AG’s Words of Wisdom

From Amateur Gardening’s WORDS OF historic WI 138-year-old archive SDOM In this extract from AG 25 July 1970, Christopher Lloyd, of Great Dixter fame, looks at plants that keep flowering

Never without a flower

Christopher Lloyd looks at plants with a long flowering season

SOMETIMES we think how gratifying it would be if our plants would just keep on flowering. Some plants do, in fact, bloom continuously; they mostly come from the tropics and need a heated greenhouse. Others that are hardy flower for sufficient months on end to earn the Latin epithet semperflorens, which means always in flower.

When continuous-flowering roses were first introduced from China in the late 18th century, it was not surprising that one of them should have been named Rosa chinensis ‘Semperflorens’ . This was Slater’s crimson China, a monthly rose with a truly year-round season if given high enough temperatures to keep it flowering. It was an important parent of Noisette and Bourbon roses and from them came our modern roses, including those grown under glass for year-round flowers.

The shrimp plant, Beloperone guttata, has colourful bracts

Christopher Lloyd at his Great Dixter garden

Perpetual cherries

None of the cherries is truly perpetual, but two of them have made a brave enough stab at it to have earned the title. Prunus serrulata ‘Fudanzakura’ (the last word means continuous cherry) has also been known as Prunus serrulata f. semperflorens. In Japan it probably deserves its reputation; in the UK it can, in a mild winter and if the birds, who adore its buds, leave it alone, flower from November to April, much like the far better known P. x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’ . And in the same way its buds open from pale pink to white. It is useful for cutting to bring on indoors.

Of greater value as a garden plant is P. cerasus ‘Semperflorens’ , a variety of the sour morello cherry. It makes a very pretty small round-topped tree and flowers from April to September. Flowers and ripe fruits may be seen together.

Viburnum tomentosum [V. plicatum f. tomentosum] has given rise to the finest snowball bushes, and also to varieties like ‘Lanarth’ that are nearer to the wild plant, with fertile and sterile florets in the style of a lacecap hydrangea. I met another of this ilk for the first time last summer, but a smaller growing plant more suitable where space was restricted and flowering quite out of season, it seemed to me,

Viola odorata is a scented violet that is seldom found without a flower The showy white flowers of the Japanese snowball Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum ‘Lanarth’

until I learned that its name was V. tomentosum semperflorens.

Exceptionally persistent

intense carmine colouring by February and is then, weather permitting, at its most remarkable.

Of the humbler hardy plants, there is never a month when I cannot find a wild primrose in flower in the surrounding woods, particularly where the weeds have recently been coppiced. However, I come from East Sussex and it is a fact that there are a great many strains of primroses with different flowering habits in different localities. Those from the north will seldom venture into bloom, however you treat them, until April or even May. Wild scented violets also have a pretty well non-stop season. Even in August, when your mind is furthest from

A number of the hebes are exceptionally persistent. ‘Autumn Glory’ , for instance, gets going in early July, with a terrific burst of purple blossoms opening from silvery buds, and you can nearly always find something to pick from it thereafter in every month up to and including the following April. ‘Midsummer Beauty’ , with long lavender spikes that are sweetly scented, is much the same, while ‘Cranleighensis’ , which is pale pink in summer and autumn, develops an

Prunus serrulata ‘Fudanzakura’ can flower from November to April

Kohleria hirsuta has rich-scarlet tubular flowers

this flower, you may, if you happen to think of looking, find a few blooms hiding among its luxuriant foliage.

There is a great range of longflowering tender plants, of which Begonia Semperflorens is the most obvious. Chiefly used for summer bedding, it is also a good greenhouse pot plant. The shrimp plant, Beloperone guttata, whose colourful bracts are its main attraction, can flower non-stop, but it easily becomes a straggler if not cut back in spring and given a rest.

Delicious honey scent

The biennial Exacum affine, with mauve flowers and a delicious honey scent, will, from a spring sowing, start flowering in late summer and carry on to the following spring. Its one drawback is that the dead flowers hang on in an unsightly manner and need constant picking off.

The shrubby tender perennial Dimorphotheca ecklonis (Osteospermum ecklonis) can be bedded out in summer, but should be lifted and repotted in autumn to flower throughout the winter in a cool greenhouse. Its blue-centred white daisies shut up in adverse weather and at night in summer, but remain open the whole time in winter for some unexplained reason.

A particular favourite with me among ever-flowering tender perennials is Isoloma erianthum [Kohleria hirsuta]. A gesneriad with rich-scarlet tubular flowers in loose racemes, it has the most fascinating rhizomes, like fat scaly red centipedes, that crawl around the inner surface of its pot. I am always turning it out to have a look at them. ARCHITECT, landscape gardener, town planner, writer, editor and one of the founders of the Daily News and of several gardening magazines, organiser of a civilian construction corps in the Crimean War, forester, land agent and steward, designer of giant glasshouses and waterworks, railway promoter and director, Member of Parliament – it makes one breathless to recount the diverse activities of Joseph Paxton, one-time gardener’s boy.

At the age of 20 Paxton secured employment in the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Chiswick in London. The landlord was the Duke of Devonshire, who had a private door connecting his own adjoining garden – and thus did young Paxton come to the Duke’s notice. In 1826 he became head gardener at Chatsworth in Derbyshire.

In this extract from AG 4 July 1970, we look at one of the greatest gardeners of all time

Gardeners with a story

We look at the life of Joseph Paxton (1803-1865), who started his horticultural career at Chatsworth House

Remarkable talent

Typical was Paxton’s first morning. He arrived at 4.30am, climbed a gate and explored the neglected pleasure grounds. Then he scaled the wall of the kitchen garden and inspected that. When the under-gardeners arrived at 6am, he set them to work and had a water-work display turned on. At 9am he called on Mrs Gregory, the housekeeper, for breakfast, met her niece Sarah, fell in love and married her the next year.

Combined with energy was a remarkable talent for organising the work of others. When the future Queen of England visited Chatsworth in October 1832, Paxton had a squad of 100 men working through each night to ensure that every gravel path

was smooth and leaf-free by morning. Years later when Queen Victoria again visited Chatsworth Paxton once more excelled himself. The Duke of Wellington was one of the party and, fascinated by a stupendous firework display, arose early to find out how the entertainment had been organised. But the grounds kept their secret – all was in apple-pie order and nothing bore witness to the activity of of Joseph Paxton in 1851 the previous night. ‘I would have liked that man yours for one of my generals, ’ remarked one duke to the other. At Chatsworth, Paxton built giant glasshouses, one 300ft long and 60ft high (91x18m), constructed great roadworks, lakes and the highest found in the world at 267ft (81m). Chatsworth became a famous showplace visited by 60,000 people in a year and that was before motor cars, before local railway even. His greatest horticultural success was the first flowering in England of Victoria amazonica, the giant tropical waterlily, one floating leaf of which was so strong that it could support his seven-year-old daughter. His best-known public achievement, for which he was knighted, was the Crystal Palace that housed the Great Exhibition of 1851. The lily pads of Victoria amazonica can grow up to 8ft (2.4m) across

The views, information and opinions expressed during this series of extracts from past issues of AG are solely those of the individuals involved, at the time they were written, and are not necessarily relevant or even legal today. Please treat these pages as a look back at how things were done in the past and not necessarily how they are done today. AG accepts no responsibility if readers follow advice given in these articles from past issues.