Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Saxifraga => Topic started by: Maggi Young on January 23, 2012, 03:51:13 PM
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From Adrian Young:
The Saxifrages at Waterperry will be flowering soon
These “Rock Diamonds” are pure, perfect and complete.
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See the National Reference Collection and talk to experts
over the weekend of 24/25th March, 11.00 – 4.00pm.
{See attachment at end of post}
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Talk from expert grower David Hoare- Sunday 25th March
‘God Almighty first planted a garden.
And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures’.
~ Francis Bacon
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See you on the 24/25th March at Waterperry ;)
Waterperry Gardens,
Nr. Wheatley,
Oxfordshire,
England
OX33 1JZ.
Note: If you're using Sat Nav, it is recommended to use the postcode OX33 1LG which will bring you to Waterperry Village. This is a no through road - and Waterperry is right at the end.
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ny Forumist who attends this event, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take lots of photos of the plants and post them here. We in the Southern Hemisphere are badly Saxifraga-deprived. :'(
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The three plants featured are
1] S. Vaclav Talich from Karel Lang
2] S. Frantisek Holenka from Karel Lang
3] S. Coolock Kate seedling from Geoff Mawson
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Last week Tim Roberts and myself placed the brand new Tufa in
our two new raised beds. Well actually Tim did all the work,
he is a very experienced Landscape Gardener who has an
expert eye for Rock and how to lay it.
The beds are 30' long and 5' wide, the compost is
20mm Ballast and medium grade Moss peat 50/50.
We put around 5 tonnes of Tufa in the two beds,
it came from Rocky Mountain Tufa BC and it is good quality
stuff. Now we wait a while for everything to settle, then
the planting starts.
These two beds will hold a Plant Heritage National collection
of Ligulatae Saxifrages.
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Wow, I can't imagine shipping tufa all the way from North America! :o (Although, on the other hand, I suppose building stone of different sorts is shipped around the world as matter of course... I just tend not to think of it being done for rock gardening purposes very often!?) I heard about this shipment when I had tufa delivered last fall - looks like it's going to great use!
As the boulders are being placed with a lot of "surface" visible, is there going to be a lot of drilling to make planting crevices?
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Yes there will be plenty of drilling.
There are a lot of crevices also,
so no shortage of planting area's.
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I can't wait to see it planted up! :D
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Adrian
Please would you let me know who supplied the tufa.
Thanks
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Wow can't wait to see it get planted. Wouldn't mind Tufa like that. Please keep posting pictures for us to see.
Angie :)
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Adrian
Please would you let me know who supplied the tufa.
Thanks
Tufa came from Canada, Rocky Mountain Tufa.
No Tufa available in UK or Europe
edit by maggi to sort quote box
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Thanks Adrian
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Hi,
Everyone is so wild about tufa, of course, tufa is the best rock for alpines, because it's so porous and has so many nutrients in it. The only problem, and the biggest, is that it is hard to get.
There are other possibilities, maybe not as good, but worth trying : I experiment with plantings in other kind of rocks like sandstone and marble stone.
You will see a picture of Saxifraga Winifred, that has been thriving for 6 years now in the hard marble stone. 8)
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Winifred certainly looks like a happy lady. ;D
Lori, we have here in Dunedin a Chinese garden, largely gifted to the city by our Chinese connections and it has become one of our best tourist attractions. (To my shame I've not yet been to see it.) The rocks and gravels, the building materials all were imported from China and also the men who built it over many months - all from China. Everything in fact, EXCEPT THE PLANTS! They were raised locally and seem, from the outside at least to be mainly trees. It's called a "Scholars' Garden" and is apparently one of only two genuine articles outside of China itself.
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The Saxifraga weekend is getting close
and the plants are responding.
sax WPY 130312S
S.Torrisholme Rose2-WPY060312S
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Some saxes in the raised beds
S.Allendale Comet WPY060312SS
S.Gregor WPY 130312 ESS
S.Mary Golds WPY130312SS
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Nice Saxes Adrian, especially 'Gregor' is a fine one.
Greetings from Leiomerus
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This is my very charming Sax. 'Allendale Charm', with its life in the gutter. :)
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That shows the soft pink perfectly. 8)
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Well Maggi, you asked for pictures from Waterperry. So, how many did I take? None. A very disappointing visit in terms of photography. The raised beds were beautiful, but in terms of identifiable plants, very difficult. The collection itself was there to see, but in small pots at ground level,so extremely difficult again to get identifiable pictures without picking up each one individually. Not with my back and knees. So, sorry.
The sales of Saxifrages on the other hand ............wonderful and we came away with loads. The people running the event were friendly, obviously knowledgeable and approachable.
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Never mind Eric, it's the thought that counts :-*
Sounds like you had a most enjoyable.... and productive, visit in any case, which was the object of the exercise :D
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According to Harry Jans http://www.jansalpines.com/index.php?page_id=5&lang=en tufa is available in several mainland European countries; but unfortunately very little in the UK.
On a much remembered visit to BC in Canada, a few years ago, I met a young lady tree planting, who had a dog at home called Tufa, and she did not know it was a form of local rock.
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Hi, went to the Waterperry Saxifraga event, it's only a few miles up the M40. The place looked very pretty, lots of colour, very neat and tidy, but the identification of plants was haphazard and unsatisfactory. I even asked advice from one of the resident gurus and was treated like some oaf who couldn't read.
The original idea is quite good, instead of littering the beds with labels, have diagrams that show the rocks in the beds and then have the names of the plants relative to the rocks. Trouble is, the rocks in the diagrams don't look anything like the rocks in the beds and some plants aren't there any more and other plants have been inserted for which there is no name. I walked away somewhat miffed.
Obviously, the people there who look after the plants know exactly what is what, and, it seems, the marks (you and I) don't count. Rant over, I do like the place and I gleaned some interesting facts listening to one of the people in charge. So here are some pics, please don't shoot me if the identification is incorrect, I did my best.
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Thanks for posting Maren. I couldn't make it but would have liked to have been there. I have to say I share your "miffiness" about the plant identification on the Sax displays at Waterperry (sorry Adrian!). On a previous visit I spent ages trying to decipher the planting diagrams and found them very difficult to come to terms with. So did Mrs N. so they must be wrong ;D
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Here are some plants:
S cumulus
S dinniki Stasek
S federici x augusti Coll Holubek
S Marie Stivinova
S Mirko Webr
S Norman
S Poluanglica
S unifoveolata
Unknown beauty.
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Cumulus is well named, a cloud of flowers!
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Spent the weekend at Waterperry. The weather was perfect, the majority of the kabschia's were in flower and looked wonderful.
I would like to make it clear to some people who attended that the collection has been re-established by Adrian in his spare time, until recently that meant most Saturdays. A lot of the plants have been purchased by Adrian on his self funded trips to the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and all over the UK. Since he retired he does the 2 - 3 hour round trip from his home often 3 times per week. He has aquired funding for major construction (winter cover, shading, new beds and the new tufa) from various plant groups.
The stock area was opened for the weekend to let people see the new and rarer plants, the spares along with many that still require planting out.
Yes the labelling isn't ideal. If you have useful suggestions or maybe you can help with the funding for a better system speak up.
Appreciate the collection, enjoy the beautiful plants, it is a collection not a botanical gardens, they are all labelled if you know where to look.
Just the one picture from me. It is one of my collections of the newly named natural hybrid between Saxifraga cineria x S. poluniniana (S. x bhratangensis) collected in 2001 near the village of Bhratang in central Nepal at an altitude of 3000m. Sax. TJR 810-A
Tim
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That last plant, the hybrid is a glorious thing, with its pinked edge and delightful colouring.
I shouldn't speak at all really re the labelling because I'm so far away and have never been to Waterperry (had a penpal there once, way back in Valerie Finnis's days) but if I HAD been able to visit, it would have been disappointing and frustrating to find poor labelling. For plant growers and especially plant buyers, the label is PART of the plant and essential to the observer who may, at some stage wish to buy or propagate such a plant. I can understand the difficulties as explained above Tim, but surely Waterperry, synonymous with the genus Saxifraga, should be right on top of things such as good and accurate labelling, clearly understood?
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Lesley
The labelling is accurate. The problem is it is not easy to understand (it uses overhead diagrams). The area is out of site in an enclosed area, so theft of plants could be a problem.
I understand Adrians point of a lot of visible labels being intrusive, but I do agree a better system is required.
Another of my collections from the same location, S. x bhratangensis TJR 810-05 closer to S. poluniniana shot yesterday at Waterperry.
Tim
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Fair enough Tim. :)
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20 minutes on the computer and some crafty manipulation of some good pictures of the exhibited plants to add names should do the trick. These then might be available for those interested to view on a computer in the office or other backstage area at Waterperry. I can understand the fear about plants being stolen. My solution seems to steer a course between an open and and a supervised system.
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I would have thought a simple red cross, number, coloured pebble to link the reference rock to the picture would be sufficient. This is a simple solution and could be done in less than half an hour at no cost. :) :)
Here is an example of the plants and the related diagram. If there were one identifying mark on both, it would be very easy to work out what's what.
It's easier when there is a trough, where the items are more confined.
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I would have loved to see all the saxifrages at Waterperry, but after some debate decided I needed to get on with a very large pile of material that needed shredding - must put it down for next year. As regards labelling - we have the same problem recording plantings in the garden and in the past I drew diagrams (cf: those illustrated in this thread). These were OK for me, because I already had a good knowledge of what was where, but others I think would have had trouble deciphering them. Now that it is so easy to take digital photographs I use this as a method to record new plantings, and it is a lot easier to relate to what you see. This is pretty much what David suggests. Different sections of the plantings can then be related to specific photographs of each area. This is obviously especially important with plants like saxifrages where so many hybrids have been raised.
I've been toying with the same idea for our sand bed when the garden is open for the NGS and AGS; otherwise any labels that are there get pulled out and stuck back in willy nilly (or sometimes if someone is really interested, taken away!).
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I may have misunderstood Tim R but it seemed he was saying if the plants were labelled beside them, they would be more likely to be stolen. If this is so, I have to ask do people steal the name or the look? I mean would they steal a sax because it had a fancy name or because they like the look of it, in flower?