Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: Maggi Young on July 01, 2015, 10:04:04 PM
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This Friday, 3rd July, Gardeners' World will be visiting the Craigieburn Garden of Janet and Andrew Wheatcroft by Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway in S W Scotland and also Slacktop Alpines - run by Michael and Allison Mitchell in Heptonstall, Hebden Bridge , West Yorkshire.
9.30pm BBC 2
Sounds like it may be worth seeing. :)
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Hey ho, good news for alpines - hope they spend a reasonable time at Craigieburn and Slacktop and that it may be the beginning of something more in the future...
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We can but hope, Tim!
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That was worth seeing - it was nicely presented both by Michael Mitchell at Slacktop and Matthew Wilson on Craigieburn. They may have only been short pieces but I thought the programme as a whole was well balanced and thoughtful, and it was nice to see Monty Don planting Meconopsis if the upshot is that more gardeners try these plants. I still think there is scope for a dedicated programme on alpines which is more Natural History based, but credit where credit is due.
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The program crushed any lingering hope that my garden could ever support those blue Meconopsis. It's bone dry here at the moment.
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Alan, this may be a reason why many people give up on alpines because so many of them do need good moisture levels along with excellent drainage (aeration), and coolth. When you see meconopsis and primulas and autumn gentians in all their glory and just can't really grow them in your own climate it can exclude a wider appreciation of those plants that do come from much drier climates. We are exceptionally dry this summer, after record rainfall last year which kept the garden much more lush. There is not a terribly alpine feel to the garden and it looks very sad as the grass turns brown and everything goes over as fast as it flowers. Can you love an eryngium as much as a meconopsis? Eryngium bourgatii is stunning in our garden at the moment but given the choice I suspect most gardeners would want to grow the meconopsis. There are those plants that tolerate and even thrive under these conditions (viz. Beth Chatto's gravel garden) and that seems one of the essential things that gardening teaches - to capitalise on your own situation. Snowdrops do well even in dry chalky woodland such as Lorendon near to us! Winter is actually one of the best times in dry climate.
(The problem for the nurseryman is that everyone wants strong, lush and perfectly grown plants all the time which are not so easy to produce under present conditions :( ).
This has been a star plant for us this summer but it wouldn't fare well at Craigieburn or probably even Slacktop - Linum narbonense.
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The program crushed any lingering hope that my garden could ever support those blue Meconopsis. It's bone dry here at the moment.
Alan - only time we had any success with them was when we had them planted under a downpipe off one of the greenhouses where we used to live