Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

General Subjects => The International Rock Gardener - Feedback Forum => Topic started by: Grahame Ware on January 30, 2012, 09:49:14 PM

Title: The January IRG
Post by: Grahame Ware on January 30, 2012, 09:49:14 PM
Hi Maggi:
I just wanted to take a moment to say how much I enjoyed your re-working and updating of the old article on Harold Esslemont's top 12 plants. You did a lovely job and your affection and respect for this man was palpable.

I'd like to see more of this kind of thing- using the vaults and archives of the SRGC as it were with a spin and perspective from the present. I believe it was William S. Burroughs who said that nobody needed to write anything anymore...just cut it up and! Seems to work in TV and in Hollywood.

The story behind Esslemont establishing Epigaea gaultherioides was terrific. And your visual editing of paintings and pictures just fabulous. Philip MacDougall's photos in Turkey were absolutely staggering. What happened? At some point under a starlit evening on a lovely spring night near the Black Sea, did a Salal have a tryst with a Hibiscus? Migawd what a plant!

But you did the same thing throughout the article and did a very, very good job.

I think Maggi that you've found a great niche, a groove that we can all enjoy very much. M-O-R-E! PLEASE?

PS: Writing takes a lot more energy than forum-ing, eh?
Title: Re: The January IRG
Post by: Maggi Young on January 30, 2012, 10:05:25 PM
Thanks, Grahame. I think there is a great resource in the old journals that really is still relevant and deserves bringing back to notice. I do hope to do more of that sort of thing.

Harold Esslemont was a great inspiration and mentor ot both Ian and myself : a generous and very dear friend. He was still planting fritllaria seed at 80 years of age.... now that is spirit!


That does not, of course, mean that there is any chance for all of you folks out there to sit back and think there is no need to be working on your own articles for the IRG.

Grahame,  having written for the January IRG and with a rather good article on Roscoeas just about to arrive on our doormats in the Rock Garden #128, is already working on his next piece...... I hope! ::)


P.S. Not really: writing is what I have always done... this forum business is fun but crazy...cat-herding is not a sensible pursuit for anyone seeking a restful existence!
Title: Re: The January IRG
Post by: Grahame Ware on January 31, 2012, 01:06:13 AM
Maggi: I promised you another one and yer gonna get it!

Title: Re: The January IRG
Post by: BryanEmery on January 31, 2012, 06:23:01 AM
I agree! This was a wonderful issue!

B
Title: Re: The January IRG
Post by: Tim Ingram on January 31, 2012, 07:41:52 PM
I haven't belonged to the SRGC for very long but have always enjoyed reading back through the AGS and NARGS Journals and comparing how plants and gardens are discussed. You also sense the modesty and great contributions that people have made to the Societies - I have always known Chris Brickell, for example, as one of the most remarkable plantsmen of the age, but didn't know he was involved in running the AGS Seed Exchange many years ago. It is not so much that no-one needs to write anything anymore, as how you can come up with writing that compares with some of that from the past. The modern information age can simply overwhelm.

I would also be interested in stories of past growers, especially since I know so little of alpine gardening in Scotland. I have a growing fascination with such figures in America too, which extends laterally to that famous Scot John Muir. Jim Archibald too had that remarkable ability to see the detail of plants but also write beautifully about his travels. Perhaps the Scottish landscape breeds it into you...

(ps: is it only Scotland that still has wild cats?!)
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