arrival of Chiltern Seeds catalogue

The Chiltern Seeds catalogue arrived this week.  Every year I whinge that it hasn't come and it's late, and then sometime just after Christmas it turns up.  I haven't found anything else quite like it.  Chiltern Seeds, despite their name, have long been based in Ulverston in Cumbria.  Their catalogue is a long skinny little book 29.5cm tall and only 10.5cm across, like a pocket diary that's sampled Alice's 'DRINK ME' bottle.  It is a total joy both for the range of plants included, and the descriptions.  Everything is listed in alphabetical order of Latin plant name, with no attempt to divide them into trees and shrubs, annuals, perennials and so on, although there are all those, plus succulents, climbers, and vegetables in their own separate book.  The form of growth is indicated by codes, along with hardiness and attractiveness to bees and butterflies plus suitability for cutting or bonsai.  There is a huge array of woody and herbaceous plants from all parts of the world, including every year many I've never heard of.  Besides the sheer range of plants, what makes this catalogue such fun are the descriptions.  Some are beautifully economical, managing to cover what the plant looks like, what growing conditions it would like, plus a snippet about the meaning of its name, who introduced it to Western gardens, or its traditional uses, in just a couple of sentences.  Others are gloriously eccentric.  I cherish the memory of one described as looking like a Christmas pudding with a few strands of grass stuck randomly in the top.  I haven't found yet whether that's included in the 2011 catalogue, but the description of Chiranthodendron pentadactylon or Monkey's Hand Tree (catalogue number 336Q) runs it a close second.  There are no pictures.

In fact they have a very good website, which does have pictures, and you can order on-line, as I probably will.  But for an evening's entertainment, browsing through the website doesn't have the same charm as leafing through the printed catalogue, making pencil marks in the margin and discovering at the end that the long list of contenders for this year's order runs to over 200 items, and regretfully starting to prune it to a more manageable number.

The seed packets when they come are modest little white paper envelopes.  A few carry germination advice such as 'removed from cold storage, sow immediately' or brief instructions on stratification, but in general you are left to work it out for yourself.  Compared to being given instructions on germination temperature, expected number of days to germinate and so on it can feel like being thrown in at the deep end.  But how many of us are able to set our conditions to 10-15 degrees versus 13-16 degrees anyway?  I sow everything in February apart from any marked 'sow immediately' and enough comes up every year to make the exercise well worth while.  Go on, have some fun.  You know you want to.