Better late than never!

This is usually the busiest blog of the year with plants jostling for inclusion, but this year we are three weeks later than usual due to that horrendous March into early April, and after a few very warm days last week (thankfully during which a group from the East Cheshire AGS Group visited us) it is decidely cooler once again. So its a question of looking for plants worth showing rather than deciding among the many possibilities. Normally I would have had a good range of species peonies and daphnes for our Cheshire cousins to gloat over, but on this occasion not one of either! But I suppose you win some and you loose some as the West Cheshire Group is due here on 20 May and there should be a lot more left for them to see than I had imagined when the date was fixed sometime last summer, barring a heatwave in the next three weeks of course!

Sax. 'Allendale Hobbit'

I showed a couple of Ray Fairbairn's other Allendale selections last month but one of the very best, 'Hobbit', peaks 10 days after the others. Its parentage is apparently S. lolaensis x S. poluniniana and it seems to me to be pretty well intermediate between those two choice Asian species, and much easier to cultivate. The plant shown, growing in a shallow planter, is c. 10 years old.

Jeffersonia dubia (Plagiorhegma dubium)

I love this delicate little woodlander from China and Korea because of the gorgeous shade of mauve of the fleeting flowers, which is difficult to capture accurately even in digital photographs. It is a member of the 'catchall' family Berberidaceae. I have found it to be very perennial (but also very slow to increase) in a fairly deeply shaded area in dryish woodland soil. I have never found any seed and have not dared to diivide it so advice on propagation, I have none.

Sanguinaria canadensis f. multiplex 'Plena'

The bloodroot, particularly in the wild form with single flowers has much in common with Jeffersonia, to which it is not related as it is a member of the poppy family. It has the same delicacy and the flowers are just as fleeting and delicious. I have a small clump or two of this but nothing like the ever-increasing spread of the coarser, some would say more vulgar, but I would say more imposing and durable double form. This is a very easy plant for any part-shaded position and will stand quite dry shade, although it is more imposing in a damper spot, especially after flowering when the leaves rapidly enlarge to form a lovely greyish green sub-canopy. It is easily divided after flowering and the divisions can be planted direct into their new quarters provided they are kept watered until established.  

Trillium rivale seedlings

More trilliumns continue to emerge and most are well known to you, but oh how I wish I could produce large expanses of T. grandiflorum or T. ovatum, rather than the odd plant, however beautiful. So here is a photo of interest chiefly because it shows a few seedlings raised from a single seedpod of the sleceted form of T. rivale named 'Purple Heart'. In the original clone (which I have now lost!) the purple markings on the tepals unite to form an almost solid block, but in the seedlings the marking varies as shown from almost as strong as the original to a light speckling. Nevertheless, all are beautiful and the second photo is of another selection I raised from seed many years ago; nothing special except that it is 'mine own'

Trillium kurabayashii

The original clump of this, now 15 years old, continues to expand and also produce myriads of seedlings all around itself, some with almost unmarked foliage, others with desirable heavy blotching, but all have the same deep burgundy flowers, so much better when seen against the light. I was glad to be able to dig quite a few up to give to my visitors from Cheshire. One of the things most commented upon and enjoyed by those visitors was the ever-increasing colony of mixed red and white common fritillaries (F. meleagris) in a shrub border (I haven't managed to establish them successfully in grass), all you need is time and patience, of which twin virtues most of us have very little to show as the years roll on..... 

Erythronium citrinum

The erythroniums are mostly finishing now but one of my favourites, the delicately refined E. citrinum is at its best. It is no more difficult to grow than its more boisterous relations but much less willing, at least in my experience, to clump up, so I still only have one plant and some painfully slow seedlings.

Magnolia x veitchii 'Heaven Scent'

And finally, it would be churlish not to mention our 30 foot high M. 'Heaven Scent' (bragging again, I hear you mutter), which is far too big for even this largish garden but is so astounding when in full flower that even the thought of removing it never enters our heads, There is nothing like a brilliant blue sky to have as background for this mouthwateringly beautiful pink princess.