©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy President’s perspective – , people and places Roy Lancaster CBE VMH

The English Garden at Chantilly.

f there is one which urban gardens, especially yellow anthers in April, but I is guaranteed to catch those where soil-space is they are present throughout the eye of visitors to our limited if not absent, and winter as jewel-like clusters home in the often dim light it is shade tolerant too. Of of red buds contrasting of January it is Skimmia relatively slow growth, it strikingly with the foliage. japonica ‘Magic Marlot’ forms a rounded, compact This is a male form and (fig 1). This dwarf, hardy, hummock or mound (mine bears no berries. evergreen shrub has lived in is 25 x 45cm after 10 years), Not content with the its green-glazed container on clothed with the neatest of Skimmia, opposite our door our doorstep for several years leaves to 5cm long, narrow in a narrow border I grow now and never fails to please. and pointed. These are two- another small, variegated Indeed, it answers most if tone green with a distinct evergreen shrub, Daphne not all the requirements creamy-white margin. The odora ‘Rebecca’ (fig. 2). of some gardeners for a fragrant terminal flower Ultimately larger than the shrub for today’s smaller, clusters open white with Skimmia and less compact, ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy Lancaster ©Roy

Fig. 1 Skimmia japonica ‘Magic Marlot’. Fig 2 Daphne odora ‘Rebecca’.

3 it is nevertheless what I call Later that month I and our notebooks with a cracker of a plant with answered a knock on our hard-earned expertise and larger, longer, green leaves, door to find our old friend valued opinions. As always boldly margined creamy John Massey broadly on these occasions, we yellow. It flowers with me smiling and holding a bottle benefited enormously from any time from January or of wine and a tray with four the opportunity to meet February, later in a cold beautiful yellow-flowered and share with members winter; the loose clusters hellebores (fig. 3). He was our own experiences and of pale lilac flowers are staying the night with anecdotes. The whole day rose-purple in bud and us and giving one of his was well organised and a on the outside, and richly inimitable talks locally the triumph, so congratulations fragrant. This daphne too next day. The wine was to to everyone involved can be grown in a container celebrate the recent birth including, of course, the if necessary, and I find it of our first grandchildren, exhibitors in the foyer. a much brighter, more a pigeon pair. John’s talk April as usual opened reliable than the on hepaticas was a tour de the floral floodgates, and more commonly grown force with superb images yet again I was forced to ‘Aureomarginata’. and an enchanting musical abandon my attempts to While on the subject of score. Such occasions are to keep a written monthly daphnes, in February, while be cherished. record of all the plants visiting Wisley I observed In March, Sue and I flowering in my garden. a group of D. bholua attended the HPS AGM Among the prettiest is ‘Jacqueline Postill’ in full and Lecture Day organised a single, creamy-white- flower. It was a mild sunny by the Nottingham Group flowered form of the day and the flowers were and it was well worth well-known Kerria japonica attracting bees and three the drive, with lectures named ‘Albescens’ (fig. 4). Red Admirals. I cannot by John Grimshaw and Tough and hardy and remember having seen Bleddyn Wynn-Jones filling totally reliable, it brings an butterflies of any kind our heads with images of element of wild charm to visiting this daphne before. rare and must-have plants the garden with its thin, slender pea-green shoots and its graceful bridal- wreath display. It makes a loose, deciduous shrub to ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy © Roy Lancaster Lancaster © Roy 1.5m and it pays to remove the flowering shoots from the base once they have faded, to encourage a good display the following year. Flowering sprays, when cut, provide an elegant if short-lived display indoors. My plant was a gift from a Japanese friend and I shall always be grateful to him. I visited my old friend Fig. 3 Our old friend John Massey Peter Catt at Liss Forest arrives to wet our grandchildren’s Fig. 4 Kerria japonica ‘Albescens’. Nursery near Petersfield at heads. the end of April.

4 He had recently injured a shaft of sunlight through Chinese introductions, a tree himself falling off a ladder the trees. Peter also showed peony, was flowering in a and was in some pain, but me a lovely form of the border close by. I originally he ignored the discomfort American Snowdrop tree, received it under the name to show me around his own Halesia carolina Monticola P. szechuanica, referring plantsman’s garden. I can Group, which instead of to its native province of always find something new the normal white has Sichuan. It was too simple when I visit, and on this flowers of a most delicate a name to last, and soon occasion it was an attractive pink (fig. 6). Its name was enough I heard it had been rose-pink-flowered Primula ‘Arnold Pink’ but I have yet changed to P. decomposita kisoana from Japan which he to find a commercial source (fig. 7) meaning deeply generously shared with me. of supply. divided, referring to the Nearby was a most striking In my own garden, leaf. Despite the inference herbaceous peony, Paeonia in May Epimedium of the name in English it is kavachensis (fig. 5), which is qingchengshanense and a handsome with its regarded by some authorities E. leigongense (now E. distinct foliage and puce- as a form of P. mascula; but pseudowushanense), both pink blooms. With me it has Peter’s plant looked quite Ogisu collections from reached a height of 1.7m. distinct in its combination China, were in flower. In June my garden plant of reddish-magenta, golden- Both are worth growing for of the month was a scentless anthered flowers and its flower and foliage, but why honeysuckle Lonicera young leaves, plum-purple oh why such cumbersome ‘Mandarin’ (fig. 8), a hybrid and bloomy above, maturing names? I can hear them (L. x brownii ‘Dropmore a dark bloomy green. I was being pronounced by a Scarlet’ x L. tragophylla) quite taken with this plant, Chinese botanist but in the raised in Vancouver. It was whose beauty and sense of Anglo-Saxon tongue I think growing trained to a tripod mystery was heightened by not. Another of Ogisu’s support in the new ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy

Fig. 5 Paeonia kavachensis. Fig. 6 Peter Catt with Halesia carolina Monticola Group ‘Arnold Pink’ at Liss Forest Nursery.

5 Centenary Border at the to grow in a large pot, as October in the grounds of Sir Harold Hillier Gardens I do, placed in a shallow the Chateau de Courson to and caught visitors’ eyes dish or similar container of the south of Paris. October with its superb orange water which I can easily top 2014 saw the last of these flower clusters set in bold, up during warm periods. occasions in its original saucer-shaped, green bracts. I have it on our patio home, and in May last year Few more exotic-looking during summer, enjoying I joined my fellow judges at flowers from a hardy plant its long-stalked rounded its new home in the ‘English it would be hard to imagine. or kidney-shaped leaves. Garden’ at the Domaine de I immediately acquired one The long, thin, reddish Chantilly (fig. 10). While for my own garden. flower spikes have yet to we judges were sad to leave A couple of years ago appear on my plant. As the the Courson site, which had I saw for the first time, weather grows colder and become a home from home growing in a Cornish the leaves begin to fade and in the 25-plus years some garden, the original die, I place it in a sheltered of us have been attending, Gunnera, that is the South site to protect its rootstock we quite understood African species which against freezing or it can the need to move to a became the original (type) stand beneath a greenhouse bigger location, given the species. It is named Gunnera bench for the duration. In increasing popularity of perpensa (fig. 9) and is a sheltered garden in the what is now France’s oldest much smaller and smoother milder areas of Britain it and greatest flower show. than the giant prickly- might survive planting in Despite our fears that it leaved American species G. the muddy margin of a might not easily adapt to its manicata and G. tinctoria pond. new surroundings, we were commonly planted by lakes I have several times in delighted, after two shows, and streams in larger estates these articles mentioned the to see how well it settled in and gardens. G. perpensa is Courson Flower Show, held and was accepted by visitors small enough (up to 1m) twice a year in May and both old and new. ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy Lancaster ©Roy Lancaster ©Roy

Fig. 7 Paeonia decomposita. Fig. 8 Lonicera ‘Mandarin’ in the Fig. 9 Gunnera perpensa. new Centenary Border at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens.

6 From a British visitor’s many plants I desire; indeed, autumn before dying back. It perspective the new location I always seem to be bringing will be available here in the is far more easily accessed, them home for fellow judges UK this year. as it is to the north of Paris who have travelled by train One of my favourite which means navigation of or plane. As it is, I brought countries, for its people, its the dreaded peripherique is home Euonymus cornutus wild places, its gardens and now a thing of the past. with its pendulous pink and gardeners is Ireland. Since Despite the odd shower orange fruits like jester’s caps my first visit in the 1960s both exhibitors and visitors in autumn, and a startlingly I have returned to this were back in strength at variegated fern, Coniogramme wonderful and wet island the May show, and from a emeiensis. From the October almost every year. Last year plantsman’s point of view show I returned with Fuchsia I was there again in August, the plants for sale, both magellanica var. eburnea visiting the late Corona perennials and woody, were as (fig. 11), like a miniature North’s garden and farm plentiful as ever, if not more ‘Lady Bacon’, and x at Altamont in Co. Carlow so, and just as exciting and Mukgenia ‘Flame’ (fig. 12), (fig. 13). Her plantsmanship tempting. In its early years I a curious hybrid raised was legendary, as was her found few plants at Courson and marketed by Terra hospitality. On a previous which were not available at Nova nurseries in the USA. visit many years ago I had British flower shows but all Between a Mukdenia and arrived at the house to find that has changed, and now I a Bergenia, it has jaggedly a broad band of yellow never seem to have enough toothed, green fleshy foliage Sternbergia lutea stretching funds or car space to buy the which turns deep red in either side of her gate. ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy

Fig. 10 Judges meet at Chantilly, the new site for Courson Flower Show.

7 We were joined by other continues under the care must mention Thalictrum guests and come lunch of her Head Gardener Paul delavayi ‘Splendide’; time we were invited to sit Cutler and his staff. Part of psilostemon ‘Mount around a large solid table the walled garden is now a Venus’ (fig. 15), a superb for a meal she had prepared. rather exciting plant centre cultivar, new to me and one I First, she served a delicious whose enthusiastic and am determined to have; and pea soup, and then the knowledgeable owner Robert rodgersias aplenty, planted main course. At this point, Miller has stocked with in bold groups and drifts. our hostess excused herself woody and herbaceous plants, The garden is a must for all as she had something she many of which are not easily hardy planters and if you do needed to attend to. “I shall available elsewhere in Ireland. visit, be sure and ask June be back in time for your On this trip I visited other the directions to her brother pudding” she explained, gardens, including one new Jimmy’s garden over the and with a smile she was to me, June Blake’s garden at hill where another pleasant gone. True to her word, we Tinade, Co. Wicklow, where surprise awaits. had just finished our meal she grows a huge variety of What I believe to be the when she reappeared with hardy perennials artistically best illustrated book yet on its our pudding, something with in raised borders and beds subject, The Irish Garden by lashings of hot custard which (fig. 14). A delightful lady, Jane Powers, was published I can never resist, followed of slender build and a last year by Francis Lincoln by coffee or tea. It was only welcoming manner, wearing Ltd. Whether you buy it or later that I heard she had jeans with a belt and holster borrow it, do not attempt been called away to help one for her secateurs, she took an Irish garden tour without of her heavily pregnant cows Sue and me on a delightful consulting it first. give birth! She was one of tour, explaining how it all While on holiday with the garden world’s special began and pointing out her my wife and friends in the characters, a delight to have special plants, most of which Jutland area of Denmark in met. Sadly, the house is now were in flower. Of the many September, we came upon a empty though her garden that caught my attention I wonderful bog full of berries. There were whinberries, bog whortleberries, cranberries and crowberries. What made it even more special, however, were the ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy Lancaster ©Roy beautiful sky-blue flowers of marsh gentian, Gentiana pneumonanthe, scattered among them. Elsewhere there was Grass of Parnassus, Parnassia palustris, and in nearby dunes stout clumps of Sedum telephium ssp. maximum with dense heads of greenish-cream flowers. And so to the year’s end, when a count of plants flowering in our garden on Fig, 11 Fuchsia magellanica var. Fig. 12 x Mukgenia ‘Flame’. Christmas Day numbered eburnea. close on 50 species and

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Fig. 13 Altamont in Co. Carlow. outstanding among and snowdrops. Despite however, is tempered by which were Camellia the rain, monsoonal at thoughts of those of our ‘Inspiration’, x Rhaphiobotrya times, the regular branch- members who have really ‘Coppertone’, Grevillea snapping winds and one suffered as a result of the ‘Jean O’Neil’, Primula night of serious sub-zero deluge and I am not thinking vulgaris, Ageratina ligustrina, temperatures, our garden just about their gardens. I Leucojum aestivum, the so- this winter has never seen can only wish that 2016 will called Summer snowflake, so many different plants bring hope and happiness in and a great many hellebores in flower. Our pleasure, equal measure. ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy

Fig. 15 June with Geranium Fig. 14 June Blake’s garden at Tinade, Co. Wicklow, where she grows a huge psilostemon ‘Mount Venus’, an variety of hardy perennials artistically in raised borders and beds. excellent new cultivar.

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