THE PASSIONATE GARDENER
Continuing our series on those whose gardens and lives are shaped by their love of a particular plant species, we meet Sally Gregson of Mill Cottage Plants, who is keen for epimediums to become more widely known and grown
Sally Gregson on the virtues of epimediums
SALLY GREGSON GROWS EPIMEDIUMS
in her Somerset garden and sells them from her nursery, Mill Cottage Plants. She is on a mission to popularise this seemingly delicate, but actually tough and frost-tolerant, plant, especially now that many new and increasingly beautiful varieties are being introduced here from China. Her enthusiasm has also led her to write The Plant Lover’s Guide to Epimediums,
published by Timber Press. How did it all begin?
I don’t remember my first attempt at gardening, but family lore relates that, as a small child, I picked all the heads off my father’s prizewinning chrysanthemums and proudly presented them to him, saying, “I’ve brought you all the daisies”. When I got married, I started to take a real interest in gardening. Despite having a series of jobs working with charities, I kept looking out of the window, thinking that that was where I wanted to be.
So, in the early 1980s, I retrained in professional horticulture at Hadlow College in Kent as a mature student, taking a course in nursery practice (I already knew I wanted to open one) and passed a National Certificate of Horticulture with distinction.
I then worked as a propagator at a nursery that specialised mainly in ericaceous shrubs. It was a really enjoyable few years. I learnt an awful lot about running a nursery, including all the pitfalls.
When we moved to Wookey, I took an embryonic nursery with me and started a very small business on site. I could only afford a dozen cold frames and a ‘standing area’, but I expanded the nursery, re-investing profits into stock and fittings and it did quite well. I also signed up on ‘speakers lists’ to give talks – and that got me known. At first I focused mainly on my other plant interest – rare and unusual hydrangeas – but more recently I’ve turned my attention to epimediums. I hit on a treasure trove of these beautiful flowers and discovered so much about them in writing my book. It’s exciting – there are lots of gorgeous new ones around – and I get so enthusiastic about them.
What is the appeal of epimediums?
There are so many places in a shady garden where epimediums can show off their flowers, some of which are like jewels. Many are evergreen, with their new foliage and flowers carried above the old foliage. The emerging leaves are often very striking and the flowers are like dancing butterflies. There’s a huge range and, provided you pick the right sort, epimediums are very easy to grow. Some even thrive in dry shade, while others clump up in acid shade. The new Chinese forms and their hybrids are spectacular in rich soils and light shade.
Where do they come from?
Many spreading forms originate from Europe and from North African mountain ranges. The acid lovers come from Japan and the new evergreen forms have been discovered within the past 20 years in the remote valleys of Sichuan and Yunnan in China.
How are they best grown?
There are three forms of epimedium and each needs different conditions. The spreaders, including E. x perralchicum ‘Fröhnleiten’ and E. x versicolor ‘Neosulphureum’, are best planted in dry shade because it keeps them in check. In good shady soil they seek world domination! The deciduous Japanese forms, which include E. grandiflorum ‘Lilafee’, E. sempervirens and E. x youngianum ‘Merlin’, prefer an acid,