� e Garden, RHS Media, Churchgate, New Road, Peterborough PE1 1TT

Comment

� e more you submerge yourself

in the world of plants, the more your eyes are opened. And the more you see, the more fascinating and exciting growing plants can become. It is often quoted – and it is true – that in horticulture you really do never stop learning. Even some leading plantspeople will tell you they are constantly fi nding out about plants new to them. Whether spotted at a nursery, seen for the fi rst time at a show or, for a really select few, chanced upon when plant hunting, the excitement of a ‘new’ fi nd can stay with you through life.

Much of the rich horticultural variety we enjoy in the UK has been gathered over many years, whether through plant hunting, commercial breeding and introductions, or

the passion of dedicated enthusiasts. Across Britain there are plenty of specialist plant societies that contribute to the range of plants we can grow – from associations such as the Alpine Garden Society and the Hardy Plant Society, to more specialist groups, including the Mammillaria Society (cacti) or the National Sweet Pea Society. � ese groups are often run by volunteers, whose enthusiasm and joy of revelling in all things ‘plants’ is hard to ignore. And the wealth of their specialist knowledge contributes to our wider understanding of garden plants.

One of the organisations with a broader remit is Plant Heritage, now celebrating its 35th year. In this issue, Matthew Biggs (pp69–72) delves into the valuable role such a group plays, not only for the fascination of growing

rare or unusual plants, but also for a much wider benefi t. � ere is a moral imperative to collect and increase certain plants that might be at threat in their natural habitats, yet also a societal one: the gene pool of these plants can often be used for advances in medicines, disease resistance or for future plant breeding.

Plant Heritage compiles a National Plant Collections Directory (see its website, www.plantheritage.com), so if you want to know more about a specifi c genus – be it holly, irises, walnuts or orchids – this is a great place to start. But a word of warning: for many collection holders, what started as a general interest became a hobby that has since taken over their lives. And, as a group of gardeners, we can all be thankful for that.

I don’t know what it is about men. As soon as I installed raised veg beds on my allot ment they haven’t escaped the mocking smiles of men of the more mature kind. The other day I wandered up to the beds unnoticed, to find a couple of old-timers standing over the plot – I knew by their stance that their comments were not complimentary, although my vegetables looked terrific, despite the horrible spring. I longed to tell them where to put their lettuces.

Something else intrigues me: few men will admit to doing anything in the garden, apart from heavy work. ‘My wife’s the gardener,’ they announce confi dently, as if admitting to being artistic was an absolute no-no – except for orchid fanciers, who can be a bit di� erent. I once saw one point to his wife and say, ‘She just mists my orchids for me’.

Have you noticed that the nearer men come to a certain age (about when they begin to lose

interest in young women in short skirts) they become passionately preoccupied by their lawns? They are in a permanent state of fuss – does it need mowing, edging, feeding or watering? And what about the eternal moss problem?

Whereas the drive-on mower brigade, young men on fast machines, are happy just whizzing around their turf, the roar of their steely steeds in noisy collision with someone practising his drums, next door’s barbecue reaching a crescendo of chat and delicious smells, and squeals of children playing on a bouncy castle carrying on the breeze. Such is the background music of a balmy day in June.

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Sounding o� from the lawnAuthor: Helen Dillon, gardener and writer living in the Republic of Ireland

Our ever-growing heritage Editor of � e Garden, Chris Young

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With informative, topical articles, The Plantsman is the quarterly sister publica tion to The Garden.

The June 2013 issue celebrates 35 years of Plant

Heritage and and its National Plant Collections – highlights include expert writing on:✤ the diversity and beauty of herbaceous Clematis;✤ Trachycarpus palm species and growing them in the UK;✤ cultivated plant conservation and its future challenges.

To subscribe: 020 7821 3401; www.rhs.org.uk/plantsman

T H E P L A N T S M A N

With informative, topical articles, The Plantsmanis the quarterly

Comment

June 2013 | The Garden 17

much wider benefi t. � ere is a moral

Our ever-growing heritageNational

Plant Collections

pp69-72

June 2013 | The Garden 1918 The Garden | June 2013

Huge possibilities from a giant grass

Author: James Wong, botanist and garden designer

Pairing frothy fountains of plumes with a towering architectural habit, Miscanthus has earned its place as the back-of-the-border grass of choice of garden designers. But could this plant soon lead the way in the UK’s attempts to tackle climate change?

Robust, resilient and incredibly fast-growing, Miscanthus x giganteus, a sterile hybrid of two eastern-Asian species, can rocket up to 3.5m (11½ft) in a single season, even under UK conditions. The enormous amounts of biomass that these plants produce make them an ideal candidate in the hunt for new sustainable sources of renewable energy – used to fuel everything from cars to power stations.

Fermented down to brew ethanol, the leaves often out perform conventional alternatives such as maize, producing clean-burning, domestically produced liquid fuel. Being more resilient than many of the conventional biofuel options, most of which are also important edible crops, the plants can be grown on marginal land not suited to food production. Using a non-edible crop as biofuel source also neatly prevents driving up food prices – which has so far proven one of the biggest sticking points with options such as maize and sugar cane. Its sterile nature also means that its high-speed growth habit won’t risk it becoming an invasive species, as some of its relatives have proven to be in other parts of the world.

When simply dried and chopped, Miscanthus biomass can be mixed in equal quantities with coal to fuel existing power stations without the need for extensive modifications. And this is not merely pie-in-the-sky speculation – not many people know that Miscanthus is already widely used as a coal substitute in Britain. The UK Government is even planning to fuel as many as one in eight power stations with this homegrown crop in the next 20 years. A

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Free RHS podcasts - every fortnightFrom favourite scented plants, to behind-the-scenes broadcasts from RHS Chelsea Flower Show, listen to the latest RHS podcasts on iTunes or direct from your own PC.Current RHS gardening podcasts include:✤ Chelsea specials, including memorable moments from

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LettersCONTACT USWrite to: The Garden, RHS Media, Churchgate, New Rd, Peterborough PE1 1TT or email: thegarden@rhs.org.uk (please include your postal address). Letters on all gardening topics are welcome, but may be edited for publication.

Huge possibilities from a giant grass

Comment

No common groundAs a keen gardener, I welcome taking the issue of horticulture to Parliament (News Analysis, April, pp16–17). However, as a teacher of Design and Techno-logy (D�T), I am concerned that the Society is supporting the Department of Education’s proposal for horticulture to be included in the syllabus for D�T. Design & Technology and Horticulture have little in common, and D�T teachers are no more likely to be able to teach horticulture than history teachers. Including horti culture is a sop to organisations like the RHS so that the Government can claim it has responded to the Society’s demands.

Horticulture is an important subject in its own right, and it will not thrive within D�T. In fi ghting for recognition that Horticulture Matters, the RHS should oppose its inclusion in Design & Technology.Bridget Elton, London

Rural lessons� e headline ‘Horticulture lessons to enter school curriculum’ (News, April, p11) brought back happy memories. In the 1960s and 1970s I taught in a rural secondary school in Co. Londonderry, where my subject was Rural Studies – a mix of Biology, Horticulture, Agriculture and Forestry. As the school had been built in the grounds of a former mansion, we had a large walled garden with four vegetable plots, a soft fruit area, shrubs and herbaceous borders. � ere were two glasshouses – one heated and the other cold. We also had a small 6ha (15 acre) farm where we kept sheep to produce lambs, and hens to sell their eggs. Profi ts from this enterprise funded school trips or extra equipment.

It really was idyllic, and now I am retired I wonder why I gave it all up to go into business. It is good to hear that gardening is to make a return to the classroom.David A Kelly, Dundee

Breaking throughIn 2007 I broke up the concrete strip in the centre of my drive (right) to create a semi-scree bed for my Exeter garden.

I forked the larger lumps into the sandy soil beneath the drive to improve drainage. � e remaining dust and small pieces of old concrete I used to topdress the bed. In early 2008 I sowed seed in clusters of about 45cm (18in) diameter, using a range of easy-to-grow alpines with brightly coloured fl owers, such as Aubrieta, Alyssum montanum and Dianthus deltoides. I also planted Anemone blanda, dwarf tulip species, Cyclamen coum and C. hederifolium. Over the years primroses and muscari have just appeared. Later I planted Veronica armena, Saxifraga, Draba and easier-growing Androsace.

� e car does not seem to hurt the plants. So, even unpromising sites can be brightened up.Stephen Scarr, Devon

Nepeta mysteryWhile working on my feature on catmints (� e Garden, May, pp63–68), I began to wonder why Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’ has such an unsuitable name. For a plant that can reach 75cm (30in) in height, ‘low’ doesn’t seem appropriate. So I have been trying to fi nd out how the plant got its name.

It is often said that ‘Walker’s Low’ was raised in Ireland or named for the low part of an Irish garden, but these leads turn out to be dead ends. It is also said that garden writer Jane Taylor (author of Plants for Dry

Gardens) discovered the plant, but I have been unable to contact her.

If anyone can help me fi nd out how ‘Walker’s Low’ came by its name, please let me know at nepetacatmint@gmail.comGraham Rice, Northampton-shire and Pennsylvania

Rare thrift� rift (� e Garden, April, pp47–50) fl ourishes 40 miles from the sea in my garden in mid-Lincolnshire. Our village cemetery is a Site of Special Scientifi c Interest, a wildlife reserve where a rare subspecies

‘Despite the size, many areas feel human, restful and, in places, surprisingly intimate.’Phil Clayton: Hatfield House » Pages 58–63

To my surprise, the previously boisterous border plants proved successful amid the grass, perfectly tempered by the existing rough sward. Among the stars have been Persicaria amplexicaulis, Geranium ‘Ann Folkard’ and Centaurea ‘Jordy’. Their success spurred me on; additions of various Paeonia, Geranium pratense ‘Mrs Kendall Clark’ and Cirsium heterophyllum seedlings have since been added, giving an English lightness, di� erent from the familiar North American counterpart.

Bulbs are represented by Camassia leichtlinii subsp. leichtlinii and I hope to add gladiolus, colchicums and sa� ron crocuses. One source of inspiration has been those little random clumps of snow drops on roadside verges that remain undisturbed for decades, surviving on utter neglect.

Could we apply this laissez-faire gardening approach to our new-style ‘meadows’? Phylip Statner, Head Gardener, Cottesbrooke Hall and Gardens, Northamptonshire

of thrift is protected. We believe this is the only surviving UK population of Armeria maritima subsp. elongata. Until modern agricultural practices destroyed its habitats, it was widespread on the heathlands of Lincoln-shire. Isolated popula tions still exist on heaths in Germany, eastern Europe and southern Scandinavia. Its fl owerhead can reach 50cm (20in) in height, typically 30cm (12in). � e leaves are fl eshier than A. maritima and its corolla is bright rose. Towards the fl owerhead there is typically a kink in the stem. I can fi nd no evidence that this sub-species has ever been used to hybridize a taller garden thrift. See ‘An inland Armeria over-looked in Britain’ by EJ Gibbons, JE Lousley and HG Baker, Watsonia (1958) Vol 4 Part 3.David Jeff ery, Lincolnshire

Getting meadows right can be trickyIn March (Comment, p21), Mary Keen outlined the di� iculties of keeping flowering meadows looking good long-term. It prompted this reply from the Head Gardener of an RHS Partner Garden:

Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’ – how did it get its name?

Persicaria amplexicaulis

Geranium ‘Ann Folkard’

A colourful drive in Exeter.

The Olympic challenge that Mary Keen set out struck a chord with me.

Last year’s wet summer also sought to destroy my attempt at establishing a Pictorial sown meadow here at Cottesbrooke. The seed-based mix struggled with perpetual rain, so now I have been establishing a similar idea using surplus herbaceous material taken from the formal borders, inspired by the garden designer William Robinson’s use of non-natives and setting them within a ‘wild’ English planting scheme.

Harvesting Miscanthus for use as biomass fuel.

Teaching horticulture in schools: whose responsibility will it be?

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June 2013 | The Garden 21

‘We have to fi nd a way of persuading

bright children that horticulture

o� ers real opportunities.’

This time last year I found myself dismayed by a remark that the Prime Minister made claiming, or so it would appear, that gardening was not so much a

career, more the last resort of dropouts. � is year something equally bad is

happening: Horticulture (which attracts only 1 percent of students) is, with Agriculture, being downgraded, so that after 2014 their course results will no longer count in the league and performance tables of the few schools and colleges where they are off ered. Beauty and Hair Studies, which currently hold equal status with Agriculture and Horticulture, will apparently continue to be recognised. � e result of this, says the eloquent Mark � omas, Head Teacher of Brymore School, Somerset, is that at even fewer places will anyone be able to learn land-based skills. Parents who choose establishments on the basis of their

league-table results are unlikely to pick schools or colleges where some of the subjects are not rated. Mark says gloomily that French may have to become a substitute for Horticulture. How crazy is this when we need to grow more food and not less, and when gardens are one of our best tourist attractions?

While Beauty and Hairdressing ‘disciplines’ have been updated so that their standards are rigorous enough to satisfy the examiners, there are no plans to do this for land-based studies before 2018. It is a long time to wait and by that time most curriculums will have dropped the two subjects that ought to be top of everyone’s list. We currently need 60,000 people to work out of doors – from parks to nurseries,

seed suppliers to football stadiums. It is tempting to assume that examining bodies who make money from entrance fees and text books, which are the spin-off from popular subjects, regard pupils as a business. � ere are, says Mark, few horticultural text books for those studying for BTECs, because there is no money in writing them.

New directionAt a time when unemploy-ment is a worry for most teenagers, we do have to fi nd a way of persuading bright children that horticulture off ers real opportunities. One of the nicest and brightest young men I know read Psychology at the University of Bristol

but, after he had got his degree, could fi nd no work in the fi eld he had studied. While his friends got more depressed at the lack of work and stayed in bed, only rising to draw the dole, he started part-time gardening as

a way to make ends meet. He was lucky in that he found a top-class head gardener to educate him and he spent three days a week learning on the job. It was in eff ect an apprentice scheme, for which he was paid the minimum wage. � ree years of trailing his mentor

in good gardens have qualifi ed him to work on his own and he now earns a £100 a day, fi ve days a week. � at is more than £22,000 a year. In time he will be able to charge more. He loves what he does, although this winter, he admits, has been tough.

Most of us cannot aff ord full-time paid help, but I do think there is a market for peripatetic gardeners with skills, and that if schools and colleges will not off er horticul-ture there are many home gardeners who could take on the training and, more importantly still, the inspiring of teenagers. It is a satisfying career and one which many people choose later in life when their fi rst stressful jobs have taken their toll.

� at brilliant campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has already registered strong protests on the dawn BBC Radio 4 programme Farming Today about the downgrading of land-based studies. Gardeners should shout equally loudly at this continuing denigration of something that really matters – not just because we love gardening, but because this is a subject that will in time aff ect the food we eat and the quality of all the places we now enjoy.

Which subjects should stay in the league?� e Garden’s columnist and garden writer Mary Keen on downgrading horticultural education

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Print from an engraving entitled Rosa centifolia,

after an original by Pierre Joseph Redouté (1759–1840). From the

RHS Lindley Library.

Comment

Print from an engraving Rosa centifolia,

after an original by Pierre Joseph Redouté (1759–1840). From the

Comment

The RHS is committed to attracting people to horticultural careers. See Analysis, The Garden, April, pp16–17.

More from the RHS

June 2013 | The Garden 23

Comment

DO YOU AGREE?Please send your comments to: The Garden, RHS Media, Churchgate, New Road, Peterborough PE1 1TT or email thegarden@rhs.org.uk (please include your postal address). Letters may be edited for publication.

Gardeners are generally solitary souls, but we are also quite partial to occasionally coming together, sharing ideas, asking for help, or just showing off a little. As long as we can escape to our own plots at the end of the day, we can be quite sociable.

GIY Ireland (it stands for Grow It Yourself) is the brainchild of Michael Kelly, who lives in Co. Waterford, Republic of Ireland. Michael had been growing his own food for a few years when he set out to look for a local group of growers with whom to share experiences. Finding no such thing existed, he set one up in Waterford, and 100 people turned up to the fi rst meeting. Sensing a need, Michael and a friend set up groups in neighbouring towns, and then further afi eld. Now there are more than 100 GIY Groups all over Ireland, involving 12,000 people.

Last autumn I attended the annual GIY Gathering, in Waterford. It is a coming together of these groups for discussions, workshops and talks, and I found it a hugely satisfying blend of the practical (polytunnel growing, preserving food) and the political (food security, health, resilience). In short it covered every aspect of the food we put into our mouths: not just when to sow your cucumbers, but why to bother.

I spent the weekend wondering: ‘why don’t we have anything like this in the UK?’ and now we shall have. GIY UK is kicking off with a UK Gathering in Birmingham next month, featuring talks from Alys Fowler, Mark Diacono, and me, and designed to spawn supportive local groups of gardeners. I can highly recommend it as a place to awaken the vegetable-growing fi re in your belly and to be entertained and provoked into the bargain. And don’t worry, you can retire to your own shed afterwards.✤ � e inaugural GIY UK Gathering is on 20 July at the University of Birmingham; see: www.giyireland.com/pages/the_gathering_2013_uk

It is surprising – and disappointing – how often plants become objects of scorn through common use. When people refer to a ‘car park’ plant, it is rarely intended as a compliment, but why not? � e term speaks of a reliability that is not always accompanied by dreariness. Must we disdain a plant purely because it is easily and widely grown? As in life, those who muck in without complaining never get the credit they deserve.

Before we write off a plant, it is always worth consider-ing objectively what it has to off er. You may be surprised how a diff erent setting can spark a renewed appreciation of its virtues, whether of berry, leaf, habit or fl ower.

� e giant silky fl owers of pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana), witheringly dubbed ‘suburban’, may seem comical in a tiny garden – but surely a fi tting context can be found for this splendid plant? � e high-minded will run and fi nd refuge in the subtler plumes of C. richardii – a lovely and more graceful plant, indeed, but subtlety and grace are not the only virtues.

Over-willingness damages the reputation of Rhus typhina (stag’s horn sumach) but, in the right situation, its eagerness to grow becomes an additional advantage. I have one that has somehow found an invisible foothold at the base of a large yew. Its gawky stems emerge at will to an improbable height, so that the sombre face of its host is splattered inexplicably here and there with jagged, colourful leaves. It is a partnership of opposites, where each enhances the virtues of the other.

Gardens where every plant has to be cosseted can become a bore. It may be gratifying for any number of reasons to grow plants that others can’t or don’t grow, but every garden needs its stalwarts and it is important to develop the ability to view them with fresh eyes. Plantsman Christopher Lloyd was incredibly clear sighted in his assessment of a plant’s attributes, and of course he enjoyed pricking the pomposity of those who disdained the commonplace. At Great Dixter in East Sussex, for every little colony of Narcissus bulbocodium, for every venerable clump of Paris polyphylla, you might fi nd a ‘car park’ plant close by. As long as they performed for him, he loved them just the same.

Join your neighbours and get growing� e Garden columnist Lia Leendertz on a new ‘Grow It Yourself’ initiative coming to Britain

Treasure the commonplace Rory Dusoir, Head Gardener at Stud House, Hampton Court Park

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