©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy President’s perspective – plants, people, places Roy Lancaster Fig 1 Rhododendron ‘Olive’ at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens 017 will go down in the wedding reception, 2our family history as having raided the gardens one of the most eventful of several friends for and exhausting years. decorative evergreens. ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy Promotional activities Among the many connected with my new evergreens I grow, there book, along with family is one near our entrance breaks and other trips, found which, especially in the me regularly on the road. dead of winter, never fails Early November saw Sue to attract comment from and I celebrating our Ruby visitors. Chamaerops humilis Wedding with a much- ‘Vulcano’ (fig. 2) is a needed break in Madeira, distinct, compact form of of which more later, and the European mainland’s Fig. 2 Chaemerops humilis we hadn’t been home long only native palm species. ‘Vulcano’ before our next celebration, The dwarf fan palm is a my 80th birthday, with a common sight along the party for gardening friends Mediterranean coast. I organised by Sue at the Sir also grow the typical plant Harold Hillier Gardens. nearby and, though the Lancaster ©Roy With no time to recover we same age, it is 5 times became totally involved in as big, with larger leaves making arrangements for a on longer stalks, and last family Christmas at home. summer it even produced Normally that would have its first flowers. ‘Vulcano’, been the end of our year meanwhile, with its tighter but no, on 29th December crown of shorter-stalked, I found myself walking stubbier leaves, is perfectly our daughter Holly down suited to a smaller space, the aisle for her marriage a container even, and to Dan. I had spent the appears to be thoroughly at previous day helping to home in the free-draining, decorate a tithe barn for acidic sand of my front Fig. 3 Mahonia ‘Silverback’ 13 garden where it also enjoys By far the majority are whatever sun is available. well worth considering Apparently it was originally for planting in a suitable ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy discovered by a nurseryman (acidic) soil, especially growing on the slopes of as a single specimen. For Mt. Etna in Sicily. From the smaller garden I can the little I have seen of it recommend the hardy in cultivation, it appears to hybrid ‘Olive’ (fig. 1), an be variable in vigour and upright shrub to around in leaf colour, some more 140–80cm, freely producing glaucous, almost silvery its attractive clusters of beneath when young. funnel-shaped, mauve- As I mentioned it last pink flowers, defying the year I thought I had better winter blues and providing include here an image of a striking companion to winter-flowering Mahonia snowdrops and other early ‘Silverback’ (fig. 3) which bloomers in February. is once again dominating Back to early March, my rear garden with its when Sue and I spent a long rich yellow flower spikes, weekend with friends on ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy though one has to turn over the Pembroke coast. Here, a leaf to enjoy its silvery- among other pleasures, we white reverse, a tricky job were thrilled to find a host given its fierce, spiny teeth. of coastal native plants It isn’t available in the including sea beet, sea stock, trade but a sister seedling, sea spurge, sea milkwort, differing in its longer, more sea radish, wild cabbage, Figs 4 & 5 Hackonechloa macra arching if not drooping Danish scurvy grass and ‘Aureola’ flower spikes, was auctioned tree mallow. I had hoped to at a winter meeting of the find the true Tenby daffodil HPS Hampshire Group. It (Narcissus obvallaris) but had been purchased from a those many daffs we saw nurseryman near Newbury on roadside banks appeared ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy who has christened it to be planted hybrids of ‘Stickleback’. Both are to be varied origin, colourful but included in a future RHS not the real McCoy. On our Mahonia trial. penultimate day we braved a Despite the wet coast and woodland walk understandable concern to find wild garlic, golden regarding Rhododendron saxifrage and my favourite ponticum (now R. x spring wildling, Adoxa superponticum) and its moschatellina, moschatel or smothering, all-consuming ‘town-hall clock’ as we called spread in many areas of it in Lancashire, and duly the UK and Ireland we celebrated in a local pub with should not be persuaded sausages and mash followed into believing that all by milk chocolate bread and rhododendrons are persona butter pudding with hot Fig. 6 Ajuga incisa ‘Blue Enigma’ non grata in our gardens. custard – bliss! 24 A long-time perennial Japanese friend Mikinori favourite of mine is Ogisu to source it for Hackonechloa macra me. I passed on seed to a ‘Aureola’ (figs 4 & 5), a nurseryman friend who Lancaster ©Roy native woodland grass of N subsequently bulked it up E Asia whose low clumps of and named it, though I slender shoots produce, in was unaware of this until time, patches of shining rich some years later. I never did green foliage to provide a understand the choice of most reliable and attractive cultivar name as its origin ground-cover, especially and ornamental quality in shade. There are several were never in doubt. variegated selections of I had an unexpected which ‘Aureola’ is the one surprise towards the end I chose several years ago of April when I was asked Fig. 7 Dipelta floribunda, Bowood to plant in my own garden to identify an orchid in House around the base of a tree a Hampshire woodland. magnolia, M. cylindrica. I My curiosity piqued, I originally saw it used this visited the wood and was way at Knoll Gardens near astonished to see large drifts Wimborne in Dorset and I of the early purple orchid Lancaster ©Roy have never once regretted (Orchis mascula) growing copying the idea. The with bluebells and other soft summer-long waves woodlanders such as wood of gold-striped foliage is sedge (Carex sylvatica), a perfect foil for the grey wood sanicle (Sanicula magnolia bark and best of vulgaris) and wood all in the winter, when the pimpernel (Lysimachia leaves have faded to an nemorum). The orchid attractive pale straw colour, flower-spikes varied in Fig. 8 Clematis flammula, Hergest Croft it slowly develops a warmer colour from rich purple to tint reflecting the orange pale rose and an occasional algae on the magnolia’s pure white. I spent several trunk. In late January on minutes picking my way a wet overcast day the carefully through the ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy combination really lifts my wood before settling down spirits. on a log, the better to Close by, in a shady contemplate the scene. border, I have planted Ajuga Not a sound could I hear incisa ‘Blue Enigma’ (fig. 6), except for a blackbird’s an herbaceous, low-growing song, and having ‘recharged perennial with jaggedly my emotional batteries’ I toothed leaves and bold quietly departed. racemes of rich-blue flowers When I first worked for in April. Many years ago, Hilliers in the early 1960s, I first saw this species I met with a huge range of pictured in an illustrated shrubs new to me including Fig. 9 Polypodium australe account of Japanese native Dipelta floribunda (fig. 7), a ‘Cambricum Wilharris’, Perrot’s plants and I asked my 3m specimen of which grew Brook 35 by the main drive in their snowdrops in late winter. West Hill (Winchester) As befits the garden of a Nursery. I was immediately former Gardens Adviser ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy impressed with its stature to the National Trust, it and its generous clusters contains a wide range of of pink flowers, but plants, perennials and disappointed to learn that woodies. Since retirement as it is difficult to propagate John has developed a real it was rarely available for plantsman’s garden in sale. I was reminded of this which his broader skills as in May when visiting the a designer are immediately walled garden at Bowood apparent. Two perennials House, home of Lord and particularly caught my eye: Lady Lansdowne at Calne, a fern, Polypodium australe Fig. 10 Galactites tomentosa, Wiltshire, where I found ‘Cambricum Wilharris’ Perrot’s Brook a group of three Dipelta (fig. 9), which planted at floribunda in full flower the foot of the house wall in a border, a splendid had developed into a lush sight to behold. It is a colony of deeply lobed hardy and easily grown wintergreen fronds the ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy deciduous Chinese shrub colour of a ‘Granny Smith’; for most any soil in sun and and in complete contrast, belongs to the same family on a sunny raised bed (Caprifoliaceae) as Weigela. behind the house I spied Another plant I had a familiar Mediterranean not seen in a long time, thistle Galactites tomentosa Clematis flammula (fig. 8), (fig. 10) whose grey-green, I came across in September hairy, spine-toothed leaves, covering a wall in the particularly those on non- kitchen garden at Hergest flowering rosettes, are Croft above Kington in notable for their attractive Herefordshire. I once saw white venation. Their lax Fig. 11 Tibouchina heteromalla, this vigorous scrambler clusters of rose-purple or the Blandy Garden, Madeira tumbling from the towering lilac flower-heads are borne rocks and cliffs of Meteora over an extended period in Greece and have never from summer into autumn forgotten its billowing on cobwebby hairy stems to panicles of small, white, 1m. Like many thistles and ©Roy Lancaster Lancaster ©Roy sweetly-scented flowers.