Historical gardening event of the week: 17 April, 1951
BACK in the 1970s I was a student at the RHS Garden, Wisley, Surrey, and I well remember tales from the older staff members of the ‘scary’ Francis Hanger. He was Wisley’s curator from 1946 until his death in 1961. He had been a commanding figure, and staff and students alike would quiver at the thought of him emerging from behind some massive rhododendron or other, and scolding them about the way they were doing something.
One member of staff, the late Colin Martin, who tended the model vegetable gardens when I was a student, once asked Mr Hanger for a pay rise. After a few months, he received an extra penny per week. A year later Colin asked again, but only got a half-penny per week rise that time! And these weren’t the Dark Ages – this was 1957!
Anyway, Francis Hanger was one of the most knowledgeable plantspeople of the post-war years and, when not being strict with his staff, he would love to breed exotic plants and bulbs. On 17 April, 1951, he exhibited a bright, velvety-red hippeastrum that he had raised, and called ‘Francis’. The RHS judges immediately recognised it as something special and, on its first ever outing, it was given an Award of Garden Merit.