I went this afternoon to this month's Suffolk Plant Heritage talk. I have really taken to their meetings, apart from the mild drag of having to drive to Stowupland. All the lectures have been interesting, the people are friendly, the plant stall has some unusual and good value plants on it, with profits going to a good cause, and the cakes are excellent and downright cheap. Really, what's not to like?
Today's lecture was by Thomson and Morgan's manager responsible for introducing new plants to their catalogue. He turned out, rather implausibly, to be a hipster, with hair cut short at the sides and sticky-up long on top, beard a trifle longer than is favoured by oldies like the Systems Administrator, drainpipe jeans and canvas shoes. Today was his birthday, and he was only thirty-three or thirty-four. There is no earthly reason why T&M's new products manager should not be trendy and under forty, it's just that most plantspeople aren't.
His talk was more of an overview of the Thomson and Morgan group than a detailed look at unusual plants, but still quite interesting. Did you know that the sweetness of fruit and tomatoes could be measured on the Brix scale? I did not, though since it is apparently used in wine making, home vintners may be familiar with it.
I thought I could sense the Plant Heritage audience tensing with polite hostility as he extolled the virtues of a begonia smothered in very large, very double, very yellow flowers. When I tell you that the plant on the sales table of particular interest this month was a rare aster with little pale pink flowers about the size of a penny, and that by the end of the meeting all but two had sold, you can get some idea of where the tastes of the average Suffolk Plant Heritage member lie. But I quite liked the sound of a new hybrid begonia with big dark purple leaves, bred to be sturdier than the beautiful but brittle types that Great Dixter will not even send out by mail order. It sounded as though it could be useful for next summer's display outside the front door.
I was one of those who bought a rare pink aster, along with a tender shrub for the conservatory, Tibouchina urvilleana. I've hankered after one for ages since seeing them at various open gardens. It is a native of Brazil, but should allegedly be OK if kept no warmer than frost free over the winter, though I gather from my internet researches since bringing it home that getting the watering right can be tricky. If it makes it through the winter it will be happy to go outside for the summer months, and a couple of people told me that it is easily propagated from cuttings. Which leaves me wondering why in that case there aren't more of them about, but I suppose not that many people have a place for a plant that demands winter protection, is unforgiving about being over- or under-watered, and will grow ten feet high given half a chance. You can prune it, indeed, pruning is highly recommended to make it bushy. The leaves are grey and furry, the flowers large, purple and exotic. I jibbed at paying £14.50 plus postage to buy one by post from Burncoose, but thought that for eight quid going to Plant Heritage I'd give it a whirl.
The rare aster is Aster 'Vasterival', and my internet researches have revealed that Le Vasterival is a French botanic garden. I think it may originally have been the garden of Princess Greta Sturdza, but their website is entirely in French (English language version coming soon) and my French is painfully slow for a non-essential query this late on a Saturday evening. The Plant Heritage propagators obtained their material from the National Collection holder, and I forgot to ask who that was. 'Vasterival' is not unknown in UK commerce, but as I looked at the descriptions given by the various nurseries who sell it I began to feel a mounting sense of confusion. Multiple Chelsea Gold Medal winners Knoll Gardens describe it as having large pink flowers, but the plant I bought this afternoon, delightful as it is, does not fit that description, unless you are a Borrower or a Lilliputian. Asters are prone to confusion, with Christopher Lloyd opining that most of the plants sold as 'Monch' were rank imposters and not the real thing. Whatever the true identify of my new plant, it is very pretty, and the head of the plant stall promised me that it would be happy in light shade, and was easy to grow, spreading by underground stolons. A bit of spreading is fine by me, so long as it is not as rampageous as Coronilla varia, but I don't think Plant Heritage would do that to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment