Rare beauty The art of plant hunting lives on, with Sue and Bleddyn Wynn-Jones trialling new and unusual finds at their exotic Crûg Farm nursery in north Wales
At Crûg Farm Plants, Sue and Bleddyn Wynn-Jones trial rare and amazing plants that they have collected from around the world
Since 1991, when they took the decision to give up beef farming and open a nursery instead, Sue and Bleddyn Wynn-Jones have spent part of every year travelling the globe in search of rare and unusual plants. For the rest of the year, when not lecturing or touring plant fairs, they are busy in their nursery, Crûg Farm Plants, on the north Wales coast; a magnet for more venturesome gardeners with a taste for the exotic. Alongside the nursery, their own walled garden, is a gloriously exotic test bed for new plants, which is full of unexpected treasures. How did your interest in plant hunting come about? Bleddyn We were always big travellers but our plant hunting started with an expedition to Jordan in 1991. Since then we’ve travelled every year, and we are now one of only two organisations [the other is the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew] in England and Wales that have an ongoing scientific licence to introduce wild-collected plants. Sue Every trip is an adventure, but we don’t put ourselves at risk as we are experienced travellers. We are also well known and have made good friends and contacts who help us – there is a lot of mutual trust. They know we’re not coming to rape the countryside. The plants we collect are never sold but kept as mother plants. Bleddyn Our most productive trips have been to Vietnam and Taiwan as they had not been thoroughly botanised. In the very north of Vietnam we discovered an epiphytic lily in what was then a remote and restricted area. Another plant, a pinkflowered witch hazel relative, turned out to be a new species [ Disanthus ovatifolius, shown on page 67], a fact that was not realised until several years later. Our most successful introduction has been Schefflera taiwaniana, because of its ease of cultivation combined with its exotic, tropical-looking, but hardy, evergreen form. This plant was one of our first wild collections from the high mountain forests of central Taiwan. Would you say that travel has informed your approach to gardening? Sue Bleddyn and I enjoy the stories behind each plant – how we found them and the people we met along the way. Our garden is the keeper of so many stories. Gardening is all about combining plants for us. The shapes and textures of foliage are so important; flowers are a bonus. It’s vital to us that plants sit well together and have the right growing conditions. Bleddyn Sue always points out to our customers that flowers are wonderful, but they are only fleeting so it’s vital that the foliage is your first consideration. Do you have a favourite plant group? Sue This changes all the time but Bleddyn has planted quite a few Araliaceae. Some of the more tender ones were used from the 1850s until the First World War in bedding displays and since then have fallen out of favour. They deserve to be embraced. When is the garden at its best? Sue The garden offers something of interest all year. There are many evergreens here, so winter is just as enchanting as spring and summer. As so many of the plants have never been grown in the UK we can expect the unexpected and this is all part of the pleasure of this garden for Bleddyn and me. What would you like visitors to your garden to take away from their visit? Sue We’d like them to feel as if they’ve been on a journey. It’s wonderful to see how surprised and inspired they are by it. USEFUL INFORMATION Address Crûg Farm Plants, Griffith’s Crossing, Caernarfon, Gwynedd LL55 1TU. Tel 01248 670232. Web crug-farm.co.uk Open April to September, ThursdaySaturday, 9.30am-4.30pm.
1 Gunnera killipiana Large, palmate leaves and spikes of red flowers. Grow in a moist, but freely drained compost or soil out of strong sun, protecting the centre of the plant from hard frosts. 2.5m x 3m. RHS H4, USDA 8a-12†. 2 Daphniphyllum macropodumHardy evergreen small tree or shrub, with oblong-shaped, dark-green leaves held on red stems. Red flowers in spring turn to blue-black fruit in late summer when pollinated. Grow in light shade in a moisture-retentive soil. 6m x 5m. RHS H4, USDA 7a-9b. 3 Holboellia brachyandra A woody-stemmed, evergreen, twining climber. Produces large, purple-tinted, white (both male and female) scented flowers in April, followed by edible, sausage-shaped, purple fruits in late summer. Requires good soil and a sheltered site. 5m x 5m. USDA 8a-10a. 4 Lindera obtusiloba Deciduous shrub. In spring its bare branches are smothered in yellow flowers. Bright-green leaves take on incredible colour in autumn. Red-black fruits found on the female plants. Grow in sun to part shade in acid-neutral soil. 6m x 6m. AGM*. RHS H5, USDA 6a-9b. 5 Exbucklandia tonkinensis A rare and tender plant that is not easy to grow and requires careful siting, but a wonderful evergreen member of the witch hazel family with large, scalloped juvenile foliage, emerging bronze. 6 Pittosporum illicioides var. angustifoliumHardy, evergreen, scented shrub, with dark-green foliage, 20cm in length. Grow in full to part shade with shelter from freezing winds in a drained soil. Leaves will elongate more in shade than in sun. 3m x 3m. RHS H5, USDA 7b-9a. 7 Lindera triloba One of the best autumn colouring shrubs in the yellow spectrum. Like the other Lindera, it is smothered in yellow, lightly scented flowers before the foliage, but has a more elegant disposition. 3m. USDA 7a-9b. 8 Holboellia latifolia subsp. chartacea Potentially, the hardiest form of this species, with vigorous, woody-stemmed, semi-evergreen, twining climber. Dark-pink to bluish (male) and lilac-pink (female) scented flowers are followed by edible purple fruit. Best grown in a sheltered site. 6m x 6m.
9 Saxifraga ‘Kinki Purple’Hardy, evergreen, ground-cover perennial. Forming carpets of rounded, softly bristled purple leaves. White flowers from June to October. Partial to full shade in moist but drained soils. 40cm x 1m. RHS H4, USDA 7a-10b. 10 Polyspora longicarpa Virtually unknown in cultivation. Closely related to Camellia, but with larger and bolder foliage that is both very glossy and serrated. Produces large white flowers from October to April. 11 Schefflera taiwaniana Crûg Farm’s most successful introduction and an easily grown hardy plant. The large, multi-stemmed shrub has leaves held on long, red or purple petioles, and greenish flowers in late summer that mature to purple fruit by the spring. 3-4m x 2.5m. AGM. RHS H4, USDA 7b-10a. 12 Streptopus amplexifolius Tuberous perennial forming tight clumps from short creeping rhizomes, with arching stems 50cm to 1m long. Pendent creamy bells are borne from May to July, followed by red berries in autumn. Grow in a well-drained, humus-rich soil, in shade. 50cm x 50cm. USDA 3a-8b. 13 Illicium merrilianum Closely related to the culinary species of star-anise (which is too tropical for the UK), this species has starry red flowers from May to July followed by similar star-shaped seed capsules (sadly poisonous, as are all the temperate species). 6m. USDA 3a-8b. 14 Disanthus ovatifolius Another member of the witch hazel family, with ribbon-like, pink-red petals in spring. Found growing in moist soil in good light, this large, semi-evergreen shrub, has heart-shaped foliage that emerges as a strong purple colour then fades to green. New to cultivation. 15 Paris incompleta Short, upright stems, bearing narrow, pale-green leaves topped by a petalless green flower, arise from slender, slowly creeping, branching rhizomes to form dense colonies over time. Best in shade and humus-rich, drained soil. 16 Carpinus rankanensis A rare, but colourful hornbeam from Taiwan, which has pointed pleated leaves that are longer than the more familiar hornbeam and emerge a bronze colour.