Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Plants Wanted Or For Exchange => Topic started by: KentGardener on November 20, 2006, 11:02:24 AM
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Hi All
gosh - this newlook forum will take me a while to get used to.
I am wondering if anyone has any interesting Scollies out there that they would be willing to swap / sell any offsets from.
with many thanks
John
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Yay! A fellow fernyholic! Show me yours and I'll show you mine.... seriously though, it's raining steadily here and I'm enjoying washing old wallpaper paste off my walls SO much, that I'll have to take photos later. Then all the non-fernyholics will probably think we're utterly mad.
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hi john from what i can remember long acre plants have a good selection of asplenium scolopendrium......you may already know this.....if not they havce a very good website ;D
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Hi Anne and Dan
thank you for your replies.
Dan - I think I have purchased all of the scollies that Longacre have (a great nursery indeed) - in fact I think I may have got all the plants that are available from all the nurseries that I know of. This is why I have posted to this forum in the hope that some members may have plants that are not commercially available.
Anne - some pictures are attached (hopefully - if I can work out this new forum....). The plants are not looking great at the moment as I have been looking after 2 cats for the last months and they have ripped many leaves when doing what cats do! These photos are a few months old (I can post more next year if you think that the SRGC members would be interested?) Are you Anne Wright as in 'the Wright way to sow fern spores'? If so - I owe you thanks for teaching me how to have such high success rates.
So if any members have some harts tongue varieties that are not the easily available ones I would be very interested to hear from you.
with many thanks
John
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Hi, have you got a website url for Long Acre plants, please?
PS John, You've made a good start to your posting inthe new forum, well done!
I say, have you just added that ID photo while I was posting? I'm sure it wasn't there before!
Mind you, at this time of night I'm not sure what I see, really, I just know that those glossy green ferns make me hungry ( daft, I know, but most things make me hungry, its my hobby).. that is, until I read about the cats!
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Hi Maggi
the Longacre website is http://www.longacreplants.co.uk/
Ordering online can be a bit confusing - it tooks me a few wrong clicks before I worked it out. Postage is £7 per order - but the plants are the best packaged of any nursery that I have ever purchased from.
No you are not suffering from sleep deprevation - I did add the profile photo about 5 minutes ago.
Now you've made me hungry too - just the mention of food.....
regards
John
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It's raining again today - yet another excuse for not taking photos! Yes those are our spore-sowing instructions, so if anyone would like a copy please email me. I for one (possibly the one of few) would like to see more ferns, but from experience they are not top of the forum's list of topics of interest! During the winter, ferns can bring a lot of foliage interest to the garden, and I promise to go out and take photos as soon as the weather improves, and I can commandeer the camera.
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;D and i thought it was me just being stupid thinking the longacre website was confusing!
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Hi dan
it is tricky isn't it!
For anyone wishing to order:
once you get the hang of it things are OK - but if you don't click in the correct order......
1) goto www.longacreplants.co.uk
2) then click on 'Click here to go to our online shop'
3) then you have to click on 'shop' (this is the bit that took me ages to find....)
4) then it should be straight forward
getting past stage 3 is what was most frustrating for me.
Hope this helps others as Longacre have got loads of excellent plants that are always top quality and well packaged.
cheers
John
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:D yes i was exactly the same as you...maybe someone should e-mail them as they may be losing customers I think I visited the site about thre times before I worked it out and couldn't work out how to access the shop and then one day I spotted it out of the corner of my eye. Problem solved!
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Alright Dan
I did phone them last year to mention this to them - they seemed to think it was me being stupid and didn't see a problem. Oh well. I did try, honest.
cheers
John
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>:( evidently it is a problem...oh well it's their loss!
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Maggi, did you realize that there are many ferns which are edible? The NZ Maoris know about them and use them in cooking and in medicines. Living here, it's a good plan to have some knowledge of which species are palatable as if lost in the bush, one can last out for many days on ferns and other edible species - if one knows which.
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Hi Lesley
Just like fungi, some ferns are edible and some are very poisonous.
An example of a popular edible one is Matteuccia struthiopteris (the shuttlecock fern), sold pre-picked and packaged as 'fiddleheads' in America, proved free of poisons.
Whereas Bracken contains a rather nasty mix of carcinogens and in some cases cyanide.
I think I shall be sticking to cabbage and peas with my dinner...
John
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Lesley, I have munched on many a piece of Matteuccia struthiopteris ,it's one way to keep it in check!
You know me, I'm not backward in finding things to sniff and/or eat!!
I take your point, though, John, caution must be advised in such matters... there's no point in THINKING you know what you're eating, you have to REALLY KNOW!!
Enjoy your lunch!
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Hoy! You lot! I don't hear anybody talking about eating crocuses or frits - hands off the ferns! ;)
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mmmmmmm...... fiddleheads.......
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John,
Those pics of the various varieties of the fern are awesome. I don't think I've actually come across this species before, or at least not that I am aware of anyway. I rather like crested types of ferns, and a couple of the ones you posted definitely fit that category. I must keep an eye out in the future for them. What is their hardiness?
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Hi Paul
they are all varieties of one type of fern called Aspleniun scolopendrium (Basic plant shown below). These crop up all over England (on walls, in woodlands, just about anywhere (I am thinking of doing a study of weird places I have seen them grow for one of the fern magazines). Fortunately for me, and the few others who are really into these ferns, they sometimes have the strangest variations in form. The Victorian fern crase did lots to find these, either when natuarly occuring or raising them from spore. One of my friends is currently applying for National Collection status for his excellent collection of Scollies - part of the reason I put my request on this forum for any odd / old / unusual variteties to be added to the collection.
Spore raised plants do not always turn out like the parents but there is usually a good chance that you will get something unusual. Have you grown ferns from spore before? If you would like to try, and are allowed to receive spore in Australia, I could send you some next year. For great instructions on how to have success with fern spores contact AnneW who has written a wonderful fact sheet for the fern society - she has offered to send copies to the guys on here too.
If you do want me to send some over next year give me a little reminder in about April and I shall start checking the leaves on some of the better forms. Is it the crested ones (normalish leaf with cresting at the tips) or the crisped ones (with wavy edges to the leaves) that you like? Or would you just want a selection of spore to see what pops up?
cheers
John
(Normal Asplenium scolopendrium)
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John,
Are these the 'Hart's Tongue' ferns (I think that is the spelling)? I was watering this evening and realised that what I have as that (I couldn't find the tag in the dusk so I couldnt' verify the scientific name) matches one of the rippled ones you have. I must admit I rather like all of them, but the crested forms are the ferns I am particularly partial to. If they are all over England then they must be pretty cold hardy too!! I'll check up on or quarantine and see whether they are OK to bring in, but I'd would imagine that the genus should be OK for spores. That reminds me as well..... I owe Anne some spore of a couple of ferns I have here (I recall one of them was my variegated Maidenhair fern, and I still have the email so I will check for the other one too Anne!). I had forgotten until just now, so I must rectify that.
Anne, I would be interested in seeing your fern spore growing instructions that John mentioned, as it has been quite some time since I last sowed fern spore. I used to grow them around the 8 to 12yo mark, when I had a collection of over 50 different types of ferns (not bad for where I grew up, particularly with how dodgy our weather was out on the farm! ;D). I think I recall how I used to do it, but some expert instructions definitely wouldn't hurt! I have some spores of the NZ Silver Fern to sow at the moment too, so the instructions would be rather timely!! :D
Once again, thanks John for the spore offer. Hopefully I can take you up on it as they look like wonderful forms and particularly as they are likely to be hardy!! Yeah!! 8)
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John,
I remembered to find the tag for my plant today and we are talking about the same thing. Mine is obviously not quite the straight species, as mine has ruffles along the edge, but it is different again to the pictures that you put on the first page of this thread. I'm glad that I know exactly what fern you are talking about now, and I definitely am interested in the different forms of it. I just love the one I have, but never realised there were different ones to find! ;D I can feel another collection coming on!! LOL
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Hi Paul
it is good to hear that scollies can be grown succesfully where you are. If you give me a gentle reminder next year I shall send a selection of spore.
regards
John
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John,
Now I just need someone to give me a gentle reminder to give you a gentle reminder!! ;D
Thanks in anticipation.