Primula Sieboldii: Visiting and Growing Sakurasoh, by Paul Held 19
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ROCK GARDEN ^^S^OrT QUARTERLY VOLUME 55 NUMBER 1 WINTER 1997 COVER: Oenothera caespitosa at dusk, by Dick Van Reyper All Material Copyright © 1997 North American Rock Garden Society Printed by AgPress, 1531 Yuma Street, Manhattan, Kansas 66502 ROCK GARDEN QUARTERLY BULLETIN OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ROCK GARDEN SOCIETY formerly Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society VOLUME 55 NUMBER 1 WINTER 1997 FEATURES Living Souvenirs: An Urban Horticultural Expedition to Japan, by Carole P. Smith 3 Primula sieboldii: Visiting and Growing Sakurasoh, by Paul Held 19 Paradise Regained: South Africa in Late Summer, by Panayoti Kelaidis 31 Erythroniums: Naturalizing with the Best, by William A. Dale 47 Geographical Names: European Plants, Geoffrey Charlesworth 53 Gentiana scabra: Musings from a Rock Garden, by Alexej Borkovec 60 Phyllodoce: A Supra-Sphagnum Way of Growing, by Phil Zimmerman 63 2 ROCK GARDEN QUARTERLY VOL. 55(1) LIVING SOUVENIRS: AN URBAN EXPEDITION TO JAPAN by Carole P. Smith AA^hat is the best way to satisfy I might visit. Forty-five letters were all your gardening yens in a foreign sent, and I expected to receive five or country—if you want to explore the six replies. To my amazement, twenty- finest public gardens, receive invita• five letters and faxes quickly arrived, tions to private gardens, shop the best along with maps and directions to nurseries for specimen purchases? nurseries. Several people offered to How do you plan efficiently for costly accompany us to nurseries or invited travel when language limitations and us to visit their gardens or the gardens social conventions (such as introduc• of friends. This generosity and willing• tions by a third party) are barriers? Of ness to help, I soon learned, is typical course, contact people in the know! of the Japanese. When my sister and I decided to In addition, Mr. Shinpei Miyazaki visit my son in Japan in May, 1996, we of Tokyo sent a nursery catalog and a did just that. Two months before I left, gift box of Kirengeshoma palmata, a I checked the directories of NARGS blooming Primula japonica, Primula and APS for members in Kyoto and kisoana var. shikokiana, Hosta kikuchi, near my son's home in Tokorozawa, Arisaema kiushianum, and Pinellia sp. northwest of Tokyo. Many members (nana). He had wrapped the bare-root were listed, but I quickly figured out plants in sphagnum, placed each in a the Japanese 3-number zipcode system plastic bag, and listed all of them on (low numbers in the north to 900s in the outside of the box. The plants were the southernmost area of the country). sent through US Postal Customs with In a letter giving my professional no problem. They arrived in good con• background I explained that I had a dition and were potted up immediate• permit to bring plants back to the USA ly. Knowing about this procedure was and would appreciate recommenda• to be very valuable to me later in tions regarding nurseries open during Japan. Golden Week in May, one of the most After determining our itinerary, I widely observed vacation periods of made arrangements to meet with four the year. I also asked if anyone knew a of my correspondents (including one private garden that my sister, son, and American) whose invitations seemed 3 Ohio's USDA Zone 5,1 chose 15 plants, some familiar and hardy and a few on whose survival I was willing to gamble. They ranged in price from 400 to 2000 yen each (about $4 to $20). My first choice was Glaucidium palmatum, endemic to Japan and risky to move while in bloom; its delicate, lavender-pink flow• ers were too attractive to pass up. Others included Campanula punctata, Hemerocallis dumortieri var. esculenta, which had a good chance of survival, a purple-leaf variety of Pinellia cordata, and several species of Lychnis, which bear larger blossoms than the more common Lychnis chal- cedonica. I couldn't resist Mertensia maritima var. asiatica, the glaucous-blue foliage reminding me of a small, ghost• Shortia soldanelloides var. intercedens in wild ly Virginia bluebell (Mertensia to work best within our schedule. I virginiana). For a woodland area I thanked each of the others, apologiz• chose Disporum flavens, Arisaema ing for not accepting their invitations. maizuro, and two hostas, called giboshi The day after we arrived in Kyoto, in Japanese. One, a striped Hosta ven- our first host, Mr. Don Elick, met us at tricosa, was named 'Ami-me' for the our hotel and led us via train to Osaka, old-fashioned striped paper umbrellas. The other hosta was a very tiny green onto a second train, and finally by cab one called 'Uzonomai'. Iris ensata var. to a nursery in the mountains between spontanea would be a different variety Osaka and Kyoto. The entire trip of the large garden his ensata. The crossed a distance of about 10 miles as marbled leaves of Asarum maximum the crow flies and lasted over two 'Panda' were so attractive that it was hours. The proprietor of Hezikan-en worth having to protect it from cold Nursery, Mr. Yamaoka, retails most of every winter. Each small pot was care• his plants, including some Hepatica fully packed and carried back on the priced up to $400 per plant, at large train. department stores in Osaka. These garden centers, located on the We discovered that Don Elick is the rooftops, make both common and author of Japonica Magnifica, published unusual plants readily accessible to by Timber Press and illustrated by people in the cities. British botanical painter, Raymond When I began looking around at the Booth. Don has studied the Japanese hundreds of plants at Hezikan-en flora for the many years he has lived Nursery, high in the mountains, I felt in Japan. A recent book review stated, as if I were in plant heaven! With "Rarely do art and science harmonize Don's help interpreting hardiness for as magnificently as in this superbly 4 ROCK GARDEN QUARTERLY VOL. 55(1) illustrated look at...the favored grow• us that a similar species, P. anomala, ing conditions and botanical habit, from Szechwan, China, is often sold as [and even] legends for 60 of Japan's P. tenuifolia but has coarser leaves. most beautiful native plants...now Against the garden wall was Anemone ornamental favorites of North nemerosa 'Vestal' and a bright pink American gardens." Rhodohypoxis, one of Don's hybrids. Don was spending Golden Week at Farther along was the almost black his country home in Fukuroi, half-way Fritillaria gracilis. Crimson Papaver vol• between Hezikan-en Nursery and unteers clotted the cracks between Tokyo and graciously invited us to patio stones. visit. We accepted, and very early in Soon the party piled into two vans the morning a few days later we and drove an hour or so into the boarded the Shinkansen or Bullet mountains above the Ishi Kiri River. Train for the 90-minute ride to We hiked up the mountainside along Fukuroi. A number of Japanese friends an abandoned road, with Don point• began congregating in his English- ing out tiny, white Viola verecunda var. style garden, taking photographs and semilunaris, blue Viola grypoceras, wild checking to see what was blooming. horseradish, and wild strawberries One guest had brought a gift of sakura- that would eventually bear orange soh, the cultivated show variety of the fruit. Tricyrtis hirta, Hydrangea native Japanese primrose, Primula petiolaris, Rhododendron keiskei, and a sieboldii, lovely and delicate, which she fragrant wild camellia with star- had hybridized and grown from seed. shaped flowers were seen as well. A It joined two more pots of sakurasoh with differing flower shapes and a branch of a yellow rose from Mongolia, called the Mokko rose, in Don's dining room (photo, p. 10). In a small enclosed courtyard Don showed us a pot of Asarum minamitani- anum, the "tentacles" of each bloom even longer than its name. Outside, a yellow-flowered shrub, Edgeworthia papyri/era, was certainly attractive, but what caught everyone's eye was a brighter yellow mound of Chilidonium japonicum var. lacini- ata. Also appealing was the soft pink Silene maritima var. arctica in front of a tall, variegated Arisaema yamatense var. sugimo- toii and a Paeonia tenuifolia (photo, p. 10) with extremely finely divided leaves, which had originally been in the gardens of King Boris of Bulgaria. Don told Deutzia in nature LIVING SOUVENIRS: AN URBAN EXPEDITION TO JAPAN 5 garden favorite, Hosta plantaginea var. able elsewhere. I was tempted—but grandiflora seemed out of place grow• only for a few seconds—to choose ing wild by the side of the road, as did some beautiful Cypripedium in bloom. I a pretty white Deutzia high up on the knew they were unlikely to survive rocks with yellow sedum nearby. I the bare-root procedure, even if US even recognized a bugle species, Ajuga Customs would allow them through, decumbens. Arisaema yamatense var. sug- and they were not on the endangered imotoii was in bloom, but it was not the list. Unsure of its hardiness, I passed variegated form we had seen in Don's up a second Asarum maximum with its garden. Adenophora takedae, Saxifraga black-edged, white spathe. One of my cortusifolia, and Shortia soldanelloides first choices was a hosta, 'Otome' or var. intercedens hung from the moist 'Maiden', possibly Hosta venusta, a rock wall, the latter's crenulated white small plant with long, narrow, pale bells and shiny foliage contrasting cream leaves barely edged in green. I sharply with the dark background. was attracted by the gray-green, lacy At one point, two of the men got foliage of Dicentra peregrina (one of the very excited and pointed to a pile of plants that did not survive the return dry leaves.