

A Certificate of Merit was given to the foregoing; another one went to the dark and mysterious Roscoea purpurea ‘Royal Purple’, bred and shown by Robin White of Blackthorn Nursery. This was exhibited out of flower, the wavy-edged, richly coloured leaves putting on a fine show in their own right. A range of R. purpurea seedlings, some involving the much-celebrated f. purpurea ‘Red Gurkha’, have been trialled by the exhibitor, and selection of the most promising is ongoing for both flower and foliage. Stock of this new release on Robin’s nursery stand sold out rapidly.

105

AUTUMN SHOW SOUTH

Immaculate Cyclamen lifts the Farrer for Ian

F

ollowing very changeable weather over the summer, the sun shone on a surprisingly colourful autumn show. On the one hand, bulbs normally at their best in late September were running late and in many cases were barely through the ground in exhibitors’ gardens. On the other, in some collections Cyclamen had responded by coming into bloom very early. One surprised owner found his C. mirabile in full flower in August. This left the way clear for C. hederifolium and C. graecum to take centre stage, providing a firstrate display on the benches and making up for any spaces elsewhere in the hall.

Ian Robertson once again had a

SEPTEMBER 29, 2012 Report: Brendan Wade Pictures: Jon Evans and Doug Joyce

successful day, winning four awards.

His fine pan of a rather dwarf, starbursteffect Sternbergia sicula won the Keith Moorhouse Trophy for the best plant in a 19cm pot and a Certificate of Merit to boot. Far more concise than any of the other examples shown, and with the narrow, dark green leaves barely showing, it had been worked up from a single bulb acquired from Rannveig Wallis’s Buried Treasure nursery five years ago. Stock of that vintage was of Cretan origin, detailed

Sternbergia sicula won the Keith Moorhouse Trophy for the best plant in a 19cm pot and a Certificate of Merit

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THE ALPINE GARDENER

A section of Ian Robertson’s Cyclamen graecum subsp. anatolicum, showing the leaf patterning

in the list as ‘an unusual form with lots of bright yellow, starry flowers’. Grown in a compost of equal parts peat, John Innes No. 2 and grit, it had multiplied to form a truly outstanding clump.

Ian also won the Saunders Spoon for the third year running, adding the Farrer Medal for good measure with a large pan of Cyclamen graecum subsp. anatolicum.

Seed acquired from the Cyclamen Society in 1998 had germinated freely, the young plants nurtured in a compost made up of chopped and crumbled beech leaves, John Innes No. 2 and an unusual blend of equal parts perlite MARCH 2013

and cat litter – a product noted for its absorbency. On the day the mass of strong pink flowers was unbeatable, the low (around 5cm tall), even nature of the flower heads prompting one judge to comment: ‘You could measure it with a set square.’ Had he not been successful with this, however, two other excellent entries of the same species would surely have served him well.

Straying into herbaceous perennial territory, a slightly unconventional visitor to the benches was Clematis heracleifolia ‘Pink Dwarf ’, grown by Keith and Rachel Lever of Aberconwy Nursery. This much reduced form of the non-climbing Mongolian/Chinese/ Korean species, which is easy to grow, had come originally from Mike Smith.

Its flowers are bluish through to palish pink or purple. The plant shown had 107

AUTUMN SHOW SOUTH

Judges cast their votes in front of a packed bench at Rainham

been grown from a cutting at the nursery and after four years provided a subtle contrast of pale pink, bellshaped flowers against lime green leaves. An alternative means of increase is to divide the clump in early spring.

Bob and Rannveig Wallis as usual brought a number of excellent bulbs, including a stand-out pan of Oxalis purpurea (syn. O. speciosa, though O. melanosticta is also implicated, and is probably the name under which it will come to rest) that was awarded a Certificate of Merit. This South African native, purchased 40 years ago from Percy Picton, had been grown in a 50-50 mix of John Innes No. 2 and grit-sand with a John Innes fertiliser dusting.

It is grown in a cold greenhouse in a sand plunge, enjoying full sun and 108

a dry summer dormancy. Repotted every two years in August, the largest bulbs made up the pan, with the others grown on separately. Many judges praised this low, even, full-of-flower display, the silvery-felted leaves a subtle foil for the large, rich yellow blooms.

Another plant from the Wallises that drew comment was a flourish of Colchicum dolichantherum, one of a spate of species described in 1999 by Karin Persson and seldom seen in captivity before, even by an acknowledged authority on the genus who was among the judges. Native to southern Turkey, mainly from Adana to Gaziantep, but also with a western outlier representation in Antalya and an extension into northern Syria, it occupies a range of habitats from long-established olive groves and THE ALPINE GARDENER

George Elder’s pan of Colchicum aff. umbrosum and, below, Colchicum dolichantherum shown by Bob and Rannveig Wallis

vineyards to seasonally moist meadows and north-facing rocky slopes. Allied to C. balansae and the larger still C. cilicicum, the clusters of flowers that erupt from the corms are similar to many other colchicums, albeit in miniature. It is in part distinguished by its relatively narrow leaves, which emerge in spring.

MARCH 2013

George Elder won the Halsted Trophy for the best plant in seed-raised classes with a pan of Colchicum aff. umbrosum.

This species, from north-eastern Turkey, the Crimea and Dagestan, is a dwarf plant from woodlands and damp meadows that produces up to six blunttipped, rather narrow-segmented pink flowers from corms 1.5-2.5cm across.

AGS seed sown in 1994 had resulted in a pan of delicate, slightly deflexed lilacpink flowers with bright yellow stamens.

Others from this raising grow well in the exhibitor’s garden but the winning pan spends much of the year in an uncovered sand plunge. A dilute Tomorite feed is given once a year and, occasionally, a potassium feed to supplement the nutriments provided by the compost of John Innes No. 3, perlite and sharp sand in which it is grown.

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LOUGHBOROUGH AUTUMN SHOW

I

A welcome back from sixty exhibitors

t is always a delight to visit the autumn show at Loughborough, now resurrected after a year’s gap, for it unfailingly brings together plants and their owners from far and wide. The 2012 event was no exception, the benches carrying a wide range of plants brought by 60 exhibitors, including 11 in the Novice Section, which bodes well for the future.

Inevitably at this time of year, autumnflowering bulbs provided the bulk of colour and interest, but many other plants drew attention, including a good range of shrubs, some shown primarily for their autumn colour, others for their fruit, along with many sempervivums and cushion plants.

The Farrer Medal recipient, a bright panful of Sternbergia sicula, was shown by those doyens of the bulbous classes

OCTOBER 6, 2012 Report: John Good Pictures: Jon Evans and Doug Joyce

at our shows, Bob and Rannveig Wallis.

When grown in pots sternbergias should be potted up early, in July or August for preference, along with autumnflowering colchicums. These bulbs come into growth as soon as the temperature begins to drop, not waiting for the first rains of autumn as most crocuses do.

They are not difficult to cultivate in the open garden, given freely drained soil and full sun, and are sufficiently hardy in most parts of the British Isles not to require winter protection, although this may encourage freer flowering.

Separating this entry from the runnerup, a splendid pan of Cyclamen graecum

Sternbergia sicula lifted the Farrer Medal for Bob and Rannveig Wallis 110

THE ALPINE GARDENER

A fine example of Cyclamen graecum subsp. anatolicum shown by Martin Denney

subsp. anatolicum shown by Martin Denney, was a difficult task for the judges. Cyclamen graecum in its various forms is not a plant for the open garden, surprising when one considers that it is often found in the wild growing near to C. hederifolium, undoubtedly the easiest Cyclamen to naturalise in our gardens. But it is straightforward when grown in a pot, and plants rivalling the best you could ever hope to see in the eastern Mediterranean are nowadays fairly routine. The wide variety of foliage in terms of size, colour and markings is seemingly never-ending.

Drying off the corms completely in summer, only starting to water when they come into growth, tends to limit flower production. Instead, keep the MARCH 2013

compost slightly moist throughout their dormancy, increasing watering when they are in full leaf. Under-pot rather than over-pot, the aim being to ensure that the soil is full of roots when the plant is in growth. Carefully scrape away some of the soil from around the corm just as it comes into growth and replenish.

In addition to the above, Certificates of Merit went to three other plants: Oxalis perdicaria ‘Citrino’ and Gaultheria crassa ‘John Saxton’ (which also won the Leicester Group Trophy for the best pan in cone, seed or fruit, or autumn coloured foliage), both exhibited by Keith and Rachel Lever of Aberconwy Nursery, and Colchicum alpinum shown

by Jim McGregor.

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LOUGHBOROUGH AUTUMN SHOW

The Oxalis had flowers of a delicate cream rather than the bright yellow more typical of this widely distributed South American. Sourced over a decade ago from Paul Cumbleton at Wisley, it has proved straightforward, being one of a group that has two dormancy periods, starting to grow in spring but producing only leaves, then dying down for summer, and resurfacing with foliage and flowers in autumn.

It is reputedly fully hardy, having been frozen solid in its pot in the 2010-2011 winter. For exhibition purposes it is best kept outside until just before the show as otherwise it tends to produce long-stemmed flowers over unsatisfactorily luxuriant foliage. The clonal name is dubious.

This show was notable for the range and quality of colchicums present, the pick of 112

Oxalis perdicaria ‘Citrino’

them a very evenly flowered potful of the infrequently grown Colchicum alpinum, principally known from the Apennines and the islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily. Jim McGregor had never flowered this elfin species as well before: a tribute THE ALPINE GARDENER

Colchicum alpinum won a Certificate of Merit for Jim McGregor.

Opposite, Gaultheria crassa ‘John Saxton’ picked up the same award for Keith and Rachel Lever

to prolonged, careful cultivation.

Compared with spring and particularly summer, which offer a huge range of alliums to those wishing to cultivate this underestimated genus, autumn offers relatively few species. But to the discerning gardener some of these are among the cream of autumn flowering bulbs. Present were excellent pans of Allium thunbergii (Bob and Rannveig Wallis) and A. callimischon subsp. haemostictum (Ian Robertson), the first a Japanese native, the second from the eastern Mediterranean. A. thunbergii has the advantage that if well grown, the foliage remains green to the tips at flowering time − a good foil for the profuse heads of dusky pink flowers. The bulbs divide readily and soon form clumps, or it can be raised quickly from seed.

A. callimischon subsp. haemostictum MARCH 2013

is a dwarf Cretan that flowers after the leaves have died back, its clusters of white flowers enlivened by dense bloodred spotting. Rather delicate, it is seen to best advantage at close quarters.

It would not be an autumn show without Asiatic gentians and some excellent exhibits were scattered across various classes. Aberconwy Nursery has long specialised in them: those that particularly caught the eye were G. sinoornata ‘Gorau Glas’ (‘Best Blue’), with very deep blue trumpets of good size and substance, and G. farreri Silken Star Group, which glowed in the sunshine streaming through the windows of the show hall. Another lovely colour break, David Boyd’s G. ‘Braemar’ was raised by Ian McNaughton of Macplants.

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NEWCASTLE SHOW

Remarkable Biarum proves a show-stopper

A

t this last show of the year, the weather was suitably autumnal, both misty and chilly. But the day started dry − always a bonus when staging − and although they had been subjected to another extreme season, the plants were in full autumnal mode, with both fruits and seasonal tints much in evidence.

At the front of the stage were two displays by Local Group members. One, a series of excellent photographs of plants with a ruby-linked theme, celebrating the Local Group’s ruby anniversary, had been compiled by Mala Janes. The other, an exhibit of plants showing the variety of colour, flower, form and fruit found at this time of year, was shown by Mike and Pearl Dale. These received Large

OCTOBER 13, 2012 Report: Angie Jones Pictures: Peter Maguire

Gold and Silver Awards respectively.

In the Open Section dwarf shrub class, an elegant pan of Enkianthus campanulatus ‘Wallaby’ with deep ruby leaves was shown by Keith and Rachel Lever of Aberconwy Nursery. This neatest of shrubs, noted for its autumn colour and dwarf stature, reaches only about 60cm after many years. The flowers are creamy-white, but other cultivars are various shades of pink through to red.

It is fully hardy and needs to be grown in a lime-free, leafy soil, and even young plants show good autumn colour.

The fruitily scented Biarum marmarisense won the Farrer Medal for Bob and Rannveig Wallis 114

THE ALPINE GARDENER

Empodium flexile is found a high altitudes in Namaqualand

Turning to the three-pan bulbous class, a group of Biarum marmarisense, shown by Bob and Rannveig Wallis, proved a show-stopper. This southwest Turkish endemic filled the pan with numerous flowering spathes that appear before or just as the leaves emerge. Like many aroids, this plant is scented, though fortunately the aroma is described as ‘fruity’, and it is indeed pollinated by fruit flies, unlike many of its fly-visited, malodorous cousins. An amazing assemblage, this was awarded the Farrer Medal. Technically, of course, an alpine it is not: this species grows at only 100m above sea level and therefore likes warmth through the season.

Another excellent and unusual exhibit from the Wallises was a large group of Empodium flexile. This plant from MARCH 2013

Namaqualand grows at relatively high altitudes (but suffers badly in a hard winter, like so many southern African bulbs) and is currently considered a member of the Hypoxidaceae. The bright yellow, recurved tepals are complemented by long, slender, upright stamens, making for a very neat plant, which is also scented, the ‘perfume’ described as something between detergent and polish, so not to all tastes in this regard.

In the class for one pan native to Asia, Alan Newton exhibited the almost shrub-like Aeschynanthus buxifolius KR 7798, which is in fact a member of the Gesneriaceae. This is an alliance not immediately obvious, given its long stems and crimson, tubular flowers.

A Vietnamese collection by Keith Rushforth (though it is also found in 115

NEWCASTLE SHOW

George Young’s Mimulus naiandinus, native to the Chilean Andes 116

several Chinese provinces), it requires careful attention under cold glass with frost protection but is clearly a useful addition to the showing list. There are somewhere in the region of 140 species, spread from China to the Pacific, many of them climbers and epiphytes.

A few can be found above 3,000m (9,850ft), but on the whole they are plants of the densely forested valleys.

Further along the benches, a very neat and elegant example of Cyclamen mirabile shown by Don Peace shone out. There were quite a few other species on display but this one was noteworthy by virtue of its very neat habit, with all the flowers upright through the centre. The judges thought so as well, since it was awarded the Ewesley Salver for the best plant in a 19cm pot.

Shown by George Young in the class THE ALPINE GARDENER

Georgina Instone exhibited the Japanese Allium thunbergii ‘Ozawa’.

Opposite, Cyclamen mirabile shown by Don Peace

for one pan native to the southern hemisphere was a decidedly lateflowering Mimulus naiandinus (normally it blooms from May to July), with numerous white flowers with very striking purple mouths and a yellow ‘flash’ on their lower lips. This plant, now known from several sites in the Chilean Andes, was discovered by Martin Cheese and John Watson in 1972 (C&W5257) and was known as Mimulus ‘Andean Nymph’ for many years until its 2000 naming. A short-lived perennial, it requires very well-drained but continuously damp soil in an alpine house, where it will seed around, gently, into the surrounding plunge.

In the Novice section, Keith Blundell’s fine exhibit of Saxifraga longifolia demonstrated how, before flowering, the single rosettes become enlarged MARCH 2013

and draw themselves up into a mound of perfectly placed leaves with a small, tight, hollow in the centre, in splendid contrast to the astonishing flower spike that will follow. A handsome plant, principally from the Pyrenees, it remains one of the finest saxifrages in cultivation.

A bulbous plant of note was Georgina Instone’s Allium thunbergii ‘Ozawa’, which is a robust form of this Japanese species, with pinkish-purple flowers and dark purple flowering stems. Of the dozen or so members of the genus from that country, this is surely the most popular, blooming as late as November on the low mountains of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, but also extending its range to South Korea. The leaves, which are very narrow, orderly and dark green, complement the flowers and give the whole plant a neat appearance.

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