President's Perspective – Plants, People, Places

President’s ©Roy Lancaster ©Roy perspective – plants, people, places Roy Lancaster Fig. 1 Prunus ‘Pink Shell’ one of the best trees of its kind for small gardens. riting these words on a plants. It seriously affected our scent of sarcococcas was W cold and crisp but bright usual programme of activities immediately apparent. Several sunny January day under a but, on a personal level at least, species and selections of these blue cloud-free sky, I feel I have it gave me an excuse to wander small, hardy evergreen shrubs every reason to look forward down memory lane revisiting have been planted here, but to another year of gardens past travels and experiences, on the day I was drawn to a and gardening, and meetings both domestic and overseas. familiar drift of S. hookeriana with plant lovers and plants, Fortunately I am like a squirrel ‘Ghorepani’ (fig. 2), whose especially given that this is the when it comes to recording characteristic erect habit and 60th anniversary year of our and storing things, and I had narrow shining green foliage great Society. All these pleasures the benefit of notebooks, are a decided bonus while the should be a reliable and journals and scrapbooks going crowded axillary clusters of continuing source of optimism back to the 1950s to help jog white stamens with prominent in our lives, whatever the my memory. When it came to red anthers are produced in headlines and dire predictions in illustrations, black and white generous quantities and attract the daily news. Only yesterday, prints, colour transparencies early bees. following a night when the and, for the past eight temperature in my garden sank years, digital images in their to –5oC, I was astonished to thousands were at my disposal. watch the hoar frost melting Luckily we have Jennifer from the flowers of a mahonia Harmer, the Society’s Historian Lancaster ©Roy leaving them unharmed and and Archivist on our doorstep, apparently eager to continue and over a period of several their cheerful display. This weeks she kindly helped me particular mahonia, with its bold by scanning selected images, ruff of white-backed leaves, is as mostly transparencies, to send yet unnamed and unavailable in to my publisher. the trade, but hopefully in the A visit to the Winter not too distant future it may Garden at The Sir Harold well be more widely known. Hillier Gardens on a windy A great deal of my time last day in March had me sniffing Fig. 2 Sarcococca hookeriana year was spent on preparing a the air in expectation, and sure ‘Ghorepani’ has proven it deserves new book1 about my life with enough the sweet, powerful its AGM. 1Editor’s note: My Life with Plants is reviewed on page ? 7 It was originally introduced perennials and cherries. A the garden, which I had first from a mountainside near the short drive away, John’s rapidly visited many years ago in its Nepalese village of that name developing arboretum is infancy, my plantsman’s eye by Chris Grey-Wilson and already well known to fellow was attracted to Parrotiopsis Barry Phillips in 1973, and it dendrologists and gardening jacquemontiana (fig. 4), a large well deserves its subsequent friends, though sadly not to shrub or small tree from the Award of Garden Merit. the general public. From there W. Himalaya with white- The following month I we called in at Wollerton Old bracted, yellow-stamened particularly remember for a Hall, stopping at the garden’s flowers which at a glance visit to John and Elizabeth entrance to admire the most remind one of a flowering Ravenscroft’s garden at The perfect and shapely crown of dogwood (Cornus florida), but Old Rectory, near Hodnet the beautiful cherry, Prunus are smaller. Surprisingly, it is in Shropshire, which is most ‘Pink Shell’ (figs 1 & 3), its a member of the Hamamelis notable at this time of year for slender arching branches family and is represented by its wide selection of spring- wreathed with delicate, pink- this single species which I once flowering trees and shrubs, clouded, cup-shaped blooms. saw growing above streams and especially magnolias and It is one of the best of its rivers in Kashmir. viburnums as well as bulbs, kind for small gardens. Inside From Wollerton it was an hour’s drive to Ashwood Nursery to see John Massey’s garden. As usual I filled several pages of my notebook with ©Roy Lancaster ©Roy the names of desirable plants, of which the most charming was Trillium rivale (fig. 5), which I have long known but never grown. Native to cool, shady stream- and riversides in the Siskiyou and Klamath Mountains of SW Oregon and NW California, this choice little perennial up to 15cm high Fig. 3 Prunus ‘Pink Shell’. had been planted in a sheltered, ©Roy Lancaster ©Roy ©Roy Lancaster ©Roy Fig. 4 Parrotiopsis jacquemontiana looks like a flowering dogwood but is a Fig. 5 Trillium rivale seeds itself member of the Hamamelis family. around at Ashwood Nurseries. 8 well-drained pocket on John’s a local supermarket, inviting differs in the fewer, broader rock garden where it had spread me to come and see a special leaves surrounding the to form a substantial patch. The plant, a lady’s slipper orchid: compact, dense, terminal typically 3-petalled, inclined to it was now in flower and at inflorescence. The leaves of nodding, flowers were white its best. I dropped what I was L. fordiana possess more with the faintest flush of pink. doing and headed his way. He of a matt surface compared It was originally given to John was waiting by the gate and with the shining surface of by Elizabeth Strangman some without further ado led me to L. paridiformis. The flowers too 15 years ago. He had added the rear of the bungalow, there are a slightly darker shade of well-rotted leaf mould to the to see an impressive colony yellow, borne on slender stalks soil mix which obviously suited of Cypripedium formosanum to form a looser terminal head. the trillium; it has since spread (fig. 6), a Taiwan endemic, It also appears to be less hardy its roots into the cool depths flourishing in a large pot. I and, having lost one outside beneath a nearby boulder and was truly stunned by this to winter wet, I am growing is seeding around. Incidentally, beautiful plant which he had a replacement in a container, this year (2017) Ashwood been growing for several years. keeping it under glass over Nurseries is celebrating its 50th Nor was it the only interesting winter until I can increase it to anniversary, an occasion all plant he had established in provide plants to experiment hardy planters will have reason his garden, which had me with elsewhere in my garden. to welcome. wondering what other plant Like L. paridiformis var I never cease to be surprised surprises might be lurking in stenophylla, I suspect at the exceptional plants being my neighbourhood. L. fordiana will prove grown, often in unexpected A new addition to wintergreen in a sheltered spot. places, sometimes under one’s my garden this year was It was at its best flowering in nose. An outstanding example Lysimachia fordiana (fig. 7). June, while with me L. p. var. of this I saw in late April in Introduced from Sichuan, stenophylla flowers in July. the rear garden of a bungalow China by Mikinori Ogisu, A visit in June to the hidden away in a small cul-de- this dwarf perennial seems Garden Festival at the Bishop’s sac within walking distance of most closely related to Palace in Wells, Somerset, was a my home in Chandlers Ford. I L. paridiformis, represented in first for me and I was rewarded had received a phone call from cultivation by the outstanding with a most enjoyable tour of the owner reminding me of subspecies stenophylla from the garden by head gardener a conversation we had had in which it most noticeably James Cross who, with a small ©Roy Lancaster ©Roy Lancaster ©Roy Fig. 6 Cypripedium formosanum grown in a large pot. Fig. 7 Lysimachia fordiana. 9 but enthusiastic team of staff west. So how came it to Wells, a spectacular monocarpic and volunteers, is working and when? perennial endemic to Madeira, wonders with perennial and More unusual perennials mainly along the island’s north woody plants in a pleasing and were waiting for me at coast. Its first-year growth imaginative way, including a Abbotsbury Subtropical results in a massive mound of relatively new and impressive Gardens in Dorset in August. downy leaves followed the next Mediterranean border beneath Steve Griffith, the curator, year by an equally impressive the palace wall (fig. 8). On could hardly wait to show conical multi-branched the outer (apron) walls I was me Lobelia excelsa in flower; head up to 1.5m or more of amazed to find maidenhair I had once seen this tall- greenish-yellow flowers. Sadly, fern, Adiantum capillus-veneris growing, leafy species from having flowered it then dies, (fig. 9), well established and Chile growing beneath though not before producing sprouting from crevices wine palms in the arid hills abundant seed. I have never between the ancient stones. It above Santiago, growing attempted to grow this plant in seemed to me an unlikely site with Puya chilensis and P. my less sheltered garden, but for this delicate shade- and berteroana, both of which are that did not deter me last year moisture-loving species, rare represented at Abbotsbury. from trying another striking in Britain where it is normally Just as exciting to me plant with a name to match: found in maritime limestone was Steve’s next surprise: Brillantaisia owariensis (fig.

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