Who could resist trying to grow the suicide lily in their garden? Not Roy Lancaster, who left with a potful after his visit to the nursery. It is actually a brilliant red gladiolus from South Africa, whose common name comes from its habit of growing inaccessibly half way down cliff faces in the Drakensberg mountains. I never believe that South African plants are going to be an entirely safe bet in UK gardens, but have had quite good luck with gladioli. The very sharp drainage probably helps. Also, according to the manager of the polytunnels enterprise, this is one of the lightest areas in the country, so maybe that helps them feel at home as well. I thought that for two pounds I'd give it a whirl.
All of Derry Watkins' seed packets are priced at two pounds, which certainly makes life simpler than the Chiltern approach in which price points seem to take every possible value between about £1.48 and five pounds. With expensive seed you simply get less per packet, not necessarily a bad thing for home gardeners, since I often end the season with half used, open packets. Perhaps I should offer the extra to gardening friends, except that I never quite know if I'll end up attempting a second sowing if the first fails, and they'll have their own ideas on what they want to grow, and not necessarily want to give time and space to other people's already opened packets of unknown viability.
Comparing the two lists required further decisions. Would I rather buy Erythrina christa-galli from Special Plants for two pounds, packet contains approximately four seeds, or Chiltern Seeds at £3.35 for a packet of ten? In this case I thought that four seeds might be enough, since I definitely don't plan on using more than one plant. Erythrina is a spectacularly beautiful and tender shrubby member of the pea family, which has large, exotic, brilliant red flowers. I grew some from seed once before, years ago, which makes me think it is not impossibly difficult to germinate, but found it difficult to keep in a pot. It is one of those shrubs apt to die back in the winter, only mine died to the ground in their pots and never came back in the spring (I've seen commercially grown ones do just the same thing over the winter at the plant centre, so if you are ever planning on buying one I'd make sure you get it in leaf when you can be sure it is definitely alive).
I cornered an eminent horticulturalist, Wolfgang Bopp, at an RHS seminar on growing Mediterranean climate plants in the UK, and gathered that they were easier to manage in the ground, and that it would like watering and feeding when in growth. Then I saw a large and magnificent specimen in full bloom in the border growing hard up against the wall of the house at Wakehurst Place. When I read that they actually liked a slight degree of shade I could suddenly imagine where I could put one, next to the back door (which is at the front) where I need something to replace a conifer which has got far, far bigger than I ever envisaged. I was thinking of fuchsias in pots for the summer, as I like fuchsias, along with silver leaf begonias and other faintly exotic things that would be happy with less than full sun. The Erythrina could tuck in behind the pots and would be a very happy addition. Assuming that at least one of the seeds germinated, that is, and that I managed not to kill it like I did the last ones before it had got to a size to be planted out.
My pleasure in the Special Plants seed list was only marred by the discovery, when I returned to my order after stopping for a cup of tea, that my basket had emptied during the break, and I had to re-input the order, and work out all over again which things I was getting from them and which from Chiltern. I wish that websites would warn you in advance if your basket is going to time out. I got there in the end, though, and have ordered only moderately more packets of seed than would have been sensible, most of which are intended for know purposes or gaps in the garden. There are flowers for cutting, low growing drought tolerant plants for the railway, sun lovers for the long bed with an element of self seeders, annuals to jazz up the dahlia bed, and brilliant exotics for the entrance gravel. Already I can think of things I meant to get and forgot, like nasturtiums for the dahlia bed, but in reality it's probably more than enough packets to be going on with already.
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