Rebuilding a nursery - Copton Ash

[John85]

May be it should be better known that you don't need a rock garden to grow alpines.
Also the popular TV programs don't give much attention to alpines,and even sometimes the presenter makes obvious mistakes.Not the best thing to promote those little jewels!

[Tim Ingram]

A few pictures from the Sussex Prairies Plant & Art Fair last weekend (the garden made by Paul and Pauline McBride). The last picture shows Steve Edney from the Salutation Garden in Sandwich, Kent - a really talented gardener and someone to watch out for. More details for anyone who would like them on my Kent Diary linked to the AGS website (which Maggi has kindly referred to).

[Tim Ingram]

Just had an enjoyable weekend at the Autumn Plant Fair at Great Dixter. I will put together some more pictures and notes in the next few days (and an in depth look at the event on my AGS Diary) but couldn't resist showing these two pictures of some fine gardeners and nursery-people, particularly relevant to the SRGC... there were some pretty interesting plants-people around over the two days and a wonderful variety of nurseries from Sweden to the south of France, and Germany to Scotland! Fergus and his team at Great Dixter did us proud - all thanks to them.
It was delightful also to meet with Ross and Helen and to talk a little about alpines and alpine gardening...

[johnralphcarpenter]

Fergus looks more and more like a garden gnome!

[Tim Ingram]

I once said this about a good friend in the Kent Hardy Plant Society when we were making a display (based on Margery Fish's garden) at Chelsea. I'm not sure he appreciated it too much but sometimes the words come into your head and you have no control over what you say! I remember Jekka McVicar introducing a gnome into her display at Chelsea a while back, to great consternation, so gnomes perhaps have a good pedigree

[Tim Ingram]

A few more pictures from Great Dixter last weekend. There aren't many gardens like Dixter and perhaps its great appeal is that it is a personal garden. It may be a little exuberant for some but it is not lacking in imagination, colour and stimulation - and the same comes from reading Christopher Lloyd and his writing about the garden. Not a bad place to have a Plant Fair like this with nurseries from across Europe, but on an intimate and friendly basis. As you might imagine it drew plenty of interesting gardeners too. Dixter as a garden is far from the world of alpine and rock plants, but if you read my Kent Diary on the AGS website you will see why I make little distinction between the two.

It is hard not to make a garden around a house like this... and to give autumn flowers their head.

[Tim Ingram]

What was especially nice was that alpine nurseries and growers were represented as well. So opposite our stand was the German alpine specialists Staudengärtnerei Peters. Though they grow a wide range of alpines, they also specialise in certain genera and species such as the woodland saxifrages and hepaticas. Talking to Susanne their aim with the former is to breed for earlier flowering forms more suitable for the garden and 'Ajyhna' is a lovely example. The spring trumpet gentians always throw up a few flowers in autumn too, and they had a range of forms of these that reminded me of how well they grow in the Czech Republic. They don't flower so well in our garden but we need to try more of them and experiment with planting places and conditions (see www.alpine-peters.de).

[Tim Ingram]

It was especially nice to meet Peter Korn again, after first going up to Lamberton a few years ago and being astonished at his ways of growing alpines, then listening to him in the Czech Republic in May 2013, and having a Swedish edition of his beautifully illustrated book. What's more he had a whole range of Pulsatilla species for sale, which have caught a little attention elsewhere on this Forum! Peter gave a short talk about his gardening, and there were quite a few visitors with a serious interest in alpines despite the riches of other plants all around.

[Tim Ingram]

The variety of plants and nurseries is what really created such a buzz for anyone who has a general and wide ranging fascination with the plant world. Dino Pellizzaro from the south of France had a unique mix of tender shrubs, pelargonium species, and hardyish bromeliads; Kwekerij Arborealis from the Netherlands, a great variety of woody species including various oaks (I could wish that we had planted some of these in our garden 30 years ago); and there were other pretty well known names from mainland Europe and the UK - even from Scotland. The similarity with the Alpine Shows is that these are all specialist growers with personal interests in particular types of plants, which makes an event unique in its variety and attraction to plants-people. The downside is that such an event doesn't come about so often, though the feel was very like several plant shows we attended in France organised by Jean-Pierre Jolivot (Jardin d'En Face), and not so different from past RHS Shows held at Vincent Square in London, before 'design' became more prominent. Plants and plants-people.

[Matt T]

... 'Ajyhna' is a lovely example...

Great photo, Tim, of a beautiful plant.

[David Nicholson]

Mouthwateringly good Tim, wish I had been there. Imaginative use of straw bales too .

[Matt T]

The variety of plants and nurseries is what really created such a buzz ... Plants and plants-people.

Even in the short time since I was a lad, I've noticed a huge degradation in the quality of nurseries and the practice of gardening in general. Our local nursery used to also host small independent businesses specialising in bonsai, fuschia etc, but now it's full of mass produced bedding, shrubs etc that you find everywhere. A visit to a GC these days is disappointing, with plants and gardening taking up only a small fraction of the space given over to gifts, clothing, cafe, candles etc.  It would be easy to blame this on TV shows that have commodified the garden (i.e. Groundforce), but similar trends are prevalent through organisations such as the RHS, with show gardens and design pushed to the fore whilst plantsmanship seems to come second. Design has it's place, but there is no point if the aesthetic doesn't also create suitable habitat niches for the plants we grow or we're left with the same limited choice of generic species and cultivars. Thank goodness we still have specialist societies such as this and small, independent nurseries such as you feature here! Thanks for sharing, Tim.

[Maggi Young]

Hear hear! Matt - I couldn't agree more with your comment.  Tim's points on these matters seem to me to be spot on. I deeply regret the concentration there is in so many areas of horticulture on "design" - which all too often seems to mean the expensive production of a stage set for those with plenty money and little sense.  This was brought home to me all to forcefully when faced with the example of people who, having just completed a"design" course, turned right round to then "teach" the subject.
In some cases it seems that those taking a garden design course are those who, a few years ago, might have been taking a cordon bleue cookery course - as a pastime but now it seems they want to not only take the course but take over the world! Sadly  it appears that too great a number of youngster getting into horticulture are being infected with a bug which leads them to think that design is the holy grail and their ambitions seem to be concentrated on emulating "celebrity" designers, with "gardens" at Chelsea and so on. A short sighted and, in my opinion, horribly narrow path to attempt.
*Sigh* - sceptical ( and certainly grumpy) old lady  here!

[Robert]

Even in the short time since I was a lad, I've noticed a huge degradation in the quality of nurseries and the practice of gardening in general. Our local nursery used to also host small independent businesses specialising in bonsai, fuschia etc, but now it's full of mass produced bedding, shrubs etc that you find everywhere. A visit to a GC these days is disappointing, with plants and gardening taking up only a small fraction of the space given over to gifts, clothing, cafe, candles etc.  It would be easy to blame this on TV shows that have commodified the garden (i.e. Groundforce), but similar trends are prevalent through organisations such as the RHS, with show gardens and design pushed to the fore whilst plantsmanship seems to come second. Design has it's place, but there is no point if the aesthetic doesn't also create suitable habitat niches for the plants we grow or we're left with the same limited choice of generic species and cultivars. Thank goodness we still have specialist societies such as this and small, independent nurseries such as you feature here! Thanks for sharing, Tim.

We have the same trend here in California, except the situation is even worse! My wife and I often lament the commodification of everything these days. Nothing is loved and nobody seems to care. We call it "moneyocracy"

Thank you Tim for sharing the photographs. For me it is an inspiration to see such plants offered at a plant fair. We have nothing like this at all. This seems so strange to me, as California offers so much in the way of climate and opportunities for growing a wide range of interesting plants and creating beautiful gardens. For decades I've tried to offer interesting plants at the farmers' market. For a while it seemed that I was making progress. After the financial dump of 2007 all the plant people seemed to have scattered and are gone. Now all that is left is a horticultural waste land. Somehow I wish to reach the heart and soul of folks to create beauty in their world. I seem more inspired to do this than farm (another set of problems where folks do not seem to care about the quality of their food either), but farming is a must if I am to earn livelihood, at least right now. Thanks again!

[Tim Ingram]

Robert - we share all these pictures of plants on the Forum but, like Gerd, I found your descriptions of looking for violas in the wild even more fascinating. It reminds me a lot of Lester Rowntree's book 'Hardy Californians', and the Californian flora is not especially well known amongst gardeners in the UK compared with the Mediterranean and South Africa. I used to suscribe to 'Pacific Horticulture', and have a few books on using native Californian plants in gardens, and a beautiful description of 'California's Wild Gardens' edited by Phyllis Faber, and thought maybe that there is quite a strong interest in the natural flora amongst gardeners, so it is sad to hear your comments. There is certainly a lot of fine horticultural writing which has come out of N. America. I will look forward to seeing more of your travels in the hills and getting an idea of where particular plants grow.