Memories of 2010

Galanthus 'Green Tear'

  A few 'unpublished' photographs of plants that have caught my eye this year, taken in the cotttage garden except where noted. Happy New Year!

Crocus sieberi 'Bowles's White' and 'Firefly'

Primula 'Peter Klein'

Magnolia maudiae, Portland, Oregon

 

Quercus crassifolia, RBG Kew



Bupleurum longifolium and Bromus inermis 'Skinner's Gold'

 

Anemone fanninii

Lilium martagon var. album



Lilium regale, The Garden House, Condicote -
in belated commemoration of Wilson's 1910 expedition to China

Leucospermum reflexum, Kistenbosch



Lespedeza thunbergii 'Gibraltar'
and grasses, October

Ligularia 'Britt Marie Crawford'

Berberis sp., Colesbourne Park

Polypodium cambricum 'Omnilacerum Superbum'

Harry Hay 1922-2010

Harry Hay and Graham Duncan, May 2005

One of the omissions from this Diary this year was any mention of the death in June of Harry Hay, the great but reclusive plantsman from Surrey. The grapevine failed, for some reason, and I did not receive the news until the end of August.

Last year, Harry was nominated to receive the Herbert Medal, presented by the International Bulb Soociety to someone who has done meritorious work on bulbous plants, and I was asked to write a testimonial in support. This is it, modified very slightly, offered in tribute to the memory of a great gardener:

"For much of my life the name Harry Hay has been heard in reverential tones, usually in the context of a good plant that had been received from him, or of some prized specimen known to be in his collection. A series of pictures in books by Martyn Rix and Roger Phillips, captioned ‘at Harry Hay’s,’ only added to the mystique.

I finally got to meet him a few years ago, and on several occasions have had the privilege of being shown round his collection, housed in a series of greenhouses and polytunnels as well as in the open ground. It lived up to expectations, with every inch of space crowded with rarity after rarity, all flourishing in carefully chosen conditions. Needless to say, I also joined the group who could exhibit a choice plant and say proudly, ‘it came from Harry Hay.’

Harry’s influence on plantsmanship is not to be measured in erudite publications or public displays. It has been the best sort of influence, derived from the art and craft of growing bulbs, maintaining them in cultivation with meticulous records, and distributing them with sage advice to grateful but carefully chosen recipients. In this way he has helped a broad generation of gardeners, improving their collections and horticultural practice alike."

Galanthus elwesii 'Yvonne Hay',
named by Harry in honour of his wife

The Herbert Medal was duly awarded to Harry and was presented not long before his death. A great article about his life and plantsmanship appeared in the September 2009 issue of The Plantsman.

He that watereth

duck sprinkler

In July I had the pleasure of staying with my friend  Judge Ernest Cavallo at his home on Long Island, New York. I got to know him as a galanthophile, but as his entry on the New York Courts page says, he has another hobby as well - 'he spends his spare time in his garden and on Ebay where he collects vintage lawn sprinklers.'

Dayton Rotary Co. sprinkler from 1913.
The lateral jet of water turns the aluminium
 wheel, which turns the sprinkler head.

The result of his quest is a large collection of sprinklers, all of the pre-plastics era, in an unimaginable diversity of shapes and sizes, ranging in date from the Nineteenth Century to the 1950s or so, but all with the sole original purpose of watering the lawn. Ernest very kindly put on a demonstration of some of them to show their competence, and in some cases, the beauty of their watering pattern - I hope these pictures convey something of the interest and charm of the collection.

the duck in action, with other sprinkler models

a 'Pluviette' sprinkler from the 1910s

Yardboy

Carolina Duck sprinkler

'he that watereth shall be watered also himself.' Proverbs 11: 25

Ashes retained

Like anyone with any interest in cricket I have been keenly following the current England tour of Australia, enjoying the spectacle of  a victorious England team, for once. The Melbourne test, which finished so satisfactorily last night, was played in the magnificent Melbourne Cricket Ground, a 100,000 seater stadium packed to the brim in the early stages of the game, but curiously deserted by Aussies yesterday...

The Melbourne Cricket Ground

Apart from the appeals of the cricket and cricketers, what I particularly admired about the MCG was the field with its beautifully patterned turf, whose lushness stopped so many shots going to the boundary. The groundsmen must be proud to have produced such an immaculate surface, especially with  it also being used for Australian rules football and other sports. The secret, according to the MCG's website, is the sandy substrate on which the turf is grown, and also the fact that the pitch, on which the batting action takes place, is prepared elsewhere and dropped into place before the start of the cricket season, thus ensuring that the sacred square is not damaged by other sports - and not an obstacle to them either.

Now all we need is for England to actually win the series...

Update, 7 January 2011: They did! But the turf at Sydney did not look quite as good as it did in Melbourne.

Dan Hinkley's socks

I realise that a cardinal rule of stripping is to lose the socks first, but when getting ready for bed last night I rediscovered that I was wearing two pairs of socks, and that the uppermost pair had once belonged to Dan Hinkley. That's largely irrelevant: the point is that it was so cold that I was compelled to wear two pairs of socks yesterday. The thermometer on the hen run registered -15^oC at 7.30 am and was still at -12 three hours later. It really didn't seem much warmer inside - hence the need for extra insulation of the extremities.

-15^oC is the coldest temperature I have experienced in this country and I await with trepidation the effects in the garden. Fortunately the ground is deeply covered in snow so underground parts have not been subjected to these temperatures - though there was no such protection when the ground froze hard in late November. Exposed parts have borne the brunt, however, and there are going to be some extensive casualties among evergreens I think - even Phlomis fruticosa looks thoroughly 'fried'. For the moment we can only wait and see what comes back with the spring.

The good news is that the temperature then rose through the day yesterday, hovering at zero at dusk, and is now 'comfortably' positive at 3^oC and the forecast suggests positive temperatures for the rest of the week, though there may be an unpleasant mix of rain and snow tonight.

Stocking fillers

Snowman, by Martha and Ruth MacLaren

A few photographs from our Christmas visit to my parents, taken between courses...

Agave parryi var. huachuchensis

This plant has been in the ground for very nearly 20 years and in that time has never shown any blemish attributable to cold - a genuinely hardy plant in this location. From one small plant it has built up into quite a mound of large rosettes, but no longer sends out long stolons producing offsets at some distance from the parent.

Echium boissieri

 Echium boissieri is a native of southern Spain and is the largest hardy Echium I have encountered. It makes a large prostrate rosette in its first year, and produces an inflorescence to at least 150 cm in the following year, then dies. The flowers are creamy pink and not particularly showy, but the inflorescence as a whole is strikingly architectural both in flower and later - this one was almost flat now, hence the strange angle, looking down the main axis to small basal branches.

Myrtus communis

 Another long-term survivor in my parents' garden is the common Myrtle, Myrtus communis, which produces heavy crops of berries every year.

Wisteria sinensis fruits

This clone of Wisteria sinensis was bought as an unselected seedling from a local garden centre and has proved to be a lucky find. Not only does it flower freely along the lengths of the whips of last year's growth, but it is very fertile, and reliably produces heavy crops of fruit. The pods persist for much of the winter, looking extremely decorative, before eventually dehiscing explosively in spring.

My mother's hall decorations this year include Cape Gooseberries (Physalis peruviana), the fruits of Nicandra physaloides with their inflated calyces, and dried husks from the pods of purple peas (the peas were eaten in due season).

Merry Christmas

River Churn, January 2010

 A beautiful, bright and sunny, but very cold Christmas morning - my dreams have not been realised. As a friend said recently 'Two days of snow is one too many...'  Whether your Christmas is white or green, I hope it is enjoyable for you. These pictures are among those I've used for cards this year. The river scene is just below the cottage, and although taken last January, is how it looks today. The Silver Sebrights (though a little tarnished, I note) and crocuses are a reminder of the joys of spring.