330 THE ALPINE GARDENER
Alpine Gardener the
JOURNAL OF THE ALPINE GARDEN SOCIETY
VOL. 80 No. 4 DECEMBER 2012 pp. 352-471
ISSN 1475-0449
the international society for the cultivation, conservation and exploration of alpine and rock garden plants
Volume 80 No. 4
December 2012
Alpine Gardener THE
CONTENTS 366
355 EDITOR’S LETTER 357 ALPINE DIARY
The AGS’s new President; readers’ letters; 2012 shows round-up.
366 PERUVIAN VENTURE Robert Rolfe reports on the remarkable flora encountered during his visit to Peru this year.
396 PLANT PROFILE Gentianella weberbaueri.
414 FARRER MAESTRO
Geoff Rollinson has won more Farrer Medals than any other AGS exhibitor. How does he do it?
427 REGINALD FARRER
432
For newer members, an introduction to the man whose name adorns the Farrer Medal.
432 PHOTO ALBUM
Images from the AGS Slide Library showing plants in their habitats.
440 SHOW REPORTS
This year’s Cleveland, London, North Midland, Midland, Dublin and East Anglia shows.
414
December 2012 Volume 80 No 4
PRACTICAL GARDENING
407
398 GROWING IN GREENHOUSES
Vic Aspland on the lessons he has learned under glass.
407 CREATING THE HALF-MOON BED
How Pam Turner built an alpine bed that masked one eyesore and utilised another.
464 THE LURE OF
ALPINE NURSERIES Tim Ingram on the nurseries that have influenced his gardening. COVER PHOTOGRAPHS
Front: Paeonia cambessedesii seedhead in the AGS garden at Pershore (Ann Thomas) Back: Nototriche pedicularifolia in Peru (Robert Rolfe; see page 366)
464
ON THESE PAGES Left: Nototriche argylloides in Peru; Gentiana lutea in the Swiss Alps; Jim Almond and Geoff Rollinson with Saxifraga ‘Coolock Gem’ Right: Pam Turner and her halfmoon bed; an alpine house at Hythe Alpines in Norfolk; a bicoloured Trillium grandiflorum exhibited by Diane Clement at the Midland Show
452
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 Phone: +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
TONY HUGHES
Let’s repay our debt to Nature Editor ’s letter
T
Vulnerable: a solitary Gymnadenia (Nigritella) bicolor in the Swiss Alps DECEMBER 2012
ake a look around any garden, particularly an alpine garden, and you will see plants that originate from all across the world. Many of these plants will have been cultivated in the UK, but some may have been grown from seed or other live tissue collected in the wild. The Victorian period was, of course, the zenith of plant collecting, with the likes of William and Thomas Lobb, George Forrest, Joseph Hooker, Charles Maries and Robert Fortune introducing specimens that changed the face of British gardening. In those days no one thought twice about bringing back ships loaded with plants and tea-chests packed with seed. Since the formation of the AGS in 1929, many members have continued this tradition of plant and seed collecting and it has much enriched our rock gardens and alpine houses. As a Society, however, we seldom reflect on the impact that collection has on wild populations. Over the years, AGS members must have removed millions of seeds from their native 355
EDITORIAL habitats. Had these seeds been left to fall and germinate, some would have grown into plants that in turn would have set seed, and so on. So seed collection deprives wild habitats of generations of plants. I have asked several long-standing members if they could recall any instances of the Society being involved in the conservation or repopulation of wild habitats. None could, though many individual members will have undoubtedly been active in such work and the September 1993 Bulletin was devoted to conservation issues. The collection of seed, though, is not the only threat to wild populations. Habitat destruction due to the expansion of agriculture, road building, industrial development and, now, climate change all take their very considerable toll. If we really love plants, we should love them most of all where Nature has cossetted them for millennia. I am not suggesting that we should stop bringing back seed from the wild in an effort to establish new species in cultivation (for which many AGS members have been rightly lauded), so long as the collection does not infringe protection orders. But we should not just keep taking. It is surely time to put something back. There are excellent examples to follow, such as the Writhlington School Orchid Project in Somerset where, for 20 years, pupils led by their inspirational teacher Simon Pugh-Jones have worked with conservation partners in the Himalayas, South-East Asia, South Africa, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Brazil. Involvement in conservation would be a creditable addition to the AGS’s 356
activities. If you have any suggestions about how and where we could begin to take part, please send them to me.
C
ongratulations to Vic Aspland, this journal’s Practical Gardening Correspondent, on his appointment as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Birmingham Botanical Gardens. He takes over at an exciting time for the gardens, which are undergoing ambitious improvements. This year the cascade in the rock garden was rebuilt and next spring the area around it will be replanted to create a Himalayan glade. Other projects include the extension of the winter bulb trail and the planting of small flowering trees to establish a spring blossom trail. Vic has a long involvement with the gardens and, for 11 years, has served as chairman of its Horticultural Committee. He is, of course, a handson volunteer and this year he rebuilt a sandstone area in the arid house to accommodate plants from the South African fynbos. If you are passing through Birmingham, the gardens are well worth a visit. Good luck, Vic, in your new role. John Fitzpatrick We’d like to hear your views about articles in The Alpine Gardener, and also about your experiences of growing plants or searching for them in the wild. Please write to the Editor at AGS Centre (address on title page) or email editor@agsgroups.org. THE ALPINE GARDENER
ALPINE DIARY
David Haselgrove, the new President of the Alpine Garden Society, in the Stirt Piggin Memorial Garden at AGS Centre, Pershore
New President begins to tackle garden No. 4
T
he next three years are going to be busy for David Haselgrove. Not only has he been elected to serve for that time as President of the Alpine Garden Society; he has also taken on the renovation of a one-acre garden. It is his fourth garden, for he has moved this year with his wife Celia to Wiltshire from Hertfordshire, where he tended three and half acres of heavy boulder clay over chalk for 25 years. David has downsized to just an acre of DECEMBER 2012
greensand and is relishing the prospect of ‘being able to grow rhododendrons again’, though his new garden requires much improvement and revitalisation. ‘It’s just as well that I enjoy getting my hands dirty,’ he says. ‘So far I’ve constructed a raised bed and two 10ft long bulb frames. The garden includes the embankment of a disused railway line, which is choked with weeds and will have to be cleared. But in all the years I’ve been gardening I’ve rarely had paid help, though occasionally friends 357
ALPINE DIARY have mucked in when there’s been a big project to tackle.’ Moving gardens involved three round trips in a long-wheelbase Transit van. Everything including sleepers, pots, frames and, of course, plants made the journey south. ‘In my last garden I developed a great interest in trees and shrubs,’ says David, ‘and I’ll be planting some of my favourites at our new house. In Hertfordshire I had a 20ft alpine house with plunge beds. I’ll have two greenhouses on the new plot, but otherwise everything will be exposed to the elements. I intend to develop a woodland area – I’m very keen on hostas, trilliums and erythroniums.’ David has been fascinated by plants since his childhood in Essex. ‘I was 20 when I joined the AGS,’ he recalls. ‘I was introduced to this wonderful Society by Barry Starling in Essex, where I was attempting to grow rhododendrons in an unhappy climate. Barry suggested that I came along to the local group and within three years I was group secretary.’ He describes his first garden in Essex as a ‘no plants’ garden. But the beds and borders didn’t stay empty for long as his interest in alpines and bulbous plants grew. For a time he exhibited at AGS shows. ‘I got as far as winning a Silver Medal,’ he says, ‘but when I ended up with three and a half acres to look after there wasn’t time to grow show plants.’ David became the AGS’s national publications manager, a job he carried out diligently for 25 years. In the era before the discounting of book prices, he was able to generate substantial 358
profits for the Society. ‘Much of the money was used to improve the print quality and size of the journal,’ he says. ‘I wanted to see it getting bigger and better. The healthy publications fund was also instrumental in enabling the AGS to publish its Encyclopaedia of Alpines, which itself was a profitable venture and is now on our website.’ David stood down as publications manager in 2001 and since then has served at various times on the AGS Board of Trustees. He is also active in the Royal Horticultural Society. He was appointed to the RHS’s Business Committee five years ago and elected to the RHS Council two years later. David now serves on the Gardens and Audit committees and is a trustee of the RHS pension fund. He is a Gardens Adviser to RHS Garden Hyde Hall in Essex, where there are plans for the substantial developments of an organic vegetable garden and a Mediterranean garden. He also manages to find the time to serve as a floral judge at RHS shows and as a member of the Joint Rock Garden Plant Committee. ‘My work on the RHS Council and committees takes up more than 50 days a year,’ he says. David, who is a keen photographer, has travelled widely to see plants in their native habitats. This year he visited Namibia, and has previously explored the flora in North America, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, South Africa, Nepal, China, Tibet, Iran, Turkey and around the Mediterranean. He accepts that he will face big challenges in his time as President. ‘My THE ALPINE GARDENER
ALPINE DIARY
Part of the Hertfordshire garden that David Haselgrove has left after 25 years
involvement with the AGS revolves around my love of plants,’ he says. ‘I love growing them in my garden and travelling to see them in their native habitats. ‘But the Society is operating at a substantial deficit year-on-year. This is not sustainable and we must either increase membership to alleviate the cash shortfall or learn to live within DECEMBER 2012
our means. Over the next few years the AGS will have to make sufficient changes in order to plan for a viable and long-term future. ‘The Society functions as it does today only because of substantial legacies received over the years. There is no guarantee that we will receive such sums in the future, so we must take action to balance the books.’ 359
ALPINE DIARY
Erythronium turns its flowers to the sky Letters
From Harold McBride, Lisburn, County Antrim
I
thought that members might be interested to see a rare form of Erythronium revolutum that is thriving in my garden. This native of western North America is found from Vancouver Island to northern California. E. revolutum grows in redwood forests and mixed evergreen woodland. It seems to prefer damp areas close to streams at altitudes up to 1,000m (3,280ft), flowering in its natural habitat from March until June. In my garden it has finished flowering by mid-April. E. revolutum has charming, pale pink, pendulous flowers which, combined with its attractive mottled leaves, make it a very popular garden plant. It thrives in a moisture-retentive, humus-rich soil and produces many self-sown seedlings, including several hybrids. Some selected forms have been named including E. revolutum Johnsonii Group, ‘Pink Beauty’ and ‘Knightshayes’. Twelve years ago I noticed a small clump of E. revolutum that had upturned flowers, differing from the normal pendulous form, and since then several more such flowers have appeared in the garden, showing that this rare form comes true from seed. Recently I sent photographs to several 360
North American experts and they suggest that it is very unusual and has seldom been recorded in the wild. From Patricia Poynter, Edenbridge, Kent
I
have been an avid member of the Alpine Garden Society for many years and I grow lots of plants to help various charities. This, of course, means that I use lots of labels and I have at last found a way of cleaning ink off old labels. Simply put on a pair of rubber gloves and wet a pad of kitchen paper or a rag with nail-polish remover. Just wipe off the old letters and put the labels into a bowl of warm, soapy water. They can then be dried with an old cloth and are as good as new. From Andrew McDonald, Bristol
B
y pure chance my wife and I stumbled across the AGS show at Tewkesbury in July. We were in the area to visit friends and noticed the sign for THE ALPINE GARDENER
ALPINE DIARY
Harold McBride’s upturned Erythronium revolutum and, below, its normal habit
your show, so we called in. What we saw was breathtaking. The plants on show were fabulous, and so many of them! We are keen gardeners but there were many plants that we either didn’t recognise, had never heard of or both. The plant stalls were also impressive and we bought a few alpines to try at home. We have since learned that the AGS stages more than 20 such shows across the country and we will make a point of going to some others if we can, but why had we never heard of them? If the plant displays are all as good as at Tewkesbury, gardeners should be flocking to them. They should be highlights in anyone’s gardening calendar. Perhaps your shows are a secret that you don’t want to let out? DECEMBER 2012
361
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A
s all seasoned AGS exhibitors know, you have to take the rough with the smooth, but this last season must go down as one of the roughest in recent memory. This isn’t because the judges were more pernickety than normal, nor was it due to the outbreak of road works on seemingly every motorway leading to a show venue. Pests and diseases? No, they weren’t to blame either. The rough was supplied by the great – or not so great – British weather. The mean temperature and sunshine levels for January were considerably higher than the 30-year average and plants reacted as though spring had arrived. February saw both measures drop considerably, though light levels were better than for the same time last year. Plants, of course, responded to these changes, so strong early growth was checked and development stopped dead. The early shows suffered a little. Exhibitor numbers were down at Caerleon but the quality of plants was reflected by the awarding of two Certificates of Merit and a Farrer Medal. The Early Spring Show also bore the brunt of the weather. Exhibitor numbers were up but there were fewer plants and, sadly, a Farrer was not awarded. In March average temperatures reached a 60-year peak and sunshine levels were close to the highest ever recorded. Plants and exhibitors were now totally confused. The Loughborough Show saw a broad array of late-earlies and early-lates. 362
Exhibitors take the rough with the rough Ray Drew, the AGS Director of Shows, reflects on a year when the elements failed to derail members’ enthusiasm for exhibiting plants. Pictures by Jon Evans Plant numbers were still down but the season had started – until April arrived. It turned out to be the coldest and darkest since 1987 and the wettest on record. For those exhibitors who lift plants from the open garden to pot up for shows, this proved problematic to say the least. Getting plants from the car to the show hall became a task that required a mad dash, with all kinds of weather shields employed. For example, a hat held over a cushion plant while the owner’s hair took on a ‘drowned rat’ appearance. Throughout all of this, most show secretaries and exhibitors stoically adopted a ‘Don’t panic and carry on’ attitude. With only two shows each year, THE ALPINE GARDENER
ALPINE DIARY
AGS AGGREGATE SHOW RESULTS 2012
OPEN SECTION TOP TEN
First First Second Third places points * points points
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
123 64 64 36 72 46 45 40 27 35
303 124 120 112 102 94 78 74 53 51
145 58 81 48 23 46 17 39 32 30
63 11 31 15 8 6 11 11 10 3
39 37 25 22 24
69 49 33 32 24
34 42 15 37 55
38 16 18 23 34
Cecilia Coller, Norwich Paul & Gill Ranson, Chippenham Ivor Betteridge, Ashby-de-la-Zouch Bob & Rannveig Wallis, Carmarthen Don Peace, Yarm Ian Kidman, Ebchester Lee & Julie Martin, Pevensey Ian Robertson, Shaftesbury Alan Newton, Ponteland Eric Jarrett, Stroud
INTERMEDIATE SECTION TOP FIVE 1 2 3 4 5
Clive Dart, Henfield John Fitzpatrick, Hereford Norman Davies, Bacup Colin & Sue Buxton, Potton Georgina Instone, Leeds
NOVICE SECTION TOP FIVE 1 Andrew Ward, Wisbech 71 89 36 12 2 Brian Sulman, Mildenhall 28 36 54 30 3 Colin & Kathleen Billington, Chipping 29 33 26 11 4 John Millen, Maidstone 6 10 1 1 5 George Jaworski, Ambleside 4 8 3 0
ARTISTIC OPEN SECTION TOP THREE 1 2 3
Jon Evans, Farnham Jean Morris, Berkhamsted Peter Maguire, Gosforth
32 32 13
92 66 37
65 11 53
14 1 12
ARTISTIC INTERMEDIATE SECTION TOP THREE 1 John Hill, Worcester 9 17 22 13 2 Kit Strange, London 11 17 4 4 3 Maeve Spotswood, Bray 4 6 2 0 * First, second and third points are awarded for each plant exhibited. For example, a first place in a three-pan class is awarded three first points.
DECEMBER 2012
363
ALPINE DIARY
Judging under way at the Loughborough Show in March this year
our Irish exhibitors were confronted with even greater difficulties due to the weather. Entries for the Ulster Show at the end of March were down a little but there were many excellent exhibits. Fast-forward a month to the Dublin Show and temperatures had dropped significantly, causing plants to go over with no new material coming through. This resulted in a large drop in both numbers of exhibitors and plants on the bench. Here, also, no Farrer Medal was awarded, but it was still a grand event. Nevertheless, 20 exhibitors did collect Farrer Medals this year, all of them going to old hands except one – Peter Farkasch picked up his first at Summer Mid West with a fine Campanula zoysii. Exhibitor numbers rose at almost 364
every English show from Kent, in mid-March, onwards. The number of plants took time to pick up but eventually exceeded that of last year, reversing the trend of the past six years. A total of 7,086 entries was staged, which consisted of 9,632 plants when multiple-pan classes are taken into account. The highest number of plants, at 640, was exhibited at Loughborough in March. There was a welcome surge in entries in the Novice Section, with a third more plants staged and more new exhibitors visiting several shows. A great way for local groups to encourage members into the showing fraternity is to stage mini-shows on their group nights and perhaps hold an annual local show. If advertised well it’s also a great way of THE ALPINE GARDENER
ALPINE DIARY
Alkanna aucheriana exhibited by Lee and Julie Martin at the South West Show
recruiting the general gardening public. The London Show was the best for a number of years, boosted by exhibitors sending in plants from outside the capital. Cecilia Coller was, again, the stalwart of this show and this year she achieved a remarkable feat. In gaining her 39th Gold Bar, she became the first person to win 2,000 first places at our shows. Two new venues hosted shows this year, with Summer Show North back in the calendar at Pontefract and the seemingly nomadic Summer Show Mid West at last arriving at its chosen site in Tewkesbury. The autumn shows are always eagerly awaited after the summer lull and this year saw the resurrection of an old friend in the form of the DECEMBER 2012
Loughborough event. Its geographical position means it attracts members from both north and south, and it celebrated its return by posting a huge increase in exhibits compared with its previous incarnation. My thanks go to all the judges and show secretaries who do such an invaluable job. Special thanks are due to Bob and Di Darke, who are retiring as joint show secretaries of the South West Show and leave it in the safe hands of Jon and Kana Webster, to the AGS Centre for being a constant source of support and guidance and, last but not least, to all the exhibitors for not only absorbing the ever-increasing cost of getting to shows but for their dogged determination in the face of a meteorological minefield. 365
Gentiana sedifolia
Nototriche sp.
Gentianella aff. lobelioides
Day-tripping in southern Peru
In March this year Robert Rolfe made a second visit to Puno in southern Peru, using it as a base to explore the surrounding cordilleras and retracing in part the routes taken by pioneering plant-hunter Dora Stafford in the 1930s. He discovered a wealth of plant life, much of it difficult to identify, with one or two species probably new to science
EXPLORATION
The adventurous plant-hunter Dora Stafford on a mule in an unknown location
‘A
hotbed of thieves’ was how one author described Huancayo in Peru’s Central Highlands. ‘Plagued by waves of strangle muggings,’ another said of Puno. I didn’t have the heart to look up the official advice about Ayacucho, where the Sendero Luminoso, notorious for widespread terrorist activities, had been founded. All three cities were on my itinerary for a short first visit to Peru in February and March 2007. They are linked by roads that are often appalling during the wet season from November to late March, when many plants are in full flower, and served as bases for my day-long forays into the surrounding mountains. Very few difficulties arose on that trip, thanks to a series of English-speaking 368
guides and minders. One was the captain of a football team, another played guitar in a local band, and they drove me round, slamming on the breaks when I shouted ‘Stop!’ and gamely assisting in the search for whatever might be growing on the moorlands, mountain slopes and screes. ‘I don’t think I have ever enjoyed anything so much in my life,’ the formidable Anglo-Peruvian planthunter Dora Stafford wrote 70 years ago of her adventures in the mountains west of Puno. My thoughts exactly, even if only six days were spent looking for plants. A further four were taken up with getting on and off planes and trains. And because my planned routes weren’t typical choices, at first senior THE ALPINE GARDENER
PERU
Bidens triplinervia, a common roadside plant in and around Puno
figures from the tour operator came along for the ride. Their suggestions for extra-curricular excursions (thermal baths, Inca ruins, a coffee factory) were never-ending, so I made my feelings clear. They opted to stay behind in the office, and from then all went well. In mid-March this year I returned to Peru, heading straight for Puno’s nearest airport, Juliaca. It is a 90-minute flight from Lima, though some airlines stop off at Arequipa. From the runway at Arequipa, the view of snowcapped Volcán El Misti is enthralling. I reunited with my driver cum guide from 2007, spending six days going wherever the mood took me. Flower sightings started soon after I arrived or, more accurately, as the plane DECEMBER 2012
banked in readiness to land. In brilliant sunshine the landscape was clearly more verdant than on my previous visit, with myriad blue vernal pools and innumerable swathes of bright yellow, the effect rather like oilseed rape fields in miniature. Two composites were seen, the taller of them looking like a Helianthus and indeed a member of that tribe, probably Viguiera weberbaueri. Although I possessed Miss Stafford’s field notes, annotated lecture lists and other writings, and had made two herbaria visits and conferred with various people before departure, precise identification was often tricky. This plant was nearly as tall as a sunflower but multi-branched, with smaller, predominantly upturned, more delicate 369
EXPLORATION
370
THE ALPINE GARDENER
PERU
Acaulimalva nubigena, which was previously known as Malvastrum nubigena
flowers. Forming extensive colonies and flaunting its presence on rocky slopes overlooking the roads leading to Puno at 3,800-4,000m (12,500-13,100ft), this ubiquitous weed was a cheering sight, whatever its identity. More widespread still, at up to 4,200m (13,800ft), Bidens triplinervia lit up nooks and crannies of towering rock edifices and colonised the gravelly hard shoulders and run-off slopes of roads, just a few feet from where alarmingly large lorries thundered by at regular intervals. Their back-draught was a nuisance, sending the flowers a-quiver, and the blaring horns they sounded made me trigger my camera’s remote cable release in alarm several times. One trucker stopped to see why on DECEMBER 2012
earth I was sprawled, mini-tripod to hand, in such a place. Uprooting a tuft of Bidens to sniff its rather acrid foliage (the smell vaguely reminiscent of ragwort), he bent down, shook hands and took a photograph on his phone of me, not the plant, then drove off in an all-enveloping cloud of dust. It’s a 45-minute drive from the airport to Puno, but first you have to negotiate chaotic Juliaca, repeating the exercise whenever you travel north, either to get to Arequipa (westwards from there), Cuzco (north-west) or to take those routes that first skirt the northern fringes of Lake Titicaca before either reaching an arc of cordilleras at over 5,000m (16,400ft) or lead towards the border with Bolivia. Juliaca is a bustling, cacophonous, 371
EXPLORATION fume-ridden and maze-like commercial centre that is most challenging if you visit on market days – Sundays and Mondays. There are shoals of tricitaxis (three-wheeled, brightly decorated, Reliant Robin-like vehicles, some with a huge trumpet horn on top), motorbikes carrying up to four people precariously (father, mother, teenager and baby with not a crash helmet between them), smugglers hawking contraband at every turn, motorists in battered cars heading in the wrong direction up one-way streets, young children and adults (some shouldering large sacks of grain or cement) wandering through the melee, dogs aplenty (not all of them alive) and policemen trying to rein in the chaos, blowing their piping whistles to little effect. The roads can be atrocious, with pothole craters worse than I’ve seen anywhere else in the world. Another hazard is the widespread dumping of large piles of sand, earth and rubble in the middle of lanes, around which you must weave. It’s a clash of the old and the new, best exemplified by the sight of a woman in traditional dress – bowler hat, a poncho and a multitude of layered skirts – tap-tap-tapping away on her smartphone. Even the young get togged-up in this manner for hen parties. Outside the city, one should add, the private toll roads are generally in excellent repair. On my last visit, with half a day to spare before the tour programme began, I checked a map on the flight down from Lima and made a spur-ofthe-moment decision, changed into suitable clothing en route and spent a 372
tremendous afternoon on the approach road to San Antonio de Esquilache, best reached just north-west from Puno. In Dora Stafford’s time, Pichacani, to the south, off ruta 34, was the main approach. Local advice suggests this track is no longer used. But in the past five years, renewed interest in the mineral deposits of this remote area has resulted in far more traffic. The northerly roads are in better repair, though in the rainy season expect to encounter several deep fords and endure an intermittently very bumpy journey. San Antonio de Esquilache, a silver mine in the crater of an extinct volcano whose side valleys run up to around 5,200m (17,000ft), dates from the early 17th century. It was named for the ruling viceroy and lead, gold and other minerals were also sourced there. The prevailing rock is andesite but the soil is often alkaline. As Miss Stafford noted: ‘Where the minerals are poor, the flora is rich.’ She found at least eight species of Nototriche there on her repeated visits. These highalpine mallow relatives were my main reason for going to Peru. I saw four in as many hours, despite not reaching San Antonio de Esquilache itself. For good measure, in short turf I saw scatterings of the related Acaulimalva nubigena, known as Malvastrum nubigena when Miss Stafford encountered it not just here but also further north, on ‘very wet grassy slopes’ in Dept. Cuzco. It’s the most extensively distributed of its genus, spread over some 900 miles south to Bolivia and to Dept. Andalgalá in north-west Argentina. White-flowered THE ALPINE GARDENER
PERU
Nototriche ? argylloides at Abra Toroya in 2007 just before a sudden white-out
with dark central markings of either ‘dark red or black’, ‘purple’ or ‘white flushed pink, deep red at base of petal’ depending on latitude and altitude, it blooms from December to late March. Miss Stafford found it typically at its best six weeks earlier than Malvastrum bakerianum (present-day Acaulimalva engleriana). This second representative, alabaster and broad-chaliced, I had on the contrary seen at much the same time further north, in streamside grassy flushes alongside the lengthy road that leads from Huancavelica to Ayacucho, and attains 4,000m (13,100ft) for DECEMBER 2012
much of its length. Both plants have occasionally been in cultivation, the first recently offered from a Tucuman gathering (F&W 11481), the latter raised to flowering size by the happily named Sir Garbutt Knott from a 1934 collection. I was too late to see Zephyranthes (syn. Haylockia) andina brightening the high pampas and even colonising the tracks in countless thousands, as this Crocuslike Amaryllid is recorded as doing in this area in October, not March. Instead that most widespread of Andean Gentianaceae, the jewel-like Gentiana sedifolia (syn. G. prostrata), put on a 373
EXPLORATION
The dandelion relative Hypochoeris meyeniana, frequent in the central Andes
tremendous show alongside the stony riverbeds and braided streams, if not quite in the vast drifts present on my 2007 visit. This proved but a foretaste: later that week, in two areas, it appeared in abundance and surprising diversity. The gentian’s flowers close rapidly if bad weather threatens, but it had been battered by storms the day before. A follow-up pummelling took place the day of my visit. We drove higher, escaping the very worst of the weather, but re-entering a zone at around 4,000m where newly fallen snow was much in evidence. Such changeable conditions are 374
par for the course. Five years earlier, photographing Nototriche ? argylloides just a little further north-west, atop Abra Toroya (4,690m, 15,400ft), I had been forced back to the vehicle by a sudden and furious white-out. Only good fortune and my driver’s prowess saved us from spending the night in the car, for it was seldom possible to discern even a vague track, either because of drifting volcanic ash, drifting snow or both. Returning to Puno at around 18.30 as darkness fell, we met a carnival in full swing. The main square was a no-go area – celebrants squirt you with foam THE ALPINE GARDENER
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An unidentified Nototriche species at San Antonio de Esquilache
as they lean out of car windows, or congregate in mischief-making groups. I stuck to the narrow backstreets and dodged into the shadows if revellers approached, found my way to the restaurant where alpaca (low in fat) and guinea pig featured on the menu, and ducked indoors just in time to avoid a stream of soapy liquid aimed in my direction. There were no such excitements when I returned to Puno this year at the end of my first day. I had seen the waxy-white, weatherproof flowers of Saxifraga magellanica on gaunt cliffs as we entered a side valley, then a roadside DECEMBER 2012
depression coloured purple-pink with the tiny, profuse-blooming, non-native Erodium cicutarium, and yellow-flecked with Hypochoeris meyeniana, a sessile, taprooted dandelion relative frequent in the central Andes. Of course, there were also nototriches: N. pedatiloba (pale violet, forming small, huddled tuffets on bare, stone-flecked, earthy slopes); N. digitulifolia (similar, but as its name suggests, with finger-like leaf segments and a shorter corolla tube), and another, compactly mat-forming, with pale pinkish-blue buds developing into flowers with very concave petals, pure white within. 375
EXPLORATION Other Nototriche species recorded from San Antonio de Esquilache include N. erinacea, N. longituba, N. longirostris (widespread in Peru), N. pediculariifolia, N. purpurascens (according to Dora Stafford’s 1937 notebook) and one of several plants named after her, N. staffordiae. This forms silvery-velvety pincushions 2.5-4cm in diameter – ‘globosely rosulate plants’ to quote the 1948 diagnosis of a species she first chanced upon in June 1937. The small, successional flowers are greenish-cream, striped brown – an elegant patterning when seen at close quarters, as I have, though only on herbarium sheets at the Natural History Museum. Miss Stafford happened ‘to sit down and put my hand on the ground and found it was covered with little soft cushions: I had ridden that way before without noticing it’. By the time I left the restaurant in 2007, an idea had formed to set off at first light on the main road that leads southwest from Puno, eventually reaching Moquegua and finally Ilo on the coast, but before the halfway stage goes over a pass that was named Abra Chocajinani (4,450m, 14,600ft) on my map. This is nowadays called Abra Ojelaca, its height reconfigured at a more realistic 4,592m (15,100ft) in view of a clear ascendancy over the foregoing Abra Gallatini (4,400m, 14,400ft). After passing some very photogenic rock features and several table-top mountains, in around two hours Titire (Huayllane on older maps) is reached. Just after here a toll-booth had been constructed but was not operational in March this year. It’s a fairly steep climb up to the pass (‘abra’ in Spanish, 376
Nototriche longirostris
as you will have deduced by now), and while the road had been widened since 2007, disconcertingly much of the left-hand lane over a 30m stretch had been coned off, and was slipping down the mountainside as a result of heavy rainfall. (From May until October, this part of Peru is bone dry.) At the northern end of the Ojelaca pass, either side of the road but very localised, an undescribed Nototriche first found by David and Donna Hale occurs. It displays fastidiously fashioned, silky rosettes around the size of a traditional milk bottle top and is often solitary, though the plants can be found exceptionally in clusters of up to eight. The rosettes comprise roundels of densely stacked, dissected leaves, THE ALPINE GARDENER
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An undescribed Nototriche originally found by David and Donna Hale
allying it with N. staffordiae, whose type locality is barely 40 miles due north. But the similarly sized flowers of the undescribed species are darkest mahogany in bud and when first open, later becoming dark-rimmed with a reddish interior. It will surely be placed in the same series or section once further studies have been conducted and the genus is revised. The Hales found it growing with another more frequent species with larger rosettes and flowers, the bluish or whitish buds waiting to burst. Seemingly the same species can also have red/blackish-blue markings or striping on its corolla reverses. (It could have been N. meyenii, which occurs from Huancavelica down to Bolivia and DECEMBER 2012
northern Chile, but in some southern localities intermingles with N. borussica and N. sajamensis, and has been confused with both by collectors.) This year I saw a third species, often sheltering under dwarf vegetation, larger in flower than its congeners but difficult to spot until a few feet away. At first I took it for N. purpurascens, having read in Miss Stafford’s notebook of ‘grey, woolly leaves and flowers with petals orange tipped’. She first found this on March 6, 1938, on the road from Puno to San Juan de Dios, along with three other members of the genus, at 4,400m. But my third species matches much better the description by monographer Sir Arthur Hill of the hitherto more northerly located 377
EXPLORATION
Nototriche meyeni, one of the most wide-ranging in its genus
N. stenopetala (recorded only from the departments of Lima, Pasco, Junín and Huancavelica). He noted its ‘scarlet... narrowly spathulate petals, entirely or essentially free’ and ‘triangular or cordate’ leaves, ‘white stellate velvety above, glabrous beneath, trifid’. Such disjunctions are nothing new. In 2007 I found, on the southern aspect of the same pass, two tiny hummocks of out-of-country Viola granulosa, a ‘rosulate’ (Section Andinium) species described by Hugh Weddell in 1864, with greyish, small, finely crenate leaves and inconspicuous flowers. Recorded from Cuzco, it also occurs in northern Argentina and adjacent Chile. Violas of this section have been studied in much 378
less depth than those from central and southern Patagonia, where they reach an apotheosis. Yet one of the most distinctive, the bright red V. kermesina, is a Peruvian from near Yauli, growing in the clinker of the railroad tracks from Lima to La Oroya, a journey I undertook in 2007, surely passing within feet of this singular species. Back on Abra Ojelaca I blundered upon a fourth Nototriche, more open in its usually single rosettes and with pale lavender flowers. Here, too, was a small, bright red Caiophora, but not the more widespread, stingingly armed C. cirsiifolia seen on my first trip high up on the tongue-twistingly named Nevado Huaytapallana (5,768m, 18,900ft). THE ALPINE GARDENER
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An unidentified member of the Asteraceae family with fuzzy white flowers
There was also a cushion-forming, fuzzy white-flowered member of the Asteraceae whose identity remains a mystery. I wanted to journey still further south to investigate a side-road that spirals its way between Volcan Ichtollo and Volcan Ticsani (5,408m, 17,750ft). It took a much, much longer drive than the straight line on the map suggested, and at Humajalso (the turn-off point, where you can also go left onto ruta 34, and turn back east towards Lake Titicaca) we gave up in the face of a black bank of storm clouds. Retracing steps to an extensive area of possibly gypsiferous high-level scarp and dip slopes, their surfaces of fine DECEMBER 2012
granules gleaming white from miles away, there was just enough time to establish that it was almost exclusively colonised by two species of Nototriche. Both were more or less over; a visit in February would have been preferable. One had cream-coloured petal reverses, while those of the other were violetblack striped and matched what was described in 1932 as N. ticsanica, referencing the mountain of that name. This is now ‘sunk’ within N. obcuneata, a species distributed east from Lima, south to the border with Chile and northern Bolivia. The long, tedious drive back to Puno was enlivened only when we turned left up a steep, stony track north of Gallatini. 379
EXPLORATION Here we witnessed the spectacle of half a dozen viscachas (the name of the river further south suggesting their presence) bounding up the hillside just a few yards ahead of us, furry tails a-quiver. A pair broke off their headlong flight to box à deux, just as hares would be doing back in England. For ten minutes I watched them, entranced. Then they were gone. It was just as well that my interest took in the fauna as well as the flora, since the next day was trying. For a second time I failed to find Viola hillii, a cluster-flowered, yellow member of Section Andinium which Dora Stafford found near to Vilque Chico, between Huancané and Moho on the remote northern fringe of Lake Titicaca. The shoreline road was much improved since last time, but not the road we followed towards Cojata on the PeruBolivia border, which was often under water and mired with quicksand. Every few hundred yards Ronald, my driver, got out, walked ahead to see which route was possible, then made the sign of the cross more often than I would have wished. We reached a hamlet appropriately called Solitario, where villagers gathered round to ask Quecha-speaking Ronald what on earth a tourist was doing there. We gave up on the idea of further progress, drove back some 20 miles and turned off the main road, travelling across a high-altitude marsh to a village where we gave a drenched young couple and their child a lift. Having waited a week for a compliant driver to turn up, they repaid our kindness by giving guidance on what was, to us, the far from apparent route back to 380
the lakeside. We came to a good road through sparsely vegetated hillsides at 4,100m (the right altitude for the Viola but the wrong time – it flowers a month earlier), and spent an hour scrambling about on unrewarding hillsides that yielded only some barrel cacti, the ubiquitous red Castilleja fissifolia, and in damp areas a dwarf Lobelia, more like a New Zealand Pratia in colour and habit. The birds we saw, however, were dazzling. Among them the Andean flicker, a woodpecker of sorts – its rump warm buff, the wings barred – that nests in road cuts or cliffs. We regularly saw flights of these heading away either side of the road. Blackish Puna ibis were also frequent, along with cinnamon-capped, black-flanked Andean ibis, flying in long, low drifts. Back to the plants, and there followed the kind of day you recollect happily for the rest of your life. Ronald, having been on a climbing expedition that scaled a 6,000m (19,700ft) peak, reckoned that from Puno we could get to and from the cordillera in question in a day. We did, but with no time to spare (details of the route appear in a ‘taster’ article published in the March 2012 issue of The Alpine Gardener). A non-stop, four-hour drive brought us to the 4,873m summit of Abra Oquepuño, where you can see high alpines within a minute of leaving your vehicle in the car park. There is a notice warning of periodic dense cloud – hardly surprising, for this is one of Peru’s highest mountain passes. Yet we enjoyed nigh-perfect conditions: a gentle breeze, very comfortable temperatures, light cloud cover THE ALPINE GARDENER
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The magnificent view of Cordillera Vilcanota from the top of Abra Oquepuño
occluding blue skies and stupendous views in several directions. ‘We have at most an hour here,’ I was instructed. Within seconds I had disengaged my seat-belt, snatched up my camera and rucksack and despite the altitude – barely acclimatised, I suffered no ill-effects throughout the trip – raced for the nearest steep slope, where to my astonished delight an extremely pretty, very dwarf Gentianella was in full flower. The only name available appears to be G. lobelioides, though this is from further east, and the sketchy details don’t quite accord. Few of the genus ascend to such heights, so the number of candidates is low. All of 3-5cm tall, DECEMBER 2012
it abounded in tens of thousands on rutted terraces or in wiry turf, with from three to 12 flowers apiece, violetblue with a blackish-purple eye. It reminded me in its lofty locality of a pink-flowered, similarly dwarf species I had seen on Abra Chonta (4,853m, 15,900ft) south of Huanacavelica in 2007. An authority on these plants, James Pringle, described four Peruvian species in 2008, another in 2011 and yet another this year. Further discoveries are likely. I surveyed a 300m high, steeply sloping mound that was scree-like in some parts and sparsely covered with turf in others. In the ground were 381
EXPLORATION
Gentianella aff. lobelioides, above, was present in tens of thousands. Left, Nototriche sulphurea at Abra Oquepuño
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THE ALPINE GARDENER
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This Nototriche is possibly the obscure N. castelnaeana
several large crosses, along with what looked like raffia jetsam and discarded bric-a-brac. Ronald explained that these were votive offerings. The name of the pass, Abra Oquepuño, translates as ‘the place where miracles happen’. It was inevitably trampled in parts but boasted a very choice flora including two species of Nototriche, the first of them N. sulphurea, named for its densely pubescent leaves with yellowish trichomes (its large flowers are typically bluish). The other, slightly smaller, had neat clusters of greyish-tomentose rosettes and pert, longitudinally ribbed flowers, white within, but richly pinkDECEMBER 2012
flushed on their exteriors. It was possibly the obscure N. castelnaeana, described in 1906 from further west above Cuzco, which the standard description gives as ‘imperfectly known’. Growing intermixed was a matforming ‘take’ on the Antipodean Raoulia grandiflora with tight rosettes that were inwardly bristly. This was sometimes infiltrated by a caespitose, bright yellow family member with grassy foliage, also seen to the east the next day. There was also a dwarf white Geranium, welcome after a fashion, with attractive silver-grey leaves, though its narrow-petalled flowers would need to 383
EXPLORATION
Austrocylindropuntia lagopus and the angora-fleeced but spiny A. floccosa
be two or three times larger to elevate it to the first rank. There was a further surprise, for Ronald determinedly climbed to the top of the slope, finding a third Nototriche. This one had deep rose pink, 12mm wide, cup-shaped flowers and glabrous, irregularly pinnatifid, skeletal leaves, usually arranged in sparse, single rosettes. Despite some vague affinities with N. cupuliforme, once again it looks new to me. A couple of stops were made on the way back down, one of them yielding the sometimes bright red Nototriche featured in the March issue of this 384
journal, overlooked by a 20cm tall white Astragalus – others seen beforehand had all been mauve-pink and prostrate. I also saw two species of cushion-forming cacti, Austrocylindropuntia lagopus and the angora-fleeced but spiny A. floccosa, known as mother-in-law’s tablecloth, which I had first seen on Huaytapallana in a storm of monsoon-like intensity. These sparsely grassy slopes were also flecked with the sessile, large flowered, deep yellow Paranephelius bullatus, and in damper parts the whitish Gentianella sandienensis, seen in even greater profusion on my final day in the field, and as such skipped over for now. To THE ALPINE GARDENER
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A dwarf red-flowered Gentianella on Abra La Pampilla
the east, a series of majestic cliffs and escarpments would surely have repaid investigation if we’d had time. Ronald had long since put aside our official nine-till-five contract agreement. It was nearly 9pm when we arrived back in Puno, yet still he was in the hotel lobby by eight the next morning, ready to drive north-east again, but this time targeting the flanks of the Cordillera Apolobamba, shared equally between Peru and neighbouring Bolivia. It was easy going as far as Huancané, from where the road leads north, along the valley of the Rio Putina, striking off north-east from the town of that name DECEMBER 2012
towards the mining town of Ananea. In the villages and hamlets en route, the road surface is dreadful. A tank-assault course would provide easier going. By lunchtime we had neared Abra La Pampilla (4,707m, 15,440ft), reached by a terrifying series of hairpin bends. The road is alarmingly narrow, without crash barriers and with stomach-lurching views as you climb, akin to those from an infinity swimming pool. To make matters worse, you have to drive on the outside of many bends. The hurtling onslaught of lorries and jeeps from a mine alarmed me further still. Back in the 1980s, I was driven along the so385
EXPLORATION
An unidentified composite seen on Abra La Pampilla and Abra Oquepuño
called Camino de la Muerte (the ‘road of death’) in Bolivia. This was far, far more alarming. Much of the ascent was spent with my eyes shut, but at one bend I was told that red flowers abounded, so I bundled out, scrambled up the nearest grassy slope and came nose-to-flower with a deep orange-red, apparently short-lived Gentianella, its short basal leaves waning overall. It showed affinities with a taxon seen on Huaytapallana five years earlier. That site is the type location for G. primulifolia, which it has been suggested should be included within the hitherto more westerly G. incurva. Intermingled were a caespitose yellow composite 386
and a dwarf, fringed-lampshade Senecio of sombre coloration. Another Senecio, yellow-flowered but with red backs to the numerous petals, echoed the gentianella’s coloration when halfclosed. It was a sizeable relief to reach the plateau-like top, in the main comprising either moorland or sparse turf flecked with bunchgrasses. Rubbish had been dumped here and there, the lighter elements airborne in the brisk breeze. The alpine vegetation pattern is classified as puna, broadly equivalent to the moister jalca and páramo further north, and typically occurs at 4,2004,800m. In well-drained areas grasses THE ALPINE GARDENER
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Above, a Senecio with fringedlampshade flowers found alongside the red Gentianella at Abra La Pampilla. Left, an almost white form of Nototriche sulphurea
DECEMBER 2012
387
EXPLORATION
An unidentified Gentianella found in short turf on Abra La Pampilla
become less dominant and rosette or cushion-forming plants are widespread. There were glorious views north to the snow-crested mountains, but looking much closer was equally rewarding. Here again Nototriche sulphurea abounded, in greater numbers and greater vigour than at Abra Oquepuño, some almost white, others violet-mauve or else a delicate lavender blue, often with a five-armed brownish star at the centre. A few clung to roadside banks of conglomerate rock, but it was most abundant on small, low rock outcrops that every so often interrupted the rolling, generally featureless terrain. 388
As for pollinators, for the genus as a whole I’ve seen butterflies close by, beetles, a red and black furry caterpillar that I first mistook for a bee and, most conclusively, small flies within the corollas. Wind pollination might also play a part. Careful searching uncovered the presence of a tiny Gentianella, its deep veining and deflexed petals reminiscent of the Ethiopian Swertia crassiuscula (see the photograph in The Alpine Gardener volume 76, page 431). This kept company with the far more common Gentiana sedifolia in pale mauves and blues, present in countless numbers. THE ALPINE GARDENER
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A dwarf Lupinus barely 12cm tall seen on the road between Puno and Arequipa
For diversity this population was only matched by another seen the following day alongside the road west from Puno to Arequipa, and it is to there that I now make an abrupt, concluding diversion of just over 100 miles. A railway line at high altitude connects the two towns, though no passenger services are run these days. Although we stopped a few times above Lago Lagunillas, admiring the smoothly DECEMBER 2012
eroded rock formations and the plants growing nearby (in particular a dwarf blue Lupinus barely 12cm tall), it wasn’t until after Crucero Alto (4,470m, 14,660ft) that more thorough investigation was undertaken. Dora Stafford first visited Peru in 1925, staying in Arequipa for six months, and returned to the country time and again for the next 12 years. Her unpublished book makes it clear 389
EXPLORATION
Colour variation in Gentiana sedifolia at Crucero Alto
that she could be tricky company: ‘The height so frays one’s nerves that quarrels are frequent and one is usually on the worst possible terms with one’s friends,’ she noted. Pity the poor coach boy detailed to accompany her in March 1937, when she persuaded the railway company’s traffic manager to give up his private coach. This was attached to the Arequipa-bound night train, shunted into a siding at Crucero Alto, and became her field camp for the next two days. Bolstered by ‘an enormous breakfast of sausages, bacons and eggs, toast and marmalade’, she had a very successful 390
time, for all that on the first morning icicles hung from the carriage and even her toothpaste had frozen solid. The station buildings are still there and, apart from the construction of a new road, things have probably not changed much over the intervening 75 years. (The old route, to the south, is in very bad repair and I didn’t repeat my 2007 journey along its first stretch.) Thankfully we were blessed with near perfect weather. Gentiana sedifolia was everywhere, the throats of its flowers more inventively freckled, speckled, striated or purplesplashed in their centres than I’ve witnessed before. Dotted around on the THE ALPINE GARDENER
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A pale variant of Nototriche pediculariifolia, or is it N. argylloides?
same roadside slopes, often in the lee of dwarf shrublets, the small Nototriche pediculariifolia, with clusters of pale violet flowers, was frequent (it is pictured on the back cover of this issue). Pale rose and whitish plants might have been variants, or else N. argyllioides, which is similar but with leaflets woolly only on their up-facing blades, while the larger, 2cm long petals, palest pink or roseviolet, open atop a 5mm long tube. Both have been recorded growing together here and at Vincocaya, the type locality for the latter, just a few miles along the road to the south-west. N. anthemidifolia is also intermittently DECEMBER 2012
present, either in the spare turf or in moraine. And Crucero Alto harbours a fourth taxon, described by Sir Arthur Hill from this very locality as N. sericea. It is ‘distinguished from other species by its silky grey appearance and the numerous linear segments of the leaves’ – or so he claimed in 1909. It is now incorporated within N. argentea, a more widespread species described three years earlier . . . by the same man! As he once wrote, until studied in detail some species look almost identical. An identical twin myself, I have every sympathy with these sundry mistaken identifications. N. stenopetala is also there, even more 391
EXPLORATION
A Nototriche species at Crucero Alto, the type site for N. sericea
frequent than on Abra Ojelaca, and its discovery at this relatively wellbotanised spot was surprising. There appear to be no previous records. Indicating relative scale, one specimen obliged as a nurse plant for the smaller, quieter-coloured N. pediculariifolia. In places the ground on one side of the road fell away quite steeply before levelling out onto a marshy plain. Driving just ten minutes further on, we stopped at a place where a controlled glissade down grit-scree slopes was feasible. Bleached, hard cushions of Azorella diapensioides formed a distinctive vegetation zone. In 2007 I had seen the 392
same species in much greater numbers further north, on the last expanse of really high ground on the long road from Ayacucho to the coast, an hour or so west of Rumichaca. There it associated with sprinklings of nototriches that sometimes used the Azorella cushion fringes as a seed bed. Here, on the slopes and on glaringly grey-white grit pans, it partnered the same genus. This Nototriche differed from those a few miles back in its non-acute leaf tips, larger flowers (violet blue at first but fading almost to white) and habitat. It might have been N. argentea, judging from old line drawings by John Nugent THE ALPINE GARDENER
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Nototriche argylloides alongside the out-of-country and larger N. stenopetala DECEMBER 2012
393
EXPLORATION
Azorella diapensioides formed hard, bleached cushions
Fitch, nephew of the famous Walter Hood Fitch and, like him, a frequent illustrator for Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. Finally, the upland marshes. Patterned by endless rills, streams, pools and flushes, and held to be most floriferous in April, these were a delight in midMarch, gentianellas chiefly making up the display, though whitish Hypochoeris taraxacoides, a small blue Perezia and an unidentified, semi-aquatic ? Werneria joined the supporting cast. Gentianella peruviana was everywhere, blackish of stem, almost Crocus-like in its dwarfer expressions but up to 10cm high, pale mauve to deep lilac in its solitary, 394
occasionally massed blooms. It is similar in size to G. potamophila, seen from this area north to Cuzco, but was authoritatively identified from Dora Stafford material as the former. With it there was the smaller, overall cream or white G. sandienensis, already seen just below Abra Oquepuño but now in vast quantities, many in early bud. Said to be an annual (biennial more like) or short-lived perennial, its teeming masses formed misty drifts in the saturated grasslands. For all that the flowers were violet/purple-stained on their exteriors, it was analogous with the northern hemisphere Parnassia palustris THE ALPINE GARDENER
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Gentianella peruviana, above and below, at Crucero Alto
in general appearance and choice of habitat. It was curious that this finale should take me back to northern climes, for overall the landscape, the plants, the culture and the people could hardly be further removed. One of many contradictions in this fascinating, vibrant corner of Peru, under-visited in recent years by flower-seekers. The time has come for a change. Robert Rolfe’s regular column will return in the March 2013 issue of The Alpine Gardener. DECEMBER 2012
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PLANT PROFILE
T
ravel 300 miles north-east from Lima and you will find yourself in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru’s best-known and loftiest range of mountains. Huascarán Sur soars to 6,746m (22,132ft) while Huascarán Norte reaches 6,655m (21,833ft). These are the two highest peaks in Peru, and sixth and tenth highest in the Andes overall. Trekkers and mountaineers have long been drawn to the region which, in 1975, was designated a national park, its boundaries encompassing all land at 4,000m and above. The main tourist season is from May to September, the Andean winter months. Even then the flora provides various excitements. Gentianella is a Peruvian speciality. The many species are remarkably varied in both habit and colour, varying from sessile cushion plants to pyramidal spikes a metre tall, and from white to brilliant yellow, green, every shade of blue and purple, bicolours and, of course, red. In the first half of the 20th century August Weberbauer (1871-1948) made a series of exploratory visits to Peru with conspicuous success: some 250 species have been named in his memory. The most exuberant of these is surely Gentianella weberbaueri (described in 1906, based on an herbarium specimen from ‘west of Pichui, Prov. Huarí, Ancash’). Its flowers, 35-38mm long, are raspberry coloured through to brownish-red. They are typically displayed horizontally or drooping in a sturdy, single-stemmed cascade. The plant has a reputation for growing only 396
A regal encounter with the snow queen at considerable heights, but a 2006 survey gives its altitudinal range as 3,9005,100m, and also cites populations in the adjacent Cordillera Huayhuash (like the Cordillera Blanca, these are within departmento Áncash). G. weberbaueri forms substantial basal rosettes of fleshy leaves up to 14cm long, and it is surprising that the rocks and stony detritus it colonises can supply enough nutrition to foster such a lavish overall display. Known as ‘Pukamakashka’ to local villagers and farmers, it can be locally abundant – so much so that Weberbauer noted it as ‘a favourite flower for the adornment of crosses and sacred pictures’. Of all Peru’s many gentianellas, it is among the tallest and, in another sense, the loftiest. Yet despite its regal beauty, G. weberbaueri has only very occasionally been photographed, or at least has rarely appeared in print. The black and white plate in Sampson Clay’s The Present-Day Rock Garden constitutes its most public appearance to date. This was taken, as the account relates, by ‘the Peruvian agent of a London firm of importers... THE ALPINE GARDENER
GENTIANELLA WEBERBAUERI
Gentianella weberbaueri photographed by Pete Boardman
impressed by the striking beauty of a plant which he found to be common in the temperate high pastures’. In this issue of The Alpine Gardener, we are particularly pleased to publish a striking, somewhat seasonal image, taken by Pete Boardman in early October. His arrieros (porters) delighted in these snowy conditions, which provided a striking contrast with the tiered spikes of the Gentianella. Pete encountered it in several localities – once as a solitary, rather feeble specimen, but then in much better health and much greater numbers either side of the Punta Yanayuca (4,850m), DECEMBER 2012
which constitutes the final pass on the Alpamayo circuit. Not far to the east of Caraz, Alpamayo (5,947m) is a majestic pyramidal peak, often lauded as the world’s most beautiful mountain. To get there, from Lima you can either take an eight-hour bus journey, or else fly in a small plane, with minimal headroom and seating, to Anta, half an hour to the north of Huaraz. It’s one of the world’s most scenic, floristically diverse regions, rather surprisingly very little mentioned in these pages since Professor Pontecorvo’s preliminary notes some 40 years ago. Robert Rolfe 397
PRACTICAL GARDENING
Lessons I’ve learned in greenhouses
T
his is the tale of the four greenhouses I have owned during my gardening life. Each has been different and used in a different way. My association with greenhouses, though, began before I had my own. My father had an old steel-framed greenhouse of about 8ft by 14ft (2.4m x 4.3m), which had panels of sheet steel in the lower part of the sides. These eventually began to rust through, so they were cut out and replaced with brick walls. Over the years the condition of the frame continued to decline despite regular repainting. By the time I was in my mid-teens, it looked decidedly infirm. Armed with youthful confidence and O-level woodworking skills, I boldly offered to build a wooden greenhouse. This offer was treated with suspicion but eventually Dad was persuaded. One difficulty was locating suitable 14ft lengths of timber for the ridge. Those were the days not of DIY superstores but of independent wood yards. These were fascinating places, with so many different colours of wood and the smell of newly sawn timber. One could spend hours browsing. Eventually the vital pieces were found and the hard work began. Using only hand tools – saws, plane, drills and so 398
Owning three greenhouses has taught Vic Aspland much about growing plants under cover. Now, in his newly constructed fourth greenhouse, he is about to experiment with a different method of cultivating alpines in pots on – I gradually developed the structure and blisters on my hands. But eventually, success! It was painted, glazed and used for growing tomatoes in the summer and keeping geraniums frost-free in the winter. Alpines? Yes, we had some of those, but we called them rock plants and grew them in the proper place: outside. After all, they were hardy, weren’t they? My construction work endured, and some years after we moved away, we learned that the next owner had turned the greenhouse into a shed by fixing corrugated iron sheeting to the outside. Fast forward a few years to the newly married Vic and Janet. As soon as we could get the money together, we purchased our first greenhouse. It was made by Halls using Canadian Western Red Cedar and was about eight and a half feet (2.6m) square – a really nice THE ALPINE GARDENER
GROWING IN GREENHOUSES
Vic’s third greenhouse, an aluminium structure used to protect Cyclamen graecum
thing to have. When we moved and left it behind over 29 years later, it was still in excellent condition, having been treated with preservative perhaps only a couple of times. Our soil was very sandy, so had good bearing strength. The foundation consisted of a concrete strip about 3 inches (8cm) deep cast in situ (dig a trench of the right size and pour in the concrete), then two courses of bricks on top to lift the wooden frame clear of soil-splash. The location was not ideal. The only available site was close to a fence at the bottom of the garden. As the garden faced south, this meant that the lower part of the greenhouse DECEMBER 2012
was shaded. At about this time we were introduced to the AGS, and so began a long association with alpines. Plunge beds were built on both sides of the greenhouse using Dexion, a slotted steel angle used to build industrial storage units. The depth of sand was about six inches (15cm), so most pots could be plunged to the rim. This allowed us to go on holiday for two weeks in July or August knowing that the alpines would not run dry. Along the middle of the greenhouse I laid a concrete slab path and the rest was left as bare earth to allow any spilled water to drain away. Being cautious, I built into each plunge a drainage hole 399
PRACTICAL GARDENING to guard against the build-up of excess water. The water capacity of sand is remarkable: I never, ever had a single drip from either hole. The alpines grew well and with them I won my first few prizes at the AGS Midland Show. Much is written in these pages about shading. We had a free and selfregulating system – our neighbour’s snake-bark maple (Acer pensylvanicum), situated south of the greenhouse. It came into leaf in late spring, when we began to need shade. In early autumn, when we no longer needed shade, the leaves fell off. A few years later, with the greenhouse full to bursting point, along came number two. A neighbour of an aunt offered an Alton greenhouse free if we would dismantle it and take it away. These are of quite different construction. Whereas the Halls was made in six pieces (back, front, two sides, two roof panels) and bolted together, the Alton was built in modules. Large panes of horticultural glass were surrounded by an alarmingly flimsylooking wooden frame. The dismantling process was interesting. The aerosol penetrant WD40 and a little patience did eventually free the corroded bolts. The other disadvantage of the Alton lay in the Dutch-light design: the sides sloped inwards, which reduced the width of the staging at waist level by an alarming amount. There is much learned literature which states that if a greenhouse is positioned with the sides facing east and west, the low winter sun strikes the sides at a more nearly perpendicular angle, so that more light 400
passes through the glass, but I doubt that it makes that much difference. Back to the story. Dismantling and transporting the Alton back home was completed without mishap, but the problem of plant space had been nagging at me. How could I organise a greater plant capacity? A solution eventually dawned. The basic foundation was the same as for the Halls, except that I built a low wall with four courses of bricks 12in (30cm) high. The greenhouse was re-erected on top of the wall, then work moved inside. A concrete slab path was laid up the centre, and 2ft x 1ft (60cm x 30cm) concrete slabs were installed on edge along either side. The slabs and the brick wall gave me a 1ft deep trough which I could fill with sand to make a plunge. Slatted wooden staging was then installed on top, so I had a two-tier system. On the slatted staging, a general collection of alpines was grown in clay or plastic pots. A plastic saucer under each facilitated individual watering. Down below, in the shadier sand plunge, a range of cypripediums grew well, as did haberleas and other shade-lovers. Shading was necessary in summer, so I made roller shades using woven plastic tarpaulin wound onto a thick wooden dowel. It was wound up and down by nylon cord threaded through screw eyes. It wasn’t quite as elegant as custom-made roller blinds, but it cost a fraction of the price, freeing money to buy more plants. By subtle stages and rearrangements, greenhouse number one became mine and number two became Janet’s. We did THE ALPINE GARDENER
GROWING IN GREENHOUSES
In his new greenhouse, Vic has opted for plastic soak trays instead of a plunge
learn, though, that although they were close together at the bottom of the garden, they had quite different microclimates, so that various plants grew better in one or the other. This led to a series of delicate negotiations in which pots would be relocated on a onefor-one basis. Janet began to exhibit separately – the competition was on! I was aware, when dismantling and re-erecting the Alton, how fragile large sheets of horticultural glass can be, but the potential risks were graphically demonstrated a few years ago. A wellknown AGS member stumbled when walking past his Alton and pushed his hand through a pane of glass. The glass shattered into knife-like shards and DECEMBER 2012
severed an artery. It was fortunate that his wife was on hand to staunch the flow of blood. These two greenhouses served us well. With a couple of small plunge frames they earned us a trickle of red stickers at shows, though we were too relaxed to make big waves on the show bench. When we came to move to our present garden, some heart-searching was done. We left the two greenhouses behind. Our reasoning ran something like this: ‘If we are honest, we know that we use greenhouses for our own comfort rather than that of the plants, and that really, they will do better in a less-protected environment.’ So for a couple of years the alpines 401
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Concrete posts and wooden shuttering mark out the area of the concrete slab
stood about on the terrace and on most of the paths. In summer and winter, they were fine. At least they were fine when we had proper winters. After a few warm-cold-wet-freeze-thawwet ones, some plants looked very bedraggled. The new garden contained a small aluminium greenhouse (5½ x 7½ feet). This was used during the winter to keep a collection of Cyclamen graecum forms frost-free (I had begun to get interested in leaf variations) and to keep lewisias dry. In terms of design and build quality, I would describe it as ‘supermarket bargain basement’. There is only one small vent in the roof and none in 402
the sides. It proved to be an object lesson. The smaller the greenhouse and the poorer the ventilation, the quicker it heats up and cools down. Plants need to be tough to survive in such an environment. The moral: when shopping for a greenhouse, choose the biggest you can accommodate and ensure it has plenty of ventilation. Larger sizes give much more uniform temperatures. There is an old adage which says that greenhouses come in just one size: too small. I soon developed a summer management scheme. All of the glass is removed from the centre of the back, two rows of glass panes are removed THE ALPINE GARDENER
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The wet summer meant that Vic could only lay the concrete in sections
from one side (the other was too near the fence for safe access) and the sunny side is draped with horticultural plastic 50 per cent shading. Even after taking these steps and keeping the door open, it still becomes a furnace in summer. There were other lessons. There is a concrete-slab path up the middle and bare earth either side. Perhaps the proximity of a hedge on the west side has some influence on this, but the bare earth is much to the liking of snails. Despite regular baiting, they are always present. They have no problem in scaling the legs of the aluminium staging to get at the plants above, so regular inspection is needed. DECEMBER 2012
The problem of pots cluttering the terrace was partly solved by building two raised plunge frames (see Design and Build, The Alpine Gardener volume 75, page 159), but the wet summer we have just had did not suit some of the other plants outside. I was undecided what to do. More plunge frames? The decision came very quickly. We were invited to dinner with some friends, and the inevitable walk round the garden introduced me to their new Rhino greenhouses. I was impressed. The glass was in single sheets (not overlapped small panes as in many greenhouses) and was 4mm thick and toughened, making it much safer. The 403
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The pipe that will carry an electricity supply, and expansion bolts anchor the house
aluminium frame was powder-coated in green, so much less conspicuous than bare aluminium. A brochure was ordered. I cast about at the bottom of the garden with a steel tape rule. The plan was to get the largest greenhouse that would fit into the available space (the removal of a hedge last year helped with this). The decision was made: there was space for a 14½ft x 8ft model (4.4m x 2.4m). But what about foundations? Based on the snail problems with the small greenhouse, I decided that I would lay a concrete slab and operate a dry-floor system. The wet summer weather, however, meant that we were 404
not getting dry periods long enough to allow the laying of large areas of concrete (at least not at my pace of working). A solution dawned. The removal of the hedge had revealed a number of concrete fence posts left over from a project several years ago and ‘just tucked under there for the moment’. I would use the fence posts to form a frame (no concrete footing was required because this garden also has fast-draining sandy soil). Then, using wooden shuttering, I would lay a oneinch thick concrete slab (see pictures) in instalments. This could be done between bouts of rain and the newly laid concrete could be covered with a THE ALPINE GARDENER
GROWING IN GREENHOUSES
Vic’s new well-ventilated Rhino greenhouse is now packed with plants
tarpaulin to protect it while it set. The tarpaulin is the very one that formed the shade blind on greenhouse number two in the previous garden. I don’t like wasting things! So, by degrees, the job was done. The last section of concrete was a great trial. The weather caught me out and the trowelling of the surface was managed only by reaching under the tarpaulin, smoothing a section, then backing off and doing the next section, pulling the tarpaulin behind me, and so on. The concrete was protected, but I ended up oozing water from every seam. I then had a respite for several weeks while the concrete cured (the strength increases DECEMBER 2012
considerably during this process, with many complex chemical reactions taking place). For the best result, curing concrete should be protected from drying out too rapidly by covering with polythene sheet or sacking. I have even seen a builder using old carpet for this purpose. In due course I intend to run an electricity supply to the greenhouse, so a little planning was necessary. Armoured cable that can be buried in the garden is very expensive. Ordinary cable could not be used without protection. Squirrels seem to like a diet of cable, as we found out when the water pump in our pool stopped several 405
PRACTICAL GARDENING times. Some sort of plastic water pipe seemed a possibility, but I finally settled on plastic overflow pipe, which is much cheaper. A section was run up through the base area before the concrete was laid. This is much simpler than making a hole afterwards. The new greenhouse was delivered, complete with 20 pages of assembly instructions. Hmm... it made a change from Sudoku. Between bouts of rain, it was gradually assembled and the concrete could be allowed to dry out completely. The amount of ventilation is enormous: four large vents in the roof, four louvres in the sides and a 4ft-wide door. If you want to grow alpines well, excellent ventilation is essential. Several holes drilled into the concrete allowed me to fasten the structure down using stainless steel ground anchors and expansion bolts. Concrete floors often have a problem: they almost invariably shed dust. I already had a plan for this. I had noticed in a B&Q warehouse that garage floor paint was available in green. Perfect. Green frame, green floor, green staging... greenhouse! When the paint had dried, a clear set of cat’s footprints became visible on one section of concrete. Clearly I was not the only one to have worked on the concrete. Then it was down to the finishing touches. Outside I sealed any small gaps between the base of the frame and the concrete using a silicone sealant, to prevent the ingress of water. I did the same on the inside, because any tiny gap would provide an ideal roost for earwigs, woodlice and other 406
pests. The staging was installed and the plants moved in. Most plants stand in plastic soak trays or individual plastic saucers (remember my dry floor plan). I will need to experiment with these. The smaller plants are all grown in plastic pots, and I am grouping plants with similar requirements in the same trays. I will be able to water these by pouring a suitable volume of water into the tray. (By coincidence, Brian Burrow gave a talk to the Birmingham Local Group after I had written this article. I was gratified to learn that he uses just this system to raise his many primulas and other plants.) Larger plants are in clay pots and stand in individual saucers. This means that they can be watered individually. It’s a slightly slower process, but more flexible. Below the staging will live pleiones, gesneriads (Haberlea, Ramonda and others), Cyclamen rhodium forms and other plants needing some shade. Inevitably, during the next year there will be a lot of plant shuffling as I learn where particular plants grow best. That is all part of the fun. To control summer temperatures, I will make maximum use of the large ventilation capacity built into the greenhouse and will also add shading. I already have permanent shading in the form of the large Taxus baccata ‘Standishii’ which, conveniently, is on the south side of the greenhouse. A final note. At one stage in this process Janet asked: ‘But why do you want a greenhouse now?’ I answered with a damp and grumpy: ‘For this awful weather and my old age!’ THE ALPINE GARDENER
THE HALF-MOON BED
The newly constructed half-moon bed at the front of Pam’s house
A home for alpines in the half-moon bed
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ome 12 years ago we bought our current house. It was too small for our requirements and in need of internal renovation, to say nothing of half an acre of neglected garden, but it nestled on a hillside with fabulous views. After renovation and the building of an extension, we were left with two sites just crying out for alpines. One was a slope some 30ft (9m) long and 12ft DECEMBER 2012
Pam Turner has used alpines to help dispose of a pile of rubble and hide an eyesore in her front garden (3.5m) or so high behind the house, and the other was an east-facing semicircular area (hence the half-moon bed – it sounds much more romantic 407
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Rubble from an old chimney is recycled to create a free-draining base 408
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THE HALF-MOON BED
The inspection chamber is hidden as a soil and gravel mix fills gaps in the rubble
than the semi-circular bed) between the house and the drive. It is the latter that is the subject of this article. It took a bit of explaining to the builder why we wanted him to build a gently curving wall along the edge of the drive. It started at some 18in (45cm) high at the top and increased in height to about 5ft (1.5m) at the bottom. We asked him not to fill in the resulting enclosed area which, as an added complication, contained an inspection chamber for our sewer. During the renovations we’d had a chimney taken down and the builder was also a bit bemused when we said we had a use for the rubble. It was all DECEMBER 2012
thrown into the bed, with a mixture of our fairly clayey topsoil and coarse gravel filling the gaps. Further up a finer gravel was used and, for the last foot or so, the gravel was mixed with local topsoil and Cotswold brash, a soil typified by its high stone content and brought from our previous house because I knew it was good for alpines. To create more interest and a varied habitat, the surface was split into two styles. Although my original intention was to create a crevice bed, we didn’t have enough suitable stone for the whole area. With the house had come a motley collection of rocks: I suspect the previous owner had picked up a few 409
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A bird’s-eye view of the bed, showing the two distinct styles of rockwork 410
THE ALPINE GARDENER
THE HALF-MOON BED
The completed bed ready for planting and top-dressing
every time he’d travelled somewhere in the UK. Our philosophy was to make the best use of the resources we had and spend as little as possible, so we found enough rocks that more or less matched and were flat enough to form crevices for the southern half of the bed and enough chunkier pieces to construct a more conventional stratified area for the northern half and to conceal the cover of the inspection hole. A little valley separated the two halves. Once a few plants were in situ it didn’t look as strange as you might think. The bed is one of the first things that you see in the garden, so I wanted it to be interesting all year round. I achieved this by buying nearly everything from AGS plant stalls, each month choosing DECEMBER 2012
a few plants that looked good. The crevice area is reserved for the smaller alpines, including lots of saxifrages, sedums and sempervivums, while the other half takes some slightly larger plants, such as Dianthus, Scabiosa and campanulas. Linaria alpina seeds itself in any spaces. There have been some mistakes, notably a thyme, a Pulsatilla and a Helianthemum, which are far too big and will have to be replaced. Most plants seem very happy there, although others have failed, notably Phlox subulata. My ideal plants are those that survive outside with the minimum of attention – if they don’t, I’ll grow something else. However, knowing that plants don’t read gardening books, I’ll give anything 411
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Pam plants up the bed with a selection from AGS plant stalls
Primula ‘Beatrice Wooster’ is nestled happily in the slate top-dressing 412
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THE HALF-MOON BED
The new plants provided lots of colour in the half-moon bed this year
a go, consoling myself with the thought that if it fails I’ve only lost the price of a glass of wine. After planting, the whole area was top-dressed with broken slate courtesy of the builder, who, having realised we had some strange ideas, asked if we had any use for broken slate from a building he’d demolished. Naturally, we said yes. Unfortunately the pieces of slate, although broken, were too large for top-dressing and we had to smash them up, which is surprisingly difficult when you want really small pieces. The bed faces east and is shaded in the latter part of the day. Water from the balcony roof drains into it at one end, while the overflow from our rainwater storage butts seeps in at the other. Apart from new plantings, I have DECEMBER 2012
never had to water it. On the whole it is easy to look after. I can stand up to do most jobs and all it needs is occasional weeding, deadheading, tidying up and keeping a look-out for ants and slugs. Best of all, being raised means it is easy to appreciate the smaller plants. Having now found a few more suitable rocks around the garden, I’d like to increase the crevice area and move the larger plants elsewhere, perhaps to that other rock garden I mentioned at the beginning. Editor’s note: After Pam Turner wrote this article, her husband Martin died while on holiday in Canada. She has given permission for the article to be published. Martin will be sadly missed by everyone in the Cotswold and Malvern Local Group.
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INTERVIEW
The Farrer Medal – named after Reginald Farrer, the author and plant collector – is awarded to the best plant at an AGS show. Geoff Rollinson, who has been an exhibitor for almost 40 years, has won a record 33 of these. John Fitzpatrick visited Geoff at his home in West Yorkshire to find out how he does it
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t is an unseasonally sunny Friday afternoon in March and I am standing in a domestic garage in West Yorkshire. Laid out on the floor are 13 plants in pots, selected by their owner for exhibition at the Alpine Garden Society’s Blackpool Show the next day. The plants are in peak condition and it is apparent that the judges will have to consider at least one of them for the Farrer Medal, awarded to the best plant in the show. That, however, is no surprise. These plants belong to Geoff Rollinson and winning Farrer Medals is what he does best. Better than anyone, in fact, because since 1974 Geoff has won 33 Farrers, more than any exhibitor in the 83-year history of the Alpine Garden Society. He has also collected three Forrest Medals, awarded for the best plant at an AGS show when judged under Scottish Rock Garden Club rules. I watch as Geoff packs the plants carefully into the boot of his car. Seven of the 13 are Primula allionii cultivars, which are joined by Corydalis bracteata, Dionysia lurorum x aretioides, Anisotome imbricata var. imbricata and Geoff ’s renowned pan of Fritillaria alburyana. Then there are two superb specimens of Saxifraga ‘Coolock Gem’. I suggest
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Showman who has the Farrer touch that there is a good chance that the larger of these, fully 30cm across and smothered in flowers, will pick up the Farrer at Blackpool. Geoff replies with just a hint of a smile: ‘I’ve no great expectation when I put a plant on the show-bench, but I like to win.’ A third ‘Coolock Gem’ is being left behind in his alpine house, deemed ‘not up to scratch’ for the show. Most other exhibitors would have had no hesitation in including it in their armoury. While there is no doubt about Geoff ’s prowess as a grower of alpines, the quality of his output is perhaps surprising given the compactness of his cultivation set-up. His plants are THE ALPINE GARDENER
GEOFF ROLLINSON
Geoff Rollinson with a fine specimen of Androsace vandellii at this year’s North Midland Show. This plant didn’t add to his tally of Farrer Medals – eclipsed on the day by Ian Leslie’s Benthamiella patagonica – but was awarded a Certificate of Merit and the John Saxton Memorial Trophy for the best plant native to Europe
kept in a 12ft by 6ft alpine house and a small lean-to against his home, which is situated appropriately on the almost cliff-like side of a hill in Holmfirth, the town that was used as the location DECEMBER 2012
for the BBC series Last of the Summer Wine. Another 12ft x 6ft greenhouse is used for raising seeds, where juvenile members of the Primulaceae and Saxifragaceae – his two favourite plant 415
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ROLL OF HONOUR: GEOFF ROLLINSON’S FARRER MEDALS 1974 1975 1978 1980 1980 1981 1981 1982 1984 1984 1984 1986 1986 1986 1987 1989 1991 1991 1993 1994 1995 1999 2000 2001 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2012
Anchusa cespitosa North of England Show Androsace vandellii North of England Show Androsace alpina Southport Show Dionysia lamingtonii Morecambe Show Androsace vandellii West of England Show Dionysia lamingtonii Early Spring Show Androsace cylindrica x hirtella Southport Show Androsace villosa var. jacquemontii North of England Show Dionysia lamingtonii West of England Show Saxifraga grisebachii Nottingham Show Dionysia bryoides Main Spring Show Dionysia bryoides Cleveland Show Dionysia lamingtonii Nottingham Show Dionysia involucrata Summer North Show Dionysia lamingtonii Main Spring Show Androsace muscoidea North of England Show Dionysia freitagii West of England Show Daphne cneorum var. pygmaea Newcastle Show Androsace vandellii Cleveland Show Androsace muscoidea ‘Dhaulagiri’ East Cheshire Show Androsace vandellii Cleveland Show Saxifraga federici-augusti ‘Wisley’ East Lancashire Show Primula bracteata East Lancashire Show Primula bracteata Cleveland Show Androsace cylindrica East Cheshire Show Saxifraga ‘Coolock Gem’ East Lancashire Show Saxifraga ‘Coolock Gem’ East Lancashire Show Primula bracteata East Cheshire Show Androsace villosa var. taurica Cleveland Show Androsace cylindrica x hirtella East Cheshire Show Androsace cylindrica x hirtella Cleveland Show Saxifraga ‘Coolock Gem’ Blackpool Show Dionysia involucrata ‘Gothenburg White’ Southport Show
FORREST MEDALS (Awarded at AGS shows under SRGC rules) 1989 1994 2007 416
Saxifraga porophylla Morecambe Show Androsace vandellii Northumberland Show Saxifraga ‘Coolock Gem’ Blackpool Show THE ALPINE GARDENER
GEOFF ROLLINSON
Geoff’s plants in the boot of his car before the Blackpool Show. On the top right is the smaller pan of Saxifraga ‘Coolock Gem’. The larger specimen was allowed to travel in the front passenger footwell. Fritillaria alburyana is in the foreground
families – share the space with broad beans. There is one other essential plant residence – the beer cooler in Geoff ’s garage. This is where the aforementioned pot of Fritillaria alburyana spends winter at a constant 4C. Once a month the pot is taken out and left to stand in an inch of water for an hour or so before being returned to the fridge. ‘If the bulbs are not kept cool, they will flower in January, before the show season,’ explains Geoff, ‘and the beer cooler saved them from an otherwise certain death during the freezing winter of DECEMBER 2012
2010-11.’ The pot is removed from its cold store in February and new foliage and flowers soon follow. After dead-heading, the pot is placed in a sand plunge in Geoff ’s alpine house but he doesn’t feed it because he uses John Innes No. 3 in his compost mix, which he says provides all the nutrients the bulbs require. They are repotted in August and returned to the beer cooler at the end of October. Geoff obtained the bulbs from the late Duncan Lowe, a fellow Primulaceae enthusiast and co-author of a number of books on the family. ‘Duncan was a 417
INTERVIEW good friend,’ says Geoff. ‘We regularly swapped plants and seed. ‘An uncle of mine who’d emigrated to New Zealand used to send me seed he’d collected. He once sent some Raoulia buchananii, which I threw onto the sand plunge and 18 germinated. I gave a couple to Duncan and the plants thrived in his raised bed for a few years. After his death in 1999, his wife Audrey said that I had to take back the Raoulia. And he’d told her that I should have his pot of Fritillaria alburyana, saying, “Geoff doesn’t grow bulbs – let him have a go at that.” He would be pleased that I have kept it going and won prizes with it.’ F. alburyana was discovered by John Watson, Martin Cheese and Sydney Albury, after whom it is named, during an expedition in Turkey in 1966. Sydney subsequently died while collecting in the Himalayas in 1970. Geoff Rollinson developed a love of horticulture in his 20s while helping out in a neighbour’s garden. At the time he was otherwise preoccupied with soccer, playing centre-back for Huddersfield Town Football Club’s second and third teams, then managed by Bill Shankly. Geoff did two years of National Service as a work study engineer with the RAF, based in North Wales, and was ‘allowed out’ on Saturdays to play for Huddersfield. He continued to play in a local amateur team until the age of 40. In 1966 he decided to construct a rock garden beside his house. ‘It seemed the obvious thing to do on such a steep slope,’ he says, ‘and I had some rock available. The rocks haven’t moved since but I had to improve the soil. 418
Everything I planted initially died within a year. It was a lesson well learned – rock plants didn’t like clay subsoil. I dug in lots of grit and leaf-mould. ‘My wife Mary bought me the Collins Guide to Alpines by Anna Griffith, who recommended in her book that anyone interested in these plants should join the AGS, so I signed up in 1969. ‘There were only about ten AGS shows then,’ he recalls, ‘and I put my first plants on the benches in 1973.’ It didn’t take Geoff long to make an impression. His first Farrer Medal was won with Anchusa cespitosa at the North of England Show in 1974 – his second year of exhibiting – while he was still in Section C (now the Novice Section) and before he had won his Bronze Medal. Just five years later, in 1979, he won the Giuseppi Cup for the Open Section championship and went on to win it ten years in a row from 1981 to 1990. Then he decided to cut the number of his entries at shows to concentrate instead on cultivating award-winning specimens of challenging plants. ‘It’s fantastic that we have so many AGS shows today,’ says Geoff. ‘Members from all parts of the UK and Ireland get a chance to exhibit their plants and the show calendar covers the entire growing season. ‘Competition was fierce when I started to show. Several exhibitors, like me, were novices in their 30s and 40s and we were all keen to beat each other, but all I wanted to do was win a Bronze Medal. Initially I exhibited at the East Cheshire, Southport and Harrogate shows, then started going further afield, including London. Sometimes I’d take THE ALPINE GARDENER
GEOFF ROLLINSON
Primula allionii cultivars and other seedlings on Geoff’s propagating bench
my two young sons to the shows, where they scampered around under the benches. ‘One of the great things about AGS shows is the friendliness of exhibitors. We are always swapping plants, seeds and tips on cultivation.’ In this respect, no one is more generous than Geoff. Geoff Mawson, one of the AGS’s judging co-ordinators, says: ‘Geoff always offers encouragement to new exhibitors and will often give them plants. Once someone is exhibiting in the Intermediate Section he’ll say, “You’ve proved you can grow so-andso, so now try this”.’ When Geoff decides to retire plants from showing, he often gives them to DECEMBER 2012
Aberconwy Nursery where they are put to the scalpel, sometimes yielding hundreds of cuttings. As a result, many AGS members will own plants that have been propagated from Geoff ’s stock. He admits that he doesn’t always know why a particular plant has grown well. ‘I must be doing something right to produce an award-winning plant,’ he says, ‘but occasionally I don’t know what it is. I find that I can’t repeat the success. One example is Androsace alpina, with which I won a Farrer Medal at the Southport Show in 1978. I haven’t been able to grow another one as good as that.’ His standard compost is two parts grit, one part Westland John Innes 419
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Impressive specimen plants in one of the plunge beds in Geoff’s alpine house 420
THE ALPINE GARDENER
GEOFF ROLLINSON
The lean-to at the side of Geoff’s house is packed with potential Farrer candidates
No. 3 and one part oak leaf-mould. Geoff gathers the leaf-mould, which he doesn’t sterilise, in a three-acre garden where he works one day a week, a job he started when he retired as a metal fabrication engineer 15 years ago. He is also the greenkeeper at his local crown green bowling club, which won its league this year. Geoff maintains that his growing regime is simple. In his alpine house he waters both the pots and the sand plunge, the amount of water determined by the temperature at the time. Feeding is minimal. Pots of dionysias and androsaces are allowed to stand in an inch of liquid feed each August. ‘I use DECEMBER 2012
John Innes No. 3 in the potting mix so I don’t need to feed them at any other time,’ emphasises Geoff. Repotting takes place only when a plant is about to outgrow its container. Plants of Primula allionii, for example, are moved on when foliage reaches the pot rim. Otherwise, after flowering, the grit is removed and they receive a topdressing of bonemeal before the grit is replaced. Deadheading takes place as soon as the flowers show any sign of going over. ‘If the flowers are left to fall onto the foliage then rot can set in quickly,’ says Geoff. Geoff ’s limited space means that he is ruthless about which plants deserve 421
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Young plants fill part of the plunge in the lean-to. Geoff uses small pieces of cardboard to provide shade for some plants, in this case a pot of Trillium nivale 422
THE ALPINE GARDENER
GEOFF ROLLINSON
The rock garden that Geoff built in 1966, with his seedlings greenhouse at the top
house room. ‘When a plant is past its best – for example, if it loses flowering vigour – it gets slung out,’ he says. He prefers to grow plants from seed so that they start life in the conditions in which they will be expected to flourish. Although primulas, androsaces, dionysias and saxifrages occupy most of his seed pots, Geoff can be persuaded to grow other genera. ‘I may take a fancy to something and give it a try,’ he says. There is one other factor that contributes to Geoff ’s success. Like many successful growers, he spends time with his plants. They are inspected daily and any signs of stress or pests and diseases are picked up early and dealt with. Every leading exhibitor has DECEMBER 2012
his or her preferred compost mixes, feeding regimes, shading disciplines and watering routines. These vary enormously, so essentially they all grow fabulous plants using different methods. What they have in common is vigilance, which means their plants get what they need, when they need it. This level of care and attention to detail is responsible for much of their success. Geoff ’s garden is ideal for growing alpines. The fact that it is on such a steep slope means that drainage is excellent and it receives equal amounts of sun and shade. Although alpines feature strongly, perhaps the most dominant plants are hellebores, with several thriving stands. He is particularly pleased that the European native 423
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Jim Almond with Geoff Rollinson and his Farrer Medal-winning Saxifraga ‘Coolock Gem’ at the AGS show at Blackpool this year
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axifraga ‘Coolock Gem’ is one of the finest saxifrage selections of the past 20 years. It was raised by Jim Almond in the mid-1990s from a sowing of seed collected from Saxifraga ‘Myriad’. Two seedlings in particular were selected as potential show plants and initially distributed as ‘red form’ and ‘white form’. Mike Smith of Hythe Alpines nursery in Norfolk, which has since closed, asked if he could propagate them and requested that they should be given cultivar names. Jim chose Coolock, the name of the street in Shrewsbury where he lives,
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The ‘Coolock Gem’ story and the names of his daughters, Gemma, or Gem, for the white selection and Kate for the red. To ensure that the plants were grown to their full potential, some were given to Geoff Rollinson. Farrer Medals, Certificates of Merit and other awards followed. Geoff has won three Farrers with ‘Coolock Gem’, in 2006, 2007 and 2012, plus a Scottish Rock Garden Club Forrest Medal in 2007. THE ALPINE GARDENER
GEOFF ROLLINSON
Hellebores, many of them self-seeded, feature strongly in Geoff’s garden
orchid Epipactis helleborine has taken up residence. ‘It just turned up,’ he says. ‘I thought it was a foxglove at first. It had 32 spikes in 2011.’ All Geoff ’s spent potting compost is mixed with wellrotted farmyard manure and used a topdressing in the garden. His interest in alpines in not confined to his garden or the show-bench. He has visited many alpine habitats around the world. ‘I’ve been to the Rockies twice, the Andes and Turkey,’ he says. ‘I’ve also seen a fair bit of the Alps, with three trips to France, three to Switzerland and two visits to the Dolomites.’ One of his favourite locations is around the Schilthorn in the Bernese Alps. ‘It’s a great place for Primulaceae,’ he adds. DECEMBER 2012
‘I’ve found Androsace helvetica, alpina and pubescens and their hybrids as well as loads of primulas.’ And so to Blackpool. At 6.30am on Saturday morning I follow Geoff out of Holmfirth and along steeply climbing roads until we are 500m (1,640ft) up on Saddleworth Moor, where billowing mist adds drama to the stark landscape. On arrival at Blackpool, the benches are already filling with a fine array of exhibits. But, of course, everyone is eager to see what Geoff Rollinson has brought across the Pennines. After judging, I scout round the benches to see how Geoff has done. In the class for three large pans of Primula allionii and its hybrids, his ‘Broadwell 425
GEOFF ROLLINSON
Geoff’s duo of Saxifraga ‘Coolock Gem’ at Blackpool and, right, Primula allionii ‘Herald’ in the class for three small pans of Primula allionii and its hybrids
Milkmaid, ‘Fairy Rose’ and ‘Mary Berry’ have taken first place. Anisotome imbricata var. imbricata also has a red sticker, beating six other entries in the class for foliage effect. In the small-pan class for three pans of Primula allionii, Geoff has left seven entries in his wake with ‘Lepus’, ‘Herald’ and another ‘Broadwell Milkmaid’. In the small single-pan class for P. allionii, he has beaten 11 other entries with another exemplary pan of ‘Lepus’. In the class for one small pan of Corydalis, his C. bracteata has seen off eight rivals. The competition at AGS shows, however, is tough, and Geoff doesn’t have it all his own way. The flowers of Fritillaria alburyana have suffered during their journey and are just past their best. 426
This is not acceptable to the judges, and the exhibit isn’t placed in the class for one small pan of Fritillaria. Similarly, Dionysia lurorum x aretioides, in the smallpan class for a plant rare in cultivation, is placed fourth out of four entries. But what of the two Saxifraga ‘Coolock Gem’ specimens? One, entered in the class for a large pan of a rock plant in flower, adds to Geoff ’s tally of firsts. The larger of the two, in the class for a single pan of Saxifraga, also takes first place and earns Geoff his 32nd Farrer Medal. However, the plant doesn’t return to Holmfirth. It is packed off to the propagating bench at Aberconwy – another act of generosity from a man who, despite all his success, keeps his feet firmly on the ground. THE ALPINE GARDENER
REGINALD FARRER
The man who became a medal Reginald Farrer would no doubt appreciate the fact that it is a fellow Yorkshireman, Geoff Rollinson, who has most often earned the accolade that bears his name. We hope that this short appraisal of his life will encourage members who are not familiar with Farrer’s contribution to rock gardening to find out more about this remarkable man and his plants
T
he Alpine Garden Society first awarded a Farrer Medal in 1932, to Dr F. Stoker for a specimen of Conandron ramondioides. It was one of just two awarded that year. The second, for Ramonda serbica, was won by G.P. Baker. The number of medals increased to about four or five a year until the Second World War, when just one medal was awarded in each year from 1941 to 1944. Since then the number has increased as AGS shows have flourished. Reginald John Farrer, of course, was never aware of the award bestowed in his honour. He died in 1920, aged just 40, while on a plant-hunting expedition in Upper Burma. In December 1932, DECEMBER 2012
Reginald John Farrer
the entire Bulletin of the AGS was devoted to a celebration of Farrer’s life and the plants that he discovered and introduced into cultivation. He was described at the time as the Patron Saint of Alpine Gardeners. Farrer grew up in the village of Clapham at the foot of Ingleborough 427
REGINALD FARRER Fell in the Yorkshire Dales. He had a love of flowers as a child, and at the age of eight he knew by heart a school-book of botany and could dissect a flower and name its component parts. Owing to a speech defect he was educated at home until going to Oxford University, and this gave him, as a boy, the opportunity to spend much time roaming around Ingleborough in search of the plants and the grasses which formed his first collection of dried specimens. At 14 he rebuilt the rock garden at his parents’ home and later built a second rock garden in an old kitchen garden, where he started the Craven Nursery. It was here that he constructed his moraine, which was a scree with water running through it. It was mainly composed of railway ballast-sized pieces of rock and leaf-mould with water percolating the lower section to keep the upper section moist. He claimed to have outstanding results with Eritrichium nanum, for example. This moraine was to play an important part in the future development and construction of rock gardens. Farrer went on to plant up a limestone ‘cliff ’ which skirted the bank of a lake in the grounds of his home. In this rock face was planted every probable and improbable alpine plant. In one famous incident, he loaded a shotgun with seeds collected on his foreign travels and fired them into the cliff. The resulting floral display was, by all accounts, spectacular. At the head of the lake he boldly massed bamboos, rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs after noticing that this area was part of the acidic Craven Fault. After graduating from Balliol College 428
in 1902, Farrer set off on his first major expedition, to Japan and Korea, with a visit to Peking thrown in for good measure. This resulted in a book, The Garden of Asia: Impressions from Japan. Farrer had begun his writing career as a rather unsuccessful novelist, but in 1907 he published My Rock-Garden, which was a resounding success and has been reprinted many times. He followed it a year later with Alpines and
SOME PLANTS NAMED AFTER FARRER Allium farreri Amitostigma farreri Bulbophyllum farreri Codonopsis farreri Cypripedium farreri Gentiana farreri Geranium farreri Nomocharis farreri Picea farreri Viburnum farreri Bog-Plants. Subsequent books included In a Yorkshire Garden, Among the Hills and The English Rock-Garden. Clarence Elliott, who travelled to the Alps with Farrer, found him ‘a tireless traveller, a great walker and a fearless climber’ and ‘a curious, complex, fascinating personality’. Elliott wrote in 1921: ‘As a writer of garden books he stood alone. He wrote, as a rule, from a peculiar angle of his own, giving queer human attributes to his plants, which somehow exactly described them. He wrote vividly, often THE ALPINE GARDENER
REGINALD FARRER
Reginald Farrer on one of his many expeditions in the mountains. His companions on such journeys included fellow plantsmen E.A. Bowles and Clarence Elliott
at the top of his voice as it were… The chief reason why his books are so valuable is that one can read them. He always had something to say.’ In the December 1932 AGS Bulletin, the nurseryman Walter Ingwersen wrote that ‘in no small way has his influence made the Alpine Garden DECEMBER 2012
Society possible… I believe that My Rock-Garden has made more converts to the charms of alpine plants and their cultivation in our gardens than any other book ever written. Farrer’s infectious enthusiasm spread like wildfire among the gardening public and we should owe him an enormous 429
REGINALD FARRER
FARRER’S WIT AND WISDOM ON MAKING A GARDEN Neglect initial precautions, save a few sixpences in the matter of drainage, concrete or what not, when you are making your garden and you will certainly have to spend many sad laborious years and many unprofitable pounds in trying vainly to make good your own deficiencies. ON ALPINES A miff is a plant, which, in the midst of seeming life, is in death, and expires abruptly; a mimp is one that for ever hangs on the edge of death, trailing a sickly existence towards inevitable extermination. Thus Gentiana verna in too many gardens is a mimp; Myosotis rupicola is a miff. ON PLANTING I believe in firm planting and in very firm planting; in dealing with a shrub I execute a sort of war-dance round it on one foot, which must wear a more than eccentric appearance in
debt if he had never written another line on this subject. In its pages he gave the soundest of advice on rock garden construction, showing plainly how very simple it really is to make the conditions right for the children of the high hills in our lowland gardens.’ It was through the knowledge that he gained in his garden and his love of finding plants in the wild that he 430
the eyes of an onlooker. And with an alpine, I pursue the same policy on its lessened scale with a slamming fist. ON THOROUGHNESS Half the world’s horticultural tragedies arise because gardeners, for one reason or another, fail to make their preparations complete, fail to be thorough with the long, tiresome and sometimes expensive preparatory measures. ON MOVING PLANTS So often, if you move a prospering plant from difficult surroundings into easy ones it will immediately cease to prosper. Another high matter for meditation and moralising. ON NATURE Nature is never haphazard or chaotic – she may seem so, but she never is; and the rock-garden which sincerely aims at following Nature must have Nature’s own unity and decision of purpose.
kindled a fire of enthusiasm among gardeners that would preserve his name for generations yet unborn. The 1932 Bulletin describes how Farrer met his death ‘in harness’ in Upper Burma on a plant-hunting expedition, ‘a tragedy which cut short at 40 years a life of great achievement’. The article recalled: ‘At the end of September 1920 a seed harvest was THE ALPINE GARDENER
REGINALD FARRER
Reginald Farrer collecting seeds on a mountainside in China
nearly completed in a dreadful climate of weeks of incessant rain, which was slowly sapping his vitality. At Nyitadi, on the northern frontier range, he fell ill, and we learn from a letter to Mr Cox [in Farrer’s Last Journey by his friend E.H.M. Cox] from Farrer’s head servant that from October 1 to 13, 1920, Farrer suffered from “cough and chests pain”. On the 14th, he discontinued to take DECEMBER 2012
his food except “soda water and whisky and medicines for his benefit… and without giving any pain and trouble to us he breathed his last on the morning of October 17, 1920”. His remains were carried down to Konglu and were interred above the fort at that outpost of Empire. Here, his grave has been constantly attended to, and over it a memorial plaque has been erected by his mother.’ 431
PHOTO ALBUM
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he Alpine Garden Society’s slide library contains more than 40,000 superb images, many of which have never been published. In this, the second of an occasional pictorial series, slide librarians Peter Sheasby and Ann Thomas have chosen a selection of photographs based on the theme of plants in their natural habitats. The images here – taken by various photographers in North and South America, Asia, South Africa and Europe – portray plants in often huge numbers and in breathtaking surroundings. As gardeners we derive great pleasure from cultivating plants from all parts of the world. These images, however, make the point that no matter how good a plant from overseas looks in a garden, it will almost always look better
Dramatic displays in the wild in the wild. The natural landscape offers a stage and a scale with which the garden cannot compete, and we all know only too well that plants tend to grow better where they evolved. As well as showcasing images from the slide library, this feature brightens the bleak days of winter and whets the appetite for all the wonderful sights that we hope to see in wild places during the coming year.
Eremurus lactiflorus in Aksu Gorge, south-west Kazakhstan (Peter Sheasby) 432
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PLANTS IN HABITAT
Gazanias on the Bokkeveld Plateau in South Africa (Jack Elliott) Below, Papaver rhoeas in an olive grove at Mairena, Spain (Richard Nutt)
DECEMBER 2012
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PHOTO ALBUM
Eschscholzia californica in Los Angeles County, California (Phil Phillips) Below, Alstroemeria ligtu var. andina at El Planchón, Chile (David Haselgrove)
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PLANTS IN HABITAT
Yucca brevifolia and Linanthus parryae on the east side of the Walker Pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Kern County, California (Gwen Phillips) DECEMBER 2012
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PHOTO ALBUM
Iris barnumiae subsp. barnumiae forma urmiensis in Iran (Jim Archibald) Below, Persicaria bistorta in the Swiss Alps (Philip Goddard)
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PLANTS IN HABITAT
Annuals at the Goegap reserve, Northern Cape, South Africa (Peter Sheasby) Below, Silene acaulis on the Galibier Pass in the French Alps (Muriel Hodgman)
DECEMBER 2012
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PHOTO ALBUM
Armeria maritima, The Burren, County Clare, Ireland (Ann Thomas) Below, Papaver lacerum, Bolkar Dağ, southern Turkey (Peter Sheasby)
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PLANTS IN HABITAT
Gentiana lutea in the Swiss Alps (Philip Goddard) DECEMBER 2012
439
CLEVELAND SHOW
Androsaces lead a cast of beguiling plants
APRIL 7, 2012 Report: Martin Rogerson Pictures: Robert Rolfe
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egular exhibitors are familiar with this show’s tendency to coincide with weather conditions that make either setting up or packing away eventful. This time, despite snow and gales earlier in the week, the worst thrown at us was a few spots of rain. By judging time the hall held a magnificent display of colour and an interesting mix of plants. The cold weather had proved fortunate for some. Several plants seen the previous week at Hexham were still in their prime, earning their owners a second red sticker. For an exhibitor to be repeatedly successful, dedication (some would say obsession) is necessary. You must be prepared to rise very early in the
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Sue Flanigan’s Polemonium viscosum and, above left, her Androsace vandellii
morning and to swell the Chancellor’s Treasury chest with fuel duty from the many miles you travel. Such dedication was clearly displayed by Andrew Ward, who journeyed from Wisbech to win the Novice Section aggregate trophy, the Crosthwaite Cup for the best plant in that section and the Aileen Harness Memorial Cup for the best bulbous exhibit. THE ALPINE GARDENER
Anemonella thalictroides ‘Oscar Schoaf’ was awarded a Certificate of Merit
The class for seed-raised plants in the Intermediate Section contained several interesting entries, the pick of them a pot of Fritillaria pontica var. substipelata, native to Lesbos and grown from AGS seed sown in 2006 (Tony Taziker). Rivalling its beauty, Sue Flanigan’s young plant of Polemonium viscosum, with a single inflorescence of large mid-blue flowers and contrasting bright yellow stamens, promised well for future shows. She also won the trophies for the best pan of Primulaceae and for the best plant in the Intermediate Section with a very good Androsace vandellii. In the Open Section, George Young’s communal exhibit of the same species was notable. While pricking out seedlings some four years ago, he decided to plant some in a large pan, constructed to look like a patch of scree. This assemblage created a convincingly DECEMBER 2012
natural look. Indeed I doubt if the real thing in the wild could improve on it. There is almost always a plant at a show you know little or nothing about. At Cleveland it was Mukdenia rossii ‘Karasuba’, shown by Joan Bradbury. A member of the Saxifragaceae, this herbaceous Chinese woodlander is probably grown as much for its foliage as its flowers, although on this occasion the racemes of starry white flowers, deep red in the throat, were what drew attention, for the leaves had only just emerged. Ian Kidman took the Woodward Challenge Cup for the most firstprize points in the Open Section and a Certificate of Merit for Androsace villosa var. taurica. Certificates of Merit were also awarded to a compact and floriferous (maximum UV light is the grower’s advice) Anemonella thalictroides ‘Oscar Schoaf ’ (Don Peace), an 441
CLEVELAND SHOW
extremely dwarf Salix reticulata (Brian Burrow) and a particularly wellflowered Primula rusbyi (Mala Janes). This plant, native to the south-west United States, often flowers repeatedly in summer and was lauded as the best exhibited in many years. Mala uses what strikes me as a slightly unconventional compost, starting with pure leaf-mould at the bottom of the pot, followed by a layer of mixed John Innes and leafmould, topped by a deep layer of grit to keep the crowns well drained. Having seen her results, I might give my own ailing plant a dose of this treatment. The large six-pan Sewell Medal class was won by Tommy Anderson, fending off a strong challenge from Barry Winter. Despite losing out to George Young in the small six-pan stakes, Tommy appeared to be floating about six inches 442
Don Peace’s tenyear-old Androsace muscoidea won the Farrer Medal
above the floor for much of the day. The Farrer Medal was won by Don Peace with a substantial Androsace muscoidea, almost completely covered in small white flowers with greenish-yellow eyes. This ten-year-old plant had been grown in a compost mix ‘a bit richer than you’d use for A. vandellii’ and kept just moist at the roots during winter. A native of the western Himalaya, on stony slopes at up to 5,300m (17,400ft), it had been raised from seed of Androsace muscoidea ‘Schacht form’, which has been the progenitor of other exemplary offspring. A number of pans of Androsace lehmanniana were exhibited. The finest of them, shown by Geoff Rollinson, was THE ALPINE GARDENER
Primula (allionii x carniolica) x albenensis bred by Brian Burrow
awarded the David Baker Vase for the best plant from North America. A little research to ensure the name was correct gave me a headache, for some accounts accord it specific rank whereas others treat it as a subspecies of A. chamaejasme. Whatever the name, it is a beautiful plant with umbels of a delicate creamy yellow rather than the textbook white, exuding a delicate scent of marzipan. The classes for plants raised from seed always offer something interesting. A 2010 seedling of Primula (allionii x carniolica) x albenensis bred by Brian Burrow (the P. allionii x carniolica itself being one of his efforts) stood out. The colour combination, violet-pink with a large white eye and yellow stamens, set off by broad, lightly farinose leaves, was entrancing. One DECEMBER 2012
to look out for at future shows. Brian also showed, as part of his three-pan entry, a small but floriferous Primula daonensis from wild collected seed, sown in late 2006. This is clearly not a fast grower. Finally, Phlox kelseyi ‘Lemhi Purple’ (Edward Spencer) was plastered with dark violet flowers of a vibrant shade that the camera finds hard to reproduce. A 1983 introduction from southern Idaho, its depth of colour is unrivalled. I have a plant from the same source but alas have been unable, so far, to replicate the quality and density of flowering that Eddie regularly achieves.
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LONDON SHOW
Love it or hate it, an Asarum wins the day
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he AGS London Show, despite the understandable reluctance of many regular exhibitors to bring their plants into the capital, is an essential fixture in our calendar. In the grand setting of the RHS Lindley Hall, thousands of visitors are made aware of the Alpine Garden Society and encounter plants that perhaps they have never seen or heard of before. No coincidence, then, that the phone lines at Pershore were busy with new members in the days after the show. It was feared this year that Cecilia Coller, a stalwart exhibitor, might be unable to attend, so Show Secretary Jon Evans and Director of Shows Ray
APRIL 10-11, 2012 Report: John Fitzpatrick Pictures: Doug Joyce
Drew redoubled their efforts to bring in plants from members who would not normally be at London. Particularly striking were the many fine Cyclamen staged by Ian Robertson and Martyn Denney. Dwarf tulips were also more numerous than usual, indicating the forwardness of the season. Happily, Cecilia was able to exhibit and her vanload of 60-plus plants meant that visitors were treated to what Ray justifiably described as the best London Show for many years. Indeed, bar the
Pleione formosana ‘Snow Bunting’ picked up a Certificate of Merit 444
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Asarum maximum won a third Farrer Medal for this species at London for Cecilia Coller
prizes for the Novice, Intermediate and Artistic Sections, she swept the board. Her Farrer Medal-winning Asarum maximum completed a hat-trick – she won the award with the same species at this show in 2006 and 2007. The plant on the bench this time, as part of an entry in the class for three pans native to one continent, was not the variegated specimen that had won previously. This year’s winner, with its flamboyant black and white flowers tucked discreetly under a canopy of large, leathery leaves, was much admired by visitors. I find, though, that AGS members divide into two camps over this Chinese woodlander – they either love it or hate it. Also heading back to Norwich DECEMBER 2012
with Cecilia were the George Gable Memorial Trophy for the best pan of Ericaceae (Cassiope lycopodioides) and the Audrey Bartholomew Memorial Spoon for the best plant from North America (Sanguinaria canadensis f. multiplex ‘Plena’). Home for both plants is Cecilia’s peat bed, though the Cassiope is afforded the luxury of a pot, which remains plunged in the bed all year unless frost threatens the buds in spring. The Sanguinaria, dug up once again for its outing to London, staged an encore of its flourish at this show last year when the flowers opened on the first day. Given that the brilliant white blooms last for barely a couple of days, how does Cecilia get the timing so precise, given that we have had two very different winters? ‘It’s just luck,’ she claims. Hmm. She was awarded two Certificates of Merit, the first for a gleaming pan of Pleione formosana ‘Snow Bunting’. 445
LONDON SHOW
Cecilia Coller’s pristine pan of Sempervivum erythraeum
This was part of her large six-pan entry, which also included a yellow Iris suaveolens, Iris babadagica, Androsace sempervivoides, Pleione Bandai-san gx and another pot of Asarum maximum. The Pleione started life as a single pseudobulb obtained from Ian Butterfield’s nursery in Buckinghamshire. Cecilia grows it in a basic orchid compost bought from a garden centre. After flowering it spends the summer outside under a northfacing wall and is fed occasionally with Tomorite. It is taken under cover when the leaves die back in November, repotted in December, and from January it is kept under a bench in an alpine house until flowering commences. Her second Certificate of Merit went to an immaculate pan of Sempervivum erythraeum. Unusual in this genus for its 446
understated, velvety grey-green leaves, tinged with pink, and acknowledged as slower than most to bulk up, this Bulgarian endemic spends most of its time in an alpine house, which prevents birds from pecking the rosettes and avoids the compost becoming too soggy. Unlike most of its brethren, it will not tolerate winter wet and should be taken under glass in winter. Cecilia also exhibited two pans of Tulipa clusiana, an Asian, truly alpine species whose history in cultivation stretches back centuries. She is convinced that she is growing the species pure and simple rather than one of its variants. A pot of the taller selection ‘Lady Jane’, staged by Jon Evans, provided a useful comparison. Cecilia’s tulips are grown in a mix of equal parts of John Innes THE ALPINE GARDENER
Tulipa clusiana ‘Lady Jane’ shown by Jon Evans
No. 2 and grit, with a little added leafmould. The bulbs are allowed to dry out in summer after the foliage has died back and are repotted in November. The London Show affords exhibitors the only chance in the AGS show calendar to stage a 12-pan entry, components of which must belong to one genus or family. Two determined souls made the effort, but the judges decreed reluctantly that neither entry was worthy of a first place. David Philbey’s second-placed, colourful selection of European Primula hybrids had been sabotaged by the overnight warmth of the hall: they had been uniformly in prime condition 24 hours earlier. Clive Dart’s 12 lewisias, only just starting to flower, were placed third. He received some consolation with the DECEMBER 2012
Tomlinson Tankard for the most firstprize points in the Intermediate Section. The Artistic Section yet again provided a magnificent backdrop to the show benches. The Muriel Hodgman Art Award for the most first-prize points for paintings, drawings and embroidery went to Jean Morris, whose needlework exhibits included three beautifully realised fritillaries and an exquisite rendering of Sempervivum calcareum ‘Guillaumes’. The Florence Baker Award for the best botanical illustration was won by Rannveig Wallis for a delicate watercolour depicting Muscari macrocarpum. Jon Evans was rewarded for his hard graft in staging this show with the Dawson Trophy for the most first-prize points among the photographic exhibits. 447
NORTH MIDLAND SHOW
A first Farrer Medal for Benthamiella
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ith several regular exhibitors away on holiday, sub-zero temperatures just two days beforehand, and the knock-on effect of the 2010-11 winter, show secretary John Savage had his work cut out to drum up entries for this popular mid-season show. One noted his beautifully grown Andromeda polifolia ‘Nikko’ in a threepan class. It’s a pity that this species, available in around a dozen versions at present, isn’t shown much nowadays. And his large, very well-furnished Rhododendron ‘Snipe’ (R. pemakoense x davidsonianum), luckily unmarked by frost, was a mass of lilac-pink funnels. While it was considered for the
APRIL 14, 2012 Report: Robert Rolfe Pictures: Robert Rolfe
Chesterfield Vase (best pan of Ericaceae), that award went instead to Trevor Harding’s much smaller Cassiope Stormbird Group. This C. lycopodioides x selaginoides cross occurred with Mike and Polly Stone when they were at Fort Augustus. A number of their other hybrids, dating from the 1980s and 1990s, are still offered commercially. The reddish calyces (pale green in some other examples) and dwarf habit show the influence of C. selaginoides var. nana, brought back
Trevor Harding’s Cassiope Stormbird Group was the best pan of Ericaceae and the best plant in a 19cm pot
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from Nepal by Ron McBeath 30 years ago. Cuttings root reliably and, if a nursery gets hold of stock, it will surely achieve bumper sales, judging by the acclaim the plant met with at the show, where it also won the Frances Hopkin Trophy for the best plant in a 19cm pot. Another gifted grower of cassiopes, Ian Leslie, chose instead to demonstrate his prowess with the Patagonian genus Benthamiella, whose steppe haunts are a world away from the very damp habitats favoured by most cassiopes. In cultivation for just over a decade, the plants have given less trouble than was predicted, though they don’t always flower well. This is possibly a consequence of too rich a compost – elsewhere in the hall, a large cushion was uncharacteristically DECEMBER 2012
Ian Leslie’s Benthamiella patagonica is a former Aberconwy stock plant
soft and sparsely flowered. They don’t like mild winters either. B. patagonica has performed best of all but this was the first time the genus had attracted a Farrer Medal. Several versions, raised from the trend-setting Flores & Watson introductions, are grown. Ian’s plant, once an Aberconwy Nursery stock plant, presented an even, 20cm diameter hummock with dense greyish rosettes whose blunt leaf tips were white, an occasional feature of the species. The primrose-coloured flowers, larger than some collections, had irregular, reflexed flanges and relied on profusion to create a spectacle. 449
NORTH MIDLAND SHOW
Geoff Rollinson’s Androsace aff. selago and, right, Les Brown’s Erythronium oregonum
The same exhibitor’s B. patagonica F&W 10111, at most 6cm across, had smaller, pure white flowers, the long floral tube topped by a prettily crimped, horizontal rim, the throat filled with bright yellow stamens. Geoff Rollinson’s Androsace aff. selago, a Josef Halda collection from the Pamir-Alai (Kyrgyzstan) at 4,850m (15,900ft), presumably belongs somewhere within the multi-faceted A. villosa conglomeration. It is distinctive by dint of its much-condensed, acute leaves, and its single, short-pediceled, freely produced flowers, which have a prominent annulus and slightly relaxed petal lobes. A moraine-dweller, it had been sown in March 2008 and was thriving in a compost of equal parts John Innes No. 3, leaf-mould and grit. Androsaces were a feature of the 450
show, from the following week’s Farrer Medal winner, A. villosa var. barbulata, to five specimens of A. vandellii shown by George Young. He took home the Gould Trophy for the most first-prize points in the Open Section and also won the small six-pan E.B. Anderson Prize, with specimens of Townsendia spathulata ‘Cotton Ball’, Primula x albenensis and Androsace vandellii to the fore. Not far away, the finest example of the last-named, grown in a surprisingly shallow, 25cm clay pan by Geoff Rollinson, received the John Saxton Memorial Trophy for the best plant native to Europe (see page 415). Over to North America, from where Les Brown’s Erythronium oregonum (hybridisation with E. californicum was suspected when it last appeared in public, winning the Farrer Medal THE ALPINE GARDENER
at the 2008 Harrogate Show) was a veritable showstopper. On a cold, blustery, showery day, it had responded by presenting every flower in peak condition and won a Certificate of Merit. Another was awarded to Clare Oates’ Primula juliae, which had an abundance of pert, richly coloured flowers – a fragile-looking plant that is very resilient in the face of bad weather. Mike and Ju Bramley, who had a long tenure as joint secretaries of this show, were also consummate exhibitors here and other events in northern and central England. While it is sad that Mike is no longer with us, it was very cheering to see Ju with her grandson Jo, who won the Nottingham Junior Challenge Trophy, his four first-prize entries including a first-rate Draba ‘John Saxton’ (rosularis x dedeana), as DECEMBER 2012
good as any of the dozen or so others in the Open Section, and some very promising androsaces. Ju’s creditable Dionysia microphylla (only this species and D. involucrata ‘Gothenburg White’ were shown, all the others having faded weeks ago) evoked fond memories of this and other dionysias that she grows so well and has visited ‘at home’ in Iran. In the Intermediate Section, two immaculate spikes of Anacamptis morio (Neil Hubbard) were scented like some expensive brand of soap. Raised by a German specialist, the tubers were obtained when very young. Recently seed has germinated and the tiny plants have been carefully nurtured in vitro. This show has always enjoyed wellsupported Intermediate and Novice Sections, a tradition that gives every sign of continuing in strength. 451
MIDLAND SHOW
Chris competes with himself for top prize APRIL 21, 2012 Report: John Fitzpatrick Pictures: Jon Evans
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ith its easily accessible location, close to the M42 in the Birmingham suburb of Knowle, this popular, long-standing event attracts exhibitors from all corners of England and Wales. Many AGS shows are held in schools or colleges, and the Arden School is one of the more pleasant and more suitable of these, with gardens at the front of the building and the three important features of the show – the exhibits, plant sales and catering – all located next to each other, creating a congenial hubbub. At any show an exhibitor would be delighted to have an entry vying for the Farrer Medal. To have two plants up for consideration, with no other contenders, is exceptional. Both plants belonged to Chris Lilley and came from his entry in the class for three pans of distinct genera. The Caucasian native Androsace villosa var. barbulata was pitted against a burgeoning pan of Trillium grandiflorum, the same potful with which its owner jointly won Farrer and Forrest Medals at last year’s International Conference Show. The liverwort-encrusted compost testified that it hadn’t moved for the past 12 months. This time, though, the Trillium 452
An unusual bicoloured form of Trillium grandiflorum shown by Diane Clement
had to settle for a Certificate of Merit. Chris obtained his Androsace five years ago from Parham Bungalow Plants. The pot, kept plunged in gritty sand in a cold frame, contained a mix of 60 per cent John Innes No. 2 and 40 per cent grit, boosted by a couple of handfuls of a general purpose compost. The plant is fed with half-strength Tomorite just before it comes into flower and again at the end of the growing season. This was a first Farrer Medal for this taxon. An overflowing pan of Primula sieboldii THE ALPINE GARDENER
Chris Lilley’s Androsace villosa var. barbulata
rounded off Chris’s handsome trio. Of the other androsaces on display, Lionel Clarkson’s Androsace robusta var. robusta received a Certificate of Merit (there was debate among judges and exhibitors over whether it was instead a form of A. villosa). Lionel’s plant, in the class for a single pan of Androsace, was grown in a long tom black plastic pot in a mix of three parts John Innes No. 2, five parts grit and one part composted bark. He prefers to use these pots rather than clay ones, maintaining that the plants appreciate the deeper root run. Watering is reduced because the pots aren’t porous and don’t have to be plunged, though he cautions that they must be shaded to avoid sunlight ‘cooking’ the roots. To this end, Lionel’s DECEMBER 2012
plant, which was raised from seed sown in 2006, is kept in a cold frame all year. An entry of Androsace rigida var. minor drew much attention. Sown six years ago by Alan and Janet Cook, this slowgrowing western Chinese native resides in an open-sided and therefore very well-ventilated alpine house. Seldom if ever has it been shown in better flower. The Midland Challenge Cup for the best plant in a 19cm pot was won by Robin White of Blackthorn Nursery with his novel hybrid between Viola delphinantha and V. cazorlensis, entered in the class for plants new in cultivation. The cross occurred in 2006 and Robin says that to date it has proved easier to grow, and to overwinter, than the seed parent. The flower is slightly longer than that of V. delphinantha with the short notched lower petals of V. cazorlensis, while the overall habit is more compact than the 453
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Robin White’s novel hybrid between Viola delphinantha and V. cazorlensis
latter, though it does produce stolons. It flowers very freely, either in the alpine house, in tufa, or in an alkaline scree in the open garden. The reverse cross has produced almost identical seedlings. Second place in this class went to a much admired bicoloured form of Trillium grandiflorum shown by Diane Clement. This had arisen as a chance seedling among other trilliums in a shady woodland bed. There are no records of any T. grandiflorum hybrids and Diane believes it must be a seedling of a white-flowered T. grandiflorum. ‘It flowered last year for the first time’, she said, ‘and I was aware that it had quite dark flowers, but I was away at the time and didn’t see the flower fully open. The dark pink staining on the petals is extremely unusual and it also shows dark colouring in the leaves.’ She has been 454
in touch with growers in the eastern USA via the internet forum Trillium-L. Mark Rose in Virginia reports having found similar plants on the border of North Carolina and Virginia near the Blue Ridge Parkway. John Gyer (New Jersey) saw a population in northern Virginia with a few plants that had pink flowers with deeper stripes. They occur at a high elevation, on weathered greenstone (volcanic ash laid down in the Precambrian era). Martin and Anna Sheader exhibited an undescribed cream-coloured Junellia, grown from seed obtained six years ago in northern Santa Cruz province (Argentina). Belonging to the Junellia patagonica group, it favours high and dry ridges where temperatures can drop to -20C. Aberconwy Nursery has successfully propagated it from THE ALPINE GARDENER
This undescribed member of the Junellia patagonica group was grown from seed collected in Argentina by Martin and Anna Sheader
cuttings – in fact the proprietors were poised to snip off further material once the show closed. Martin and Anna also showed a tenyear-old seed-raised Lepidium nanum, a semi-desert native of Nevada and Utah. Many growers have tried and given up with this plant, but Martin says that for the first two or three years it has a loose habit before becoming more compact, so persistence is essential to obtain a good cushion. In some years the plant can cover itself with greenish yellow flowers, but even though hundreds DECEMBER 2012
were evident, this year wasn’t one of them. It needs an open, gritty compost and is repotted every two to three years. The Edinburgh Quaich for the best pan of Ericaceae was won by Trevor Harding with a compact Cassiope Stormbird Group. In the Intermediate Section this reporter’s Cassiope ‘Badenoch’ was awarded the Crataegus Trophy for best plant, while in a busy Novice Section, Stuart Dolby showed a well-flowered Cassiope wardii hybrid.
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Two growers offer an ericaceous double
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fter the storms and flood alerts of southern England, it was a relief to enjoy a trouble-free flight to Dublin and find that, by and large, the sun shines on the righteous after all. For in a suburb with extensive parkland close by, the Cabinteely Community School hall was light, airy and well-suited to stage a very enjoyable display of alpine plants. Even the efficient tearoom’s floral table arrangements sparkled with alpines. With a local climate akin to that of Scotland, it was no surprise to encounter a number of first-class ericaceous plants on the show bench. Among them, George and Pat Gordon’s fairly well-established Leiophyllum buxifolium var. hugeri was beginning to show its
APRIL 28, 2012 Report: Mary Ridley Pictures: Billy Moore
potential and received the Margaret Orsi Bowl for the best plant from North America. One reads of it growing prolifically in the acidic sandy soils of the Pine Barrens and elsewhere along the north-east USA seaboard, inland to the mountains of the Carolinas. It has the longevity, if not quite the robust nature, of heather in the British Isles, to the extent that if cut back to the base, a new flush of growth will regenerate from the woody stumps the following spring. The foliage is markedly boxlike, as the specific epithet suggests, the leaves arranged either opposite
A first-class Leiophyllum buxifolium var. hugeri was voted the best plant from North America
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Cassiope selaginoides L,S&E 13284 won the Farrer Medal for George and Pat Gordon
or, in this variety, alternately, with terminal heads of flowers rather Ledum-like in form. As with the latter, a relationship with Rhododendron can be traced, and they certainly associate well in the garden, from where it is best to lift such specimens temporarily for exhibit. Open-ground plants nearly always do better than their permanently pot-bound counterparts. Even so, this exhibit was beaten to the Farrer Medal by a very creditable whitebelled dome of Cassiope selaginoides L,S&E 13284, shown by the same exhibitors. Many Sino-Himalayan introductions from the near and distant past have long since faded into oblivion. How encouraging that this 1947 survivor is still going strong, probably because it tolerates slightly drier conditions than the majority of the genus. It endured in several DECEMBER 2012
southern English gardens very well, and earned Captain Mooney (Kent) the first of its several Farrer Medals in 1953, with an RHS Award of Merit given to a plant shown by Windsor Great Park the following year. It is, when conditions are right, quite vigorously stoloniferous. George and Pat grow both plants outdoors in a raised ericaceous bed without protection. They keep them top-dressed, give them a liquid feed occasionally and lift them only every few years for shows. Two winters ago, the stock survived a covering of at least 30cm of snow. The Cassiope, despite its generous size, had been acquired from Ian Christie approximately three years ago, making it probably at most around five years old. Given the normal growth rate of the genus, it represented three years of supremely assured cultivation. 457
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The first rays of sunlight delineated a small but vibrant specimen of Sebaea thomasii. This member of the Gentianaceae, fairly frequently seen on the show bench nowadays, brings an infectious glow of gold to any show. Although a South African (Drakensberg) native, it really does not seem too dissimilar from the smaller, palish lemon, Georgian Gentiana oschtenica. Its owner, Billy Moore, also showed a very deep rose form of the infrequently seen Trillium hibbersonii. Irish Shows have long been famed for producing excellent pans of various members of this predominantly North American genus. Billy’s son Gavin won the David Shackleton Trophy for the best pan of Primulaceae with a very neat Primula bracteata. Until the 1994 Alpine Garden Society Expedition to China (ACE), this 458
cliff-dwelling and erratically distributed species had not been in cultivation for many years. That it has been firmly established since then from this and other subsequent introductions, setting seed and forming long-lived plants, is cause for celebration. Its requirements are broadly similar to those of the Maritime Alps cliff-dweller P. allionii, though it requires even less moisture. In summer it is best watered through the plunge and kept part-shaded. Ian Leslie journeyed from Bangor with a diminutive but sparklingly electric blue Meconopsis delavayi, flowering three years after sowing. The blueness of the petals was accentuated by a fabulous golden boss of stamens. Seed has been available from the SRGC exchange in the past few years. The plant shown, from this source, was raised from seed THE ALPINE GARDENER
Primula bracteata shown by Gavin Moore and, left, his father Billy’s Trillium hibbersonii
sown on January 14, 2009. Grown in a slightly peaty compost and kept cool and moist, with some overhead protection in winter, it has flowered for the last two years. This, too, was an ACE introduction (ACE 2423), though there have been a number of other successful imports from the 1990s. Also shown by Ian, the European Saxifraga diapensioides formed an almost flawless silvery cushion that was practically invisible under the creamy white crown of flowers. This plant was obtained from Sündermann’s nursery at Lindau, Germany, in the late 1990s and had grown very slowly, flowering reasonably well in previous years but never as fulsomely as this year’s display, hence the well-deserved Certificate of Merit. This may have been in response to a repotting the previous year in a DECEMBER 2012
50:50 mix of John Innes No. 2 and fine grit plus lime compost and also, possibly, a more liberal watering regime than in the past. It is kept plunged in an open-sided frame and receives only morning sun. Stock once distributed by Joe Elliott’s Broadwell Nursery has especial vigour, but there have been various other introductions from the southern French Alps, some of them forming tighter cushions than others. The Artistic Section supplied an attractive backdrop to the plants. One steward observed that her local ladies had come up trumps with their entries and indeed there were some beautifully detailed watercolours. Moreover, at the front of the stage, David Lapsley’s photographs of flowers from his garden complemented those on the tearoom tables. 459
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Show is bulked up by lack of competition
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his was the largest East Anglia Show since it moved to Norfolk 12 years ago. Entries were markedly up on 2011, notably in the Open Section. In some years this event clashes with another AGS show, but not always and not this year. John Foster and his team are to be congratulated yet again for their efforts. Lee and Julie Martin exhibited two large plants of Androsace studiosorum ‘Doksa’ in adjacent classes at the top of the schedule. Since both were potential Farrer contenders, judging for the premier award became a twostage process. Judges were initially asked to decide which one should take on the rest of the field. The favoured
MAY 5, 2012 Report: Don Peace Pictures: Doug Joyce
plant went on to triumph in stage two, making it Lee and Julie’s fourth Farrer Medal with this clone (other exhibitors have also won the medal with ‘Doksa’). For a plant that has not been around very long – it was introduced by Henry and Margaret Taylor in 1991 – this is clearly one with a strong pedigree. Cecilia Coller won both AGS Medal six-pan classes, each entry incorporating Pleione El Pico gx. Pleiones are enjoying something of a revival on the benches but often struggle unless entered in their own dedicated classes. Cecilia, however,
One of Cecilia Coller’s exhibits of Pleione El Pico gx – part of a six-pan entry 460
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Lee and Julie Martin with their Farrer Medalwinning pot of Androsace studiosorum ‘Doksa’
incorporates them very effectively in multi-pan classes, with other singlepan entries elsewhere in the schedule. Purchased from the members’ plant stall at a show some years ago, this Pleione proved its value beyond the constraints of dedicated classes. Cecilia also gained a Certificate of Merit and the Bill Tubbs Trophy for the best pan of Ericaceae with Rhododendron keiskei var. ozawae ‘Yaku Fairy’. This very showy form, a great favourite for both exhibition and for the garden, shows no sign of losing its popularity. Two plants unfamiliar to me, both from the southern hemisphere and both sourced from County Park Nursery in Essex, also came from the Coller stable. Rulingia hermanniifolia is a prostrate shrub with small starry-white flowers and DECEMBER 2012
very crinkled leaves (the specific epithet means the foliage is similar to that of the genus Hermannia). This species, indeed the entire genus, receives no mention in the AGS Encyclopaedia nor the index of the AGS journal. One reads that it has been transferred recently to the genus Commersonia, but that’s not in our encyclopaedia either. A quick web search tells me it requires well-drained soils and tolerates at least moderate frost. Cecilia grows it in a lime-free compost and says its only vice is that the stems are brittle and easily broken. Take that as a virtue and consider it self-pruning! The other southern hemisphere dweller, Pelargonium havlasae from the west of Australia, is also overlooked in our publications. This paucity of references surely indicates doubts 461
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Left, the delicate flowers of Cecilia Coller’s Pelargonium havlasae. Right, Don Peace’s very dark form of Fritillaria pyrenaica
about its hardiness and lack of ‘alpine’ credentials. The delicate flowers, here white but reportedly sometimes pinkish, have a tracery of black lines and freckles on their upper two petals. The Sudbury Prize for the best pan of bulbs went to a very dark form of Fritillaria pyrenaica (Don Peace). This clump represented the only surviving seedling from a 1998 sowing of the wellknown ‘Cedric Morris’. In common with several versions of F. pyrenaica, ‘Cedric Morris’ will often produce twinned flowers, jostling shoulder to shoulder at the top of the stem, and sometimes even fusing to give a Siamese-twin arrangement. While this increases flower power, it spoils the symmetry and can detract from the overall appearance. This offspring has always yielded just 462
one flower per stem, giving a more balanced display. Left to its own devices it bulks up very slowly but it responds well to ‘cracking’. At repotting time in August, the two plump scales are simply broken apart at the base, resulting in two halves. Two for the price of one! The class for one dwarf Rhododendron often pits rather blowsy hybrids against the quieter sophistication of the often smaller-flowered species. On this occasion the judges selected an exceedingly well-flowered Rhododendron ‘Wren’, whereas I preferred Dave Mountford’s Rhododendron hanceanum ‘Nanum’. Exhibitors often grow rhododendrons in the garden, lifting them very briefly for exhibition before returning them to the ground. But Dave has always grown this particular THE ALPINE GARDENER
plant in a pot, its slow growth and dwarf stature making it an ideal candidate for those of us whose garden conditions do not suit the genus. Bigeneric hybrids between Anacamptis (formerly Orchis) and Serapias have been assigned to x Sericamptis. In every case, Serapias is the dominating parent and the resulting plants look much like a member of that genus. A number have been described, some occurring in the wild. Ray Drew showed an example of an as yet unnamed man-made cross. All are summer dormant, emerging in late summer to flower the following spring to early summer. Grown in equal parts loam, perlite and sandy grit, it receives regular watering during the growing period. Ray’s instructions are to reduce watering with the onset DECEMBER 2012
of the flowers, stopping altogether as the leaves die back. Keep it dry during dormancy, with an occasional light spray of water for small plants to prevent dehydration. Move the plants temporarily outside in late summer (cool nights and rain stimulate them into growth). It is frost hardy to -10C. Dactylorhiza fuchsii grows wild very close to my garden, even appearing as an occasional ‘weed’ in my lawn, though never as lusty as the ones used by Diane Clement in a three-pan foliage class. Dug from her garden last year for similar duty on the show bench, then by default left in the pot all year, they demonstrated lateral thinking: orchids as foliage plants!
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or the gardener whose interest in plants has progressed to the point of abiding fascination, what can be more exciting than visiting a specialist nursery? Many alpine gardeners have little desire to visit their local garden centre but would happily spend several hours at their favourite alpine nursery. Here is the difference between the gardener for whom plants are valued primarily for their straightforward decorative appeal and those of us whose interest goes deeper and wider. Those of us, I think it’s fair to say, who find plants irresistible. The RHS Plantfinder lists more than 70,000 plants, some no doubt very rare and of little interest to most gardeners. What it doesn’t do, though, is focus on the small specialist nurseries that grow many of these plants and maintain them in cultivation. The Alpine Garden Society historically leads the way in this regard because of its strong membership of knowledgeable plantspeople and their interest in the great variety of plants in nature and in cultivation. This article is by way of a personal tribute to the specialist nurseries past and present who have contributed to my garden and given me great enjoyment over the years. Long may they continue! Local specialist nurseries must have awakened an interest in alpines for many AGS members. In my case it was the wonderful Broadwell Nursery in Gloucestershire run by Joe Elliott. The description of Cotswold stone as ‘trapped sunlight’ could be applied even more aptly to the remarkable range of
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The lure of the alpine nursery As alpine gardeners, we rely on specialist nurseries to supply many of the plants that we love to grow. Tim Ingram reflects on the nurseries that have inspired his gardening and the essential role that they play in the life of the AGS plants grown in the various areas of this nursery. On my first few visits I wasn’t fully aware of how very special many of these plants were, but it took little time to learn. In Joe Elliott’s 1982 list is Campanula morettiana ‘Alba’, nearly the most expensive plant at £3.00 (Senecio leucophyllus and Viola cazorlensis beat it at £3.50). Most plants were around 75p, which makes you realise just what good value alpines are today, 30 years later. At the end of the catalogue is a small but select seed list, which includes such treasures as Phyteuma (now Physoplexis) comosa and Tiarella wherryi. I have a few THE ALPINE GARDENER
ALPINE NURSERIES AGS SLIDE LIBRARY
Part of Joe Elliott’s Broadwell Nursery in the Cotswolds, which closed in 1985
plants still growing in the garden from Joe Elliott’s nursery, one being Linum narbonense (bought in 1984), which has the most beautiful ‘succession of shimmering blue’ flowers. I find this hard to propagate but its longevity is testament to its great value in the garden. After encountering Broadwell it didn’t take long to discover Jack Drake’s and Ingwersen’s nurseries, though it was some time before I managed to visit Drake’s at Aviemore in the Cairngorms, while regularly obtaining plants and seed by post. It is hard not to remember Ingwersen’s nursery as a magical place DECEMBER 2012
at the end of that long narrow road through the woods to the south of East Grinstead in West Sussex. Although it may have harkened back to earlier and more prosperous days (in terms of making rock gardens), the writings of Walter and, in particular, Will Ingwersen show what delight they derived from these plants, and Ingwersen’s Manual of Alpine Plants has an honoured and dogeared place on my shelf. The nursery’s 1998 plant list is still wonderfully comprehensive: 16 forms of Aubrieta, 24 Campanula, 28 Geranium (including x lindavicum ‘Lissadell’), 48 Primula and no less than 99 Saxifraga. In 465
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A large number of troughs at Ingwersen’s nursery in West Sussex in 1976
between were lots of special things, and like all specialist alpine nurseries, one could be sure that many unlisted rarities nestled in the greenhouses and frames. Specialist nurseries act as a focus for keen gardeners in different places. In Kent we were more than lucky to have Washfield Nursery, started by Hilda Davenport-Jones, one of the founding members of the East Kent AGS Group, and continued by Elizabeth Strangman, later helped by the fine plantsman and grower Graham Gough. A visit to Washfield was something really to look forward to. It was unique and fascinating for the budding grower, and full of stimulation and excitement. Plants can 466
be produced and sold like items on a supermarket shelf but here, and in all specialist nurseries, is the realisation of the skills and the commitment that many growers have, little different from the ideals of the enthusiastic gardener. Liz was painstaking and disciplined and a little intimidating for the neophyte, but always in a positive way, and must have brought as much pleasure to many of us as do artists and performers in different spheres of life. Washfield, of course, was famous for hellebores and choice woodland perennials, but there were smaller treasures in the alpine house and I remember, before I had ever grown it myself, a magnificent THE ALPINE GARDENER
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A selection of catalogues from specialist alpine nurseries past and present, packed with choice and often rare plants
specimen of Helleborus lividus planted out at one end, like an extraordinary and undiscovered peony. In the 1994 list is the shrublet Deutzia crenata ‘Nikko’ and a white form of Dianthus microlepis; the rare foxglove Digitalis lamarckii (ex. Jim Archibald); a good range of geraniums including that fine form of phaeum, ‘Samobor’ DECEMBER 2012
(collected by Liz in Croatia in 1990); Linaria ‘Antique Silver’ (from Bob and Rannveig Wallis); the famous Origanum ‘Kent Beauty’ (raised at the nursery); the lovely and rarely seen herbaceous Potentilla x hopwoodiana, with flowers of strawberry and cream; the Caucasian Silene fimbriata; and a beautiful form of Tiarella wherryi, ‘Bronze Beauty’, 467
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An exemplary alpine house at Hythe Alpines in Norfolk 468
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Packed cold-frames and a bed of celmisias at Jack Drake’s nursery at Aviemore
introduced by Chris Brickell. These were just a few of so many exciting plants that were carried away from the nursery to join collections all across the country. With a range of plants and contacts such as this, nurseries like Washfield played a wholly disproportionate role in the richness of our garden flora. A little further away, in East Sussex, was a smaller and more typically alpine nursery, Oakdene, a gem for the connoisseur. David Sampson’s select range of plants included New Zealanders such as Celmisia spedenii and Raoulia grandiflora, and choice shrubs like Kalmiopsis leachiana and Philesia magellanica. There were real rarities such as the gesneriad Opithandra primuloides, DECEMBER 2012
and the notable specialities of the nursery were Shortia and Schizocodon. Propagating and disseminating such plants is a real labour of love, but the work carried out by nurseries is immensely valuable in helping to keep propagation skills alive and in maintaining these plants in wider cultivation. Everyone has their own favourite range of plants they grow, but like those nurseries already mentioned, presentday nurseries such as Aberconwy, Kevock, Edrom, Hartside, Potterton’s and Choice Landscapes are among the cornerstones of the AGS and other plant societies. Growers who concentrate particularly 469
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Young plants in a shaded tunnel at Aberconwy Nursery in North Wales 470
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ALPINE NURSERIES on alpines tend to be located in the north of England and Scotland and I have only rarely managed to visit places such as Lamberton, Ardfearn and Edrom. Mike Smith at Hythe Alpines in Norfolk was an exception and propagated a wonderful range of choice plants as well as growing exhibition specimens to an enviable standard. Although I am most interested in plants suitable for growing outdoors in the garden, Mike’s list always acted as a temptation to stretch the limits and, in particular, contained many new introductions from seed collected in the wild. I remember the ‘mountain shrublet’ Micromeria croatica, the very special Salvia caespitosa and a clutch of Sutera species from South Africa, among very many more. Kath Dryden used the term ‘creme de la creme’ for some of the choicest plants of all, but I suspect that for many her whole ‘Manavlins’ list came into this category. The earliest copy I have is No. 28, from autumn 1997. Always particularly rich in bulbs, I selected the small yellow Tulipa neustruevae and the unfortunately named but beautiful Narcissus ‘Xit’. I missed out on, and probably would have had trouble growing, Iris pamphylica and Fritillaria recurva ‘Sensational’, along with quite a lot else. Kath’s garden was relatively small but nevertheless extraordinary, with a range of greenhouses devoted to particular specialities – daphnes, hepaticas, Cyclamen and much more. Although I never visited in spring I am told that it was spectacular then for displays of DECEMBER 2012
erythroniums, trilliums, narcissi and choice woodlanders. Where the specialist nurseries come together, of course, is at Alpine Garden Society shows around the country, and it is hard to imagine more stimulating events for the keen plantsperson. The real buzz for me at a show always comes from the nurseries, who grow such an unrivalled variety of choice plants, just waiting for a home. The shows complement and extend our gardens and should act as a focus for gardeners everywhere. However, the number of specialist nurseries has declined significantly in recent years. As a very rough and ready measure, there were 24 nurseries advertising in the AGS Bulletins for June 1964 and June 1990; by June 2012 this had dropped to 14. It is not easy making a living from growing and propagating more specialised plants. The reason they don’t sell in larger numbers has much to do with the lack of perception among the wider gardening public of where your garden can take you. The responsibility lies squarely with all of us in the more specialised garden societies to raise awareness of the plants we grow and love. So will specialised and alpine nurseries continue to lure gardeners? The answer must be yes if we continue to make gardens and regard plants as having an intrinsic value above and beyond many other things. It is, however, the excitement of developing gardens with these plants that primarily leads to demand and stimulates new growers to start their own nurseries. 471