Time for a change

[Mark Griffiths]

This is a bit of a ramble but I wonder if others have had similar thoughts or gone through the kind of collection simplification.

I've been growing alpines off and on for 45 years. I've aways tended to grow in pots in a grenhouse and frames as conditions haven't been ideal for a proper rock garden. Currently I'm just outside of Oxford.

I've just come back from holiday to find despite the best attentions of my father my Androsace pubescens has fried along with several Primula allionii. I'm growing more and more Primula allionii in the frames because though they don't flower so well and they are at ground level for viewing at least they won't die in the summer.

Gradually I've been moving more "alpines" out into the frames. I can't grow Aquilegia scopulorum in the greenhouse as the red spider destroys them - similarly Silene hookerii just about hangs on.

I think it's time for a change. When I go away it's always a huge amount of prep and there are always losses. When I'm not away it's alot of work and there are still losses.

So I'm looking to simplify. I have alot of cyclamen and bulbs and I think they are lower maintenance. Many though are seedlings that just mark time and maybe I just have to get rid of them (like 10 years old). I have a small number of minature Conifers and they seem to be ok in the frames - if I had room they could go in the greenhouse in the winter perhaps.

I'm loathe to loose the Primula allioniis - I bought the original plants back in the early 90s so some are really quite old.

But along with the plants I'm getting a bit older, my eysight is going and it's probably better to make the changes now than for the collection to go from a pleasure to a chore.

It's odd - I've gone from growing Raoulia eximea from seed when I was 14 to looking for easy and colourful stuff like Lewisia cotyledon hybrids.

So ramble over - does this resonate with anyone? Did you make a similar change? How did it go? How did you feel about it? Do we need to set up a support group?

[ChrisB]

I’m changing a lot of my garden.  With the milder winters I find I can grow many plants in the garden that I used to keep in pots thinking they would die in the cold. I’ve even got a 10 year old pelargonium in the garden flowering year after year, (P. sidoides)

So now, unless I’m pretty sure I want to enter them in shows or put them on the plant sale tables, they mostly are scheduled to  go out in the garden.

In particular, Primula marginatas grow so much better in my raised gravel/sand beds, flower much better too.  The allioniis are doing well out in my fish box containers, as long as I remember to put them on the shady side of the container.

I love the witches broom conifers and thought I’d risk those in the garden after seeing them do well in Czech gardens.  They seem to stay small and grow much more naturally too.

I have lost so many named Saxifraga now that they are all about to find themselves in my raised gravel beds too!

One almost perfect dome of draba got seriously scorched last summer under glass so I just left that one and the growing part is slowly eliminating the ugly scorched part. I put big stones in the scorched Saxifraga though, and they seem to like that, slowly growing over the rock.

As Ian so often tells us, our plants tell us how to grow them ....

[David Nicholson]

This is a bit of a ramble but I wonder if others have had similar thoughts or gone through the kind of collection simplification.

I've been growing alpines off and on for 45 years. I've aways tended to grow in pots in a grenhouse and frames as conditions haven't been ideal for a proper rock garden. Currently I'm just outside of Oxford.

I've just come back from holiday to find despite the best attentions of my father my Androsace pubescens has fried along with several Primula allionii. I'm growing more and more Primula allionii in the frames because though they don't flower so well and they are at ground level for viewing at least they won't die in the summer.

Gradually I've been moving more "alpines" out into the frames. I can't grow Aquilegia scopulorum in the greenhouse as the red spider destroys them - similarly Silene hookerii just about hangs on.

I think it's time for a change. When I go away it's always a huge amount of prep and there are always losses. When I'm not away it's alot of work and there are still losses.

So I'm looking to simplify. I have alot of cyclamen and bulbs and I think they are lower maintenance. Many though are seedlings that just mark time and maybe I just have to get rid of them (like 10 years old). I have a small number of minature Conifers and they seem to be ok in the frames - if I had room they could go in the greenhouse in the winter perhaps.

I'm loathe to loose the Primula allioniis - I bought the original plants back in the early 90s so some are really quite old.

But along with the plants I'm getting a bit older, my eysight is going and it's probably better to make the changes now than for the collection to go from a pleasure to a chore.

It's odd - I've gone from growing Raoulia eximea from seed when I was 14 to looking for easy and colourful stuff like Lewisia cotyledon hybrids.

So ramble over - does this resonate with anyone? Did you make a similar change? How did it go? How did you feel about it? Do we need to set up a support group?

I have a great deal of sympathy with you Mark. Although gardening is, and always will be, my prime interest, I've been gradually moving away from the position where it ruled most of my life to one where it fits much better with what passes for a "life style" in our house. Ever since I retired, Wednesday has always been the day in which the two of us go out. Some Wednesdays this might be to a garden or to a National Trust property/garden, other Wednesdays it might be a trip on the train to St Ives (or somewhere), a walk on the coast (but a header down our Daughter's staircase on Boxing Day morning means less of the leg-work in future for one of us); or simply some retail therapy. The important bit is that Wednesday will continue and it won't matter a jot if Friday, or indeed any other day, becomes a day off too.

Two years ago, after two previous years struggle to rid my Primulas of woolly aphids, I got rid of all my Primulas (at one stage I was growing around 150 of them under glass). Quite honestly I haven't missed the work involved in annual re-potting; taking cuttings etc and I've not given in to temptation to fill the greenhouse with something else. Another little ruse which saves me a lot of time, and cash, is that I've trained myself never to buy any bulbs or plants that cost over £5 each.......... but that doesn't go for wine as well. I grow much more in the garden then I ever did before though.

I suppose 'Father Time' will eventually catch up with me and when he does I'll get used to just looking at plants and enjoying that looking is just as good as doing.

[Mark Griffiths]

thanks for the replies both.

I've now moved almost all of the allioniis out into the frames. It will be interesting to see how they flower there.

One of my problems is I tend to be a bit of a completist. So it feels when I lose something the whole collection is diminished.

I'm trying to move to stuff that can be easily replaced - either because I can pick up another one from a garden centre (like the cotyledon lewisias) or better still replace by seed, like the Cyclamen.

[Lawrence]

Interesting ramble Mark and I can empathise with many of your thoughts.  With the pressures of balancing family life, work and an ever increasing collection of alpines in pots, it is somewhat inevitable to loose plants especially during those holiday periods. My efforts in trying to rationalise my collection last for a while but with frequent visits to National shows and  a fabulous range of Nurseries selling "gems" and no will power whatsoever my collection continues to grow. Trying to grow a very diverse range of plants in pots, all with differing requirements is difficult and sooner or later some plants   suffer.What do I do, propagate, so rather than have one poor plant, I now have many more rooted cuttings compounding my problem even more. I am not a member of a local group, my local group meets on a Saturday when I am either working or at one of the national shows so do not have a direct outlet for selling plants there. I try and move most plants out of my very small greenhouse during the summer months ( small 8x6 greenhouses heat up very quickly) and find plants do far better outside albeit with some additional shading. Benthamiella patagonica is a prime example and grows lax and open under glass but forms a nice compact cushion grown outside with protection. I only have a very small garden so am somewhat limited for planting opportunities there and many of my troughs are full, mainly with 100+ varieties of silver Saxifrages.
So my aim is to try and reduce what I grow in pots😳 and have fewer plants to look after and hopefully produce better quality plants. I doubt weather I will succeed entirely although I am on holiday in Spain at the moment so may come back to fewer plants than I left😂

[TC]

I have come to the same conclusion about plants in pots in the greenhouse.  For me, crocus are a waste of time in pots. I can grow wonderful leaves with a few bulbs actually flowering, they then die down and on inspecting the bulbs just now, they are about half the size from when they were planted. Narcissus are just the same.  However, the bulbicodiums,(mixed), thrive on a raised bed and keep on multiplying whereas the ones in pots mainly disappear.   Dwarf Iris flower once and disappear-----no sign of bulbs in the pots and it isn't slug damage. I am left with two primula allionii out of a collection of about 20.
So, nearly everything has been turfed out of the pots and planted in the garden.  Glaucidium palmatum, jefforsonia dubia, trilliums erythroniums have all been planted.  Also exotics such as tigridia seem to be happier and survive the winter in situ.
The greenhouse is now mainly used for keeping semi-delicate shrubs such as Orange trees, tender Rhododendrons and some Orchids for overwintering.

I came to the conclusion that I could become a slave to growing hard-to-keep Alpines. To grow them to show, you need to be obsessive and give up nearly all your time to them.  If you wish to go on holiday in summer, then you will come back to a disaster!
So with me, I have reverted to my first love...Rhododendrons.  Choose a spot, dig a hole, plant them, water occasionally and watch them grow and flower...with a few disappointments.
After 48 years of working in the garden...mainly navying...I now just sit and relax in the chairs I bought years ago, for that purpose and watch Cindy obsessively weeding.!

[Mark Griffiths]

I have a long list of stuff I've given up trying to grow too. Part of my problem is that I've done well with a group, for example Fritillaria did well for decades and then suddenly they stopped doing well so I have lots of (smaller) pots of just leaves.

What does work for me in the greenhouse is some of the Cyclamen (I've found C.mirabile, alpinum and intaminatum do better in the frames.). 

Pleiones did well, then badly and just as I was about to give up they have improved so I do know that sometimes I can recover former (relative) glories.

[TC]

I had the same problem with Pleiones.  For years I had wonderful shows and lots of new bulbils.  This year, I have had 3 Pleiones in flower out of about 50 plants.  Checking the bulbs, they all look fine but have no roots.  I have done nothing different to their treatment over winter.  They were kept in the greenhouse unheated.
 I am wondering if they were kept too warm as I had no frost in the greenhouse this year.  I remember Glassford Sprunt telling me that he had trouble with flowering so he just put all the plants outside to be covered in snow in winter and he had the best flowering ever.  Maybe, contrary to perceived wisdom, they need a cold spell.
  Years ago, I planted Shantung and a few others under some Rhoddies.  They flowered beautifully in June.  I forgot about them until early winter when they had disappeared and I could not remember exactly where they were as my resident Blackbird has a hobby of pulling out all my plant labels.  We had quite a bit of snow that winter, but, to my surprise, they all popped up and flowered in June again.  I thought that they were a permanent feature.  Wrong! Next Winter brought the coldest frosts for decades, without snow.  I never saw them again!

[ChrisB]

A couple of thoughts ..
Lawrence, you can bring your unwanted pots of plants to any show for the members 50 50 sale, and any show would be most grateful. You don’t have to belong to any local group to do this.

I’m giving up growing Bulbs in pots too, too much work really. They are mostly all going in the garden eventually. As for frits, I’ve grown some from seed. Repotting resulted in leaves but no flowers year after year. Two years ago I took a leaf out of our own bulb despots book and made a pencil hole in the sand in my coldframe and stuck them in there.  First flowers this year!  So now, when I have little bulbils that’s what I’m going to do.  They are under glass but no attention or bother any more.

Maybe I’ll move my more tender cyclamen into the frames too, much better place for them really...