Transatlantic Plantsman

Most popular new plants in Britain

The latest edition of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Plant Finder came out earlier this month. You know the story: over 70,000 plants, over 700 nurseries, the last word in correct plant names and, for European gardeners, sources for all those 70,000+ plants. It’s indispensable for gardeners across the world – just to help us all get the names right.

There are over 4,100 new plants in the 2008/2009 edition and the top two, judged by the number of nurseries stocking the newcomers, are Brunnera macrophylla ‘Mr Morse’ and Salvia x jamensis ‘Hot Lips’, than any other newcomers.. More nurseries are stocking these two new introductions than any others.

Brunnera macrophylla ‘Mr Morse’ looks like a white-flowered version of the very popular blue-flowered ‘Jack Frost’. The foliage is the same – brilliant silver with narrow green veins – it’s just the flowers that are different. Great in shade, even dryish shade, and deer resistant too.

‘Mr Morse’ originated with Belgian plant breeder Chris Ghyselen. He crossed his own ‘Inspector Morse’, which is like ‘Jack Frost’ but with a fraction more green in the leaves, and white-flowered ‘Betty Bowring’. The result is ‘Mr Morse’. It’s new in Britain this year and available from eighteen British nurseries. In the US you can get it from Garden Crossings and other suppliers.

Salvia x jamensis ‘Hot Lips’ is amazing, dramatic bicolored flowers on twiggy shrubs broader than their 90cm (3ft) height. Tony Avent, on the Plant Delights website, explains its origin. “This wild selection… was introduced by Richard Turner of California after the plant was shared with him by his maid, who brought it from her home in Mexico.” Tony lists it as a form of S. microphylla but the RHS considers it a form of S. x jamensis (a hybrid of S. greggii and S. microphylla). Tony also points out that the flowers become more red in high summer when the nights are warm and, as you can see from the picture, the markings can vary from flower to flower.

’Hot Lips’ is available from fifteen British nurseries and Wyevale Garden Centres. In the US you can get it from Plant Delights and many other nurseries.

Ice storm and bird count

Well - between the pneumonia, sinus infections, the ice storm that brought down most of two 50ft oak trees (one snapped right at the woodpecker’s nest) and which again bent our poor birch over so far that its top touched the ground… The chain saw jammed, the generator refused to start in the eight hour power outage, the internet connection vanished. Happy Days! It’s been a tricky week or two here in chilly Pennsylvania.

Some of the spruces and pines are still partly covered in covered in frozen snow. Pieris, kalmias, junipers and other evergreens are so weighed down - frozen to the ground for a week - that they may never regain their natural elegance. And those poor redpolls… where once we had a flock of forty, many were last seen huddled under the eaves… damp, soggy and sad. At the latest count we were down to thirteen – it’s Great Backyard Bird Count time so everything’s being counted. We have no flowers – so why not count the birds and help create a better picture of bird populations across the country? More details here.

Winter-flowering Shrubs - book review

Shrubs are the most fundamental flowering plants of the winter garden and with so many also carrying a powerful fragrance, they bring double value to the colder months. So advice on those to choose for the most effective winter display and advice on how to get the best out of them is invaluable.

Arranged alphabetically, but with each entry written in an accessible discursive style, the book strikes a good balance between being authoritative and selective. Highlighting the differences, for example, between the various winter mahonias in terms of habit and flowering time helps us choose exactly the right one for our own situation. And it’s good to see some rare, but easy-to-grow plants, like the variegated Persian ironwood Parrotia persica ‘Lamplighter’, included.

The sections on cultivation that accompany each plant help ensure that you know how to encourage each plant to give its best and, unusually for a book by a British writer, good advice for American gardeners is included all the way through.

The index, I have to say, is not very satisfactory – only plants are included (no gardens or people) and there no cultivars listed, only species. But the book is so full of good plants and good advice – and some good pictures too – that I’m sure most gardeners will find they want to grow so many of these winter shrubs that drastic changes in their gardens will prove necessary.

Winter-flowering Shrubs by Michael W. Buffin is published by Timber Press.

You can buy Winter-flowering Shrubs in Britain here

You can buy Winter-flowering Shrubs in North America here

British and American hollies

Back in England… I hear that the frost has finally reduced to a squishy mess those impatiens back in Pennsylvania that had been protected with old bedsheets. It’s now just too cold… The lady’s tresses orchid was still looking good when I left a couple of days ago and is a little more resilient in the face of yesterday’s snow.

First stop here was the Royal Horticultural Society show where the society itself staged an exhibit of hollies. Most of the plants on this fascinating exhibit came from the Society’s west of England garden at Rosemoor in Devon. Curator Chris Bailes, author of the recent holly monograph – perhaps the best plant monograph of the last year – told me that recently flocks of fieldfares and other birds had begun to strip the plants of berries. But there was still plenty to see on the exhibit. [Fieldfares are related to British blackbirds, and the American robin.]

It was especially interesting for British visitors to see the deciduous American Ilex verticillata (first picture), its stems crowded with berries, alongside the more familiar evergreen I. aquifolium and I. x altaclarensis.

Chris also pointed out to me the value of a circular exhibit at flower shows, in preference to rectangular or square stands. He says that visitors tend to follow their way all the way round a circular exhibit but when they arrive at the corner of a rectangular stand they tend to keep walking across the isle to the next display. You learn all sorts of fascinating things at these show…

Witch hazel – flowers and foliage

It’s that time of year when the scent of the witch hazel begins to waft through the woods. True, the fragrance of the American native witch hazel, Hamamelis virginiana, doesn’t have the penetration of the spring flowering Asian species but it’s a treat to catch its sharp sweetness on the way to mailbox in the morning.

This year it seems especially prolific – and it’s also opening while the foliage is still green and still on the plants. So unless you knew, you’d be wondering where the scent was coming from as the flowers are almost completely hidden. The flowers usually appear on bare branches, and the presence of the leaves disguises the fact that when you see a whole group of plants… well, it’s the usual thing with so many natives in the wild: the plants vary, in this case in the flowers vary in color, in length of petals and in exactly when they open (some are earlier than others).

At the same time, the foliage of the familiar hybrid of two Asian species, H. x intermedia ‘Mollis’, is just starting to color up in the garden. No flowers till spring, and a much more pervasive scent, but soon it will be covered in beautiful buttery and gold leaves.

An unusual alien plant + more bears

On the way back from visiting new friends at WJFF Radio, the only hydro-powered radio station in the world, I think – they’re across the Delaware River in the Catskills in New York State - I came across two interesting things.

Firstly, especially after I crossed the river north into New York, the non-native Multiflora rose Rosa multiflora was everywhere. To be honest, it looks really lovely: attractive, rounded bushes, with close sprays of fragrant white flowers. If it was a native it would be a universal favorite – but it’s from Asia, and spreads quickly, so it’s an invasive, so it must be bad.

Then as as I drove through the torrential rain, I spotted a pink-flowered bush. I stopped as safely as possible in the downpour – and then the rain eased off a little as I walked back for the obligatory picture (and a piece torn from the root, which may even survive in the garden here.). The picture shows the pink one I spotted from the road (pretty, isn’t it - of course it may be a hybrid with a garden rose) there were also a few blushed white seedlings around as well.

Finally, just as I was pulling into our driveway – there were the bears again: mum and just two cubs. They were just lounging around, rooting about, scratching tree trunks - that sort of thing. I rolled down the window, took a couple of snaps, and left them to it. But the pictures, on an old camera and leaning across out of the passsenger-side window, are terrible! Sorry.

New plants on trial: Shrubs and climbers

Although I thought Physocarpus Coppertina was the most promising of last year’s trial shrubs and vines, as I discussed in yesterday's post, the first year of some other newcomers was also very encouraging.

The pretty silvered Schizophragma hydrangeoides 'Moonlight’ is planted to climb an oak tree, just as these self-clinging plants do in the wild; it grew away well last year, sailed through the winter, and is now setting off further up the tree, where it’s areial roots grip without much help, and across the nearby soil. The foliage turns an attractive yellow in the fall. Two true climbing hydrangeas,ne forms of Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris made a much slower start, and ‘Firefly’ which is supposed to be variegated seems to have discouragingly plain green leaves; perhaps the color will develop later.

New plants on trial: Top Shrub – Physocarpus Coppertina

This is the first of a series of daily posts about new plants I grew for the first time last year. Now that it’s clear which have actually come through the winter – and which have not – I can make an initial assessment. These should take us up to the Chelsea Flower Show – I’ll be blogging directly from the show from Sunday 20 May.

Back to my new plants. First off – the top shrub. Of course, this has only been the first year in the progression towards maturity and it’s only then that true judgment can be made. But last year Physocarpus opulifolius 'Coppertina'  was the star of the newcomers.

This lovely hybrid between the deep purple ‘Diablo’ and ‘Dart’s Gold’ grew away strongly after planting, it survived the winter totally unscathed – not even a hint of die back – and it’s been off with a leap in the last couple of weeks. The leaf color is copper with amber young growths and the foliage becomes richer in color as the season progresses (1st picture) then in fall turns reddish in shade and more bronzey shade in the sun (2nd picture).

I have two plants so I’ve cut one back by more than half to encourage bushiness and left the other alone. It should be lovely with my unusually hardy Crocosmia ‘Distant Planet’… of which more in another post. As I write, the native columbine Aquilegia canadansis with its red and yellow flowers makes a great companion -  or it would be if it had the good sense to self-sow itself just a little bit closer.

Physocarpus opulifolius Coppertina (‘Mindia’) is a ColorChoice Shrub from Proven Winners. Find out more here.

North American gardeners can find a retailer here.

British gardeners – Sorry, it’s not yet available in the UK. But it will be…

Spring at last

Back in Pennsylvania now and in the last couple of days winter has been transformed into spring. As in the wild, the snow recedes and the crocuses pop up and open. The ice on the lake is still 6in thick (so I won't be needing my new season’s fishing license quite yet), but the snowdrops are out at last, buzzing with honey bees but impossible to photograph in the wind. Crocus tommasinianus flares its petals and the witch hazel is out.

Bought last summer, the buds of Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’ started to open in December and then simply stopped, the spidery petals half unfurled. Now in nearly 60F they open but, as the picture reveals, the tips are burnt and they seem a little wan. That lovely sweet scent is there, but not as powerful as I expected.

A wonderful catalogue from Arrowhead Alpines

I’ve never ordered from Michigan’s Arrowhead Alpines, but if their plants are as good as their extraordinary catalog it’s clear that I should.

This is a very – how shall I put it – individualistic catalog. After all, few alpine nurseries would fill their front cover with the huge blue cones of a Korean fir hybrid (Abies koreana x A. lasiocarpa, no less).

Bob Stewart’s introductory essay rattles along on the subjects of why we garden, why Britney Spears wears no panties, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, North Korean missiles, creating antimatter pairs with lasers, gene splicing, and so on.

There follows a hundred densely printed pages packed to bursting with good plants, many wondrous rarities and many more familiar. There are conifers, shrubs, vines, perennials, wild flowers, bulbs and, of course alpines. You could spend thousands. But it’s not just the extraordinary collection of plants that make this catalog special, there are, I should mention, no pictures except on the cover. It’s the way Bob describes them: On the rarely seen Smilacina bicolor, the quotes the Google translation from the Korean: “The beard root to the genitals is born from the joint”, “both sides flow in lower part and becoming the short leaf sack”, and his favorite: “the flower stalk comes out from the armpit of the gun.” (Fortunately, there’s a picture here for those not sufficiently convinced by this description.)