A Gardening Life – Learning from the Wild Gill Regan

©Gill Regan

A gardening life – learning from the wild Gill Regan

We saw Lilium monadelphum on a steep hillside in the Russian Caucasus.

lthough I had been From my parents’ dry, A interested in plants all my sandy garden I dug up life, I was an absolute novice snowdrops, winter aconites, ©Gill Regan when I started gardening. and Cyclamen hederifolium, Our new garden was three and planted them under quarters of an acre of flat, the apple trees where flinty clay with two Bramley they survived and slowly apple trees, brambles, nettles, multiplied. I sowed honesty thistles and rough grass. Keen and Impatiens glandulifera to get started, I grew plants seeds and they multiplied from seed and acquired plants and flowered well. But many wherever I could, then planted other plants did not. Slowly them when I had cleared a I realised that it wasn’t patch of soil. I usually checked enough to just consider Fig. 1 Seeing a peony thrive on a whether they needed sun or sun or shade, other factors mountainside in Iran was a revelation shade, but very little else. needed to be considered. – drainage makes a world of difference! ©Gill Regan ©Gill Regan

Fig. 2 Fritillaria imperialis on a hillside in Iran. Fig. 3 Fritillaria thriving in the garden with better drainage.

23 I started reading to spend on my hobby, a young peony I chose a gardening books and growing many more plants slightly raised area, and that magazines to find out more from seed and buying from plant has flourished. about what conditions were plant fairs. I checked in the necessary for particular RHS Plant Encyclopaedia plants. I joined the HPS and before planting, and We both enjoy our the AGS and over the years in general more plants became more successful survived. However I still garden enormously and at keeping plants alive. had disappointments and have learned a lot by trial As our family grew up I failures. and error. Reading, films, had more time and money I enjoyed growing talks and sometimes peonies from seed and seeing first-hand how and was delighted to see my where plants grow has first flowers. Sadly, by the been the key to growing ©Gill Regan following year the peony had died, and I didn’t know them more successfully in why. By this time we had our garden – I place them started travelling to see in conditions that as far plants growing in the wild. as possible mimic their In Iran I took a photo of natural habitat. a peony growing under trees on a hillside (fig.1) and suddenly the penny dropped. We had had a very Also in Iran we saw wet winter after my seedling Fritillaria imperialis in their had flowered, and I realised thousands covering a hillside that its roots had probably (fig. 2). My parents had rotted in our sticky clay given me several of these Fig. 4 Galtonia candicans also because of poor drainage. bulbs from their garden, benefits. So the next time I planted where it seeded around and ©Gill Regan ©Gill Regan

Fig. 5 Moved to the steeper, shadier Fig. 6 Daphne cneorum grows far better on a raised area. end of the flint rockery Lilium monadelphum thrives.

24 multiplied vigorously, but in at one end and partly shady very few flowers. Having my garden they sulked. I had and partly sunny. I had grown seen it flowering profusely moved some to the base of Lilium monadelphum from in Alsace in full sun I may a tree where they survived, seed, but once planted in the move the bulbs to the lower, but after seeing where they garden they didn’t increase sunnier end. At this end a grew in the wild I moved my or flower. Two years ago we Paeonia rockii hybrid grows bulbs of the yellow form to botanised in the Russian and flowers well each year, as where the soil drained more Caucasus and saw this lily on the opposite side of the readily and they are certainly growing on a steep hillside bed does one of my favourite happier now (fig. 3).Galtonia (title image), so I moved peonies, Paeonia x smouthii candicans also grew very well them to the steeper, shadier (back cover). in their garden and I collected end of this flint rockery and seed and grew some bulbs Fig. 5 shows the result. Here but they languished in our I also planted Gentiana lutea, heavy soil and eventually grown from seed collected ©Gill Regan died; after seeing them in in France, which started the Drakensberg Mountains flowering only after it was of South Africa I realised moved here. While travelling drainage was important, and in the Dolomites we saw in their new position they are Daphne cneorum (fig. 6) now flowering and spreading growing on a bank, so when I successfully in our garden acquired a new small hybrid (fig. 4). it was put in the same area The garden is flat, but over and now it is covered with the years we have created flowers in spring.Ramonda some raised areas. I moved and Haberlea (fig. 7) also soil to create a ridge and later enjoy these well-drained, added large flints, filling the shady conditions. Lilium gaps with grit and compost. pyrenaicum has grown well Fig. 7 Haberlea also seems to like This flint rockery is higher on this rockery but with being on the slope. ©Gill Regan ©Gill Regan

Fig. 8 The scree garden before planting. Fig. 9 Moltkia coerulea loves the scree.

25 When we saw how it would work, but after it. We saw Moltkia coerulea successful the flint rockery some self-seeders appeared, in the Russian Caucasus was for growing some of the Onopordum acanthium (fig. 9), and it is doing plants we had struggled to and Antirrhinum braun- well here, along with a grow earlier, my husband blanquetii, I realised it might Zaluzianskya sp. which we Peter suggested creating be a success after all and had seen in the Drakensberg. a scree garden for alpines started planting. Once it In Oregon we saw several using spare bricks bought was topped with limestone Eriogonum species and as hardcore. Fig. 8 shows chippings it looked much E. umbellatum is very happy it in the early days, built smarter and I am delighted in this ‘scree’. In Yunnan, against a north-facing flint with some of the plants that high in the mountains, we wall. I wasn’t convinced that I have been able to grow on encountered a Bergenia sp. (fig. 10). Before that holiday I had never considered where

©Gill Regan bergenias come from. It is such an easy, familiar plant and to see it growing as a high alpine was a surprise to me. As a result I decided to try the scree for a spare plant of B. emeiensis which I was told wasn’t hardy. It is flourishing there (fig. 11) and has survived the last three winters. Muscari sp grown from Turkish seed start Fig. 10 Bergenia sp. growing as an alpine in Yunnan. flowering in December and ©Gill Regan ©Gill Regan ©Gill Regan

Fig. 11 Bergenia emeiensis, reputed Fig. 12 I am also trying Lewisia Fig. 13 A seedling of Campanula not to be hardy, is flourishing here. cotyledon, seen here on rocks in patula var. thyrsiflora disappeared. Oregon.

26 are obviously very happy in clearly prefers the top of the when building work on these surroundings. My latest sunny wall where it creeps the house was carried out, experimental planting in along and flowers with a large heap of gravel was this area is Lewisia cotyledon, abandon just as it does on dumped on a piece of rough which we saw in Oregon rocky walls in the Pyrenees ground. Recently I looked (fig. 12), growing on a shady (fig. 14). We sawErinus at the remains of the gravel rock, and I might try moving alpinus in the Pyrenees heap and realised that Allium karataviense here as and a white-flowered form this was another planting we saw it on steep mountain seeds freely along the top opportunity, a gravel sides in Kazakhstan and it of this wall. The second garden. has struggled to survive in raised bed is in full sun the garden. The scree is not a and has excellent drainage, universal solution, however. much better than the first, A seedling of Campanula because before filling it we ©Gill Regan patula var. thyrsiflora, which asked advice from our AGS we had seen growing in group. Here pulsatillas, the Alps, was planted here, which I had never had any flowered (fig. 13), and then success with before, are died. I had hoped for some flourishing and self-seeding. self sown seedlings but so far Sternbergias photographed none have appeared. in a dry rocky place in Over the years Peter has Turkey (fig. 15) also enjoy also built two raised beds. the conditions in this bed. The first is partly shaded A plantaholic, over and Jeffersonia dubia, one of the years I acquired more my favourite plants, grows plants and needed more well here even though the space to grow them, so Fig. 14 A Globularia has survived in drainage is not very good. gradually more and more the raised bed but clearly prefers A globularia was planted in of the garden became the top of the sunny wall, as seen this bed and survived, but it cultivated. Years before, here in the Pyrenees. ©Gill Regan ©Gill Regan

Fig. 15 Sternbergias, shown in Fig. 16 Eremurus regelii growing on a Kazakhstan hillside, but it doesn’t Turkey, also enjoy the conditions in like the gravel garden. this bed.

27 Here I am trying various of Turkey, and other small improve the drainage, so I alliums grown from wild- alpines such as Origanum made several little raised collected seed, several ‘Kent Beauty’ which in the beds adding spent compost different species of dwarf past I have tried to grow or leaf mould in semi-shade aquilegia, some species without success. where erythroniums and tulips, and a small glaucium Woodland plants are other woodland plants thrive. species which flowered among my favourites. T. grandiflorum flowered for this year and then died. I Over the years, trees and the first time last year in a am hoping seedlings will shrubs that we planted similar bed against a north appear. I have tried two have grown up to provide wall. In China we saw several different Eremurus but they part or full shade (fig. 17). different species of another have not done well. We saw Here hellebores, trilliums, of my favourite genera, Paris. several species in Kazakhstan polygonatums, ferns and P. polyphylla (fig. 18) was (fig. 16) so I thought this many other plants thrive. growing in shady woodland gravel bed should suit them I planted Lilium martagon in the wild and last year in but I will clearly have to and Trillium kurabayashii this same bed in our garden think again. I bought more many years ago and both a plant flowered for the first Eremurus plants recently and have spread and are seeding time. P. incompleta, which we am trying a different area, a around. After seeing saw in the Russian Caucasus, much sunnier spot but still Trillium grandiflorum in is also spreading well here. with good drainage. The woodland in Ontario I tried We have not seen P. japonica latest well-drained planting unsuccessfully to grow it. in the wild, and I am still area, a heap of builders’ Advice in books says ‘plant trying to find a place in the sand and brick rubble, is on in moist, free-draining soil’. garden where it will thrive. a west-facing slope in full Our clay soil may be moist The first two plants I bought sun. Here I am trying small but is not free draining. I died after planting so the species tulips, similar to realised that as leaves fall third plant was bulked up in Tulipa humilis that we saw in the autumn and rot they a pot over several years and growing in the Lake Van area add humus to the soil and eventually planted out. ©Gill Regan ©Gill Regan

Fig. 17 Trees and shrubs provide part or full shade for my favourite Fig. 18 Paris polyphylla grows in woodland plants. shady woodland in the wild and has now flowered in the garden.

Fig. 19 Kniphofia caulescens grows Fig. 20 Trollius europaeus on a sunny steep hillside in the Dolomites. in bogs in the Drakensberg but likes our flint rockery. To my delight it flowered the growing in the wild succeed next year but the following in the garden in quite ©Gill Regan year it didn’t flower and different conditions. We looked most unhappy, so saw Kniphofia caulescens back it went into a pot, growing in a very boggy area hopefully to recover before in the Drakensberg but in I try a different spot in the the garden it grows at the Fig. 21 Cyclamen repandum found garden. sunny drier end of the flint a dry sunny spot by itself. Over time my plant rockery (fig. 19) Winters addiction resulted in more are dry in these mountains plants languishing in pots so maybe it succeeds in the for want of a home. Peter garden because it doesn’t ©Gill Regan pointed out that a dwarf get too wet in the winter. viburnum that flowers very Arisaema candidissimum sparsely was taking up a lot grows in a shady spot in of space, so last year I got the garden under a parrotia rid of it and a large new but we saw it growing very shady area approximately high up in rocks in Yunnan, Fig. 22 A yellow form of Glaucium three metres across on a which is a bit of a puzzle! flavum in Turkey. slight slope was the result. I We saw Lilium pardalinum piled on a lot of homemade subsp. wigginsii growing in compost and in no time had Oregon on a hillside with

filled the whole space with water running down it. It ©Gill Regan several different species was moist but well drained, of polygonatum, lilies, so I wasn’t very hopeful peonies and other choice of success when I planted woodlanders. I may try this lily in our heavy clay planting the Paris japonica in full sun, but I am always here, and also a recently optimistic and the lily has Fig. 23 Glaucium flavum (yellow acquired Anemone obtusiloba. grown magnificently.Trollius form) died in our scree bed but It is surprising when europaeus grew happily in appeared in a raised vegetable bed plants that you have seen the shade in our flat garden two years later.

29 of Glaucium flavum. We had seen it growing in Turkey, so

©Gill Regan I thought a spot in the scree bed would suit it, but sadly it died. Two years later several plants appeared and flowered in a raised vegetable bed topped with home produced compost (fig. 23). Fig. 24 shows the remains of a pile of hardcore bought so long ago. Various plants have self-seeded here and I have planted a very small area. If only I were twenty years younger – I would attack this ‘mountain’, clear off all the Fig. 24 A pile of hardcore is home to self-seeders. ivy and periwinkle, and cover in the very early days, long was impossible to remove it with the plants that we see before I recognised the need the tuber, and then the on our travels and want to to consider drainage, so I greenhouse blew away in grow. I dream of having my found it very surprising to a storm and that was the own mountain in the garden! see it growing on a steep end of this plant, or so I Over the years my passion hillside in full sunshine in thought. Several years later, for plants has not diminished. the Dolomites (fig. 20). my eye was caught by a We realise how lucky we are Sometimes plants that flash of purple at the base to have been able to travel all you struggle to keep alive of a conifer on our south- over the world to see plants seem magically to find facing boundary. When I growing in the wild. There the right conditions to went to investigate, to my are still many plants we have survive and grow well. We astonishment I found a seen and would like to grow, saw Cyclamen repandum single plant of this cyclamen among them Ranunculus growing in Sardinia and and Fig. 21, taken last year, lyallii in New Zealand, subsequently I sowed shows this plant and its Paraquilegia anemonoides seed in the greenhouse. progeny. Clearly it is very inYunnan and Potentilla nitida A seedling appeared, not happy growing in this dry in the Dolomites. And there are in the pot but in a crack sunny spot much like its still places that we would like in a building block, and it native habitat. Fig. 22 shows to explore: this year we hope to grew to flowering size. It a plant of the yellow form botanise in Peru and Sichuan.

Gill Regan was interested in British wild flowers from an early age. After retirement, with family off their hands, she and her husband have been to many places in the world to see and photograph plants in their native environment. They give talks about these trips and also about their garden, which has featured in some HPS visits and is open through the National Garden Scheme.