Spring’s woodland delights
‘Colonies of mostly white, star-shaped flowers, with hints of pink or blue
Avondale Nursery, Coventry, Warwickshire Wood anemones decorate the forest floor under deciduous trees when the dawn chorus is at its most glorious. Jacky Hobbs meets a specialist whose collections inspire admiration and exchange
Nurseryman Brian ellis has an unquenchable thirst for collecting and collating rare and unusual herbaceous plants. His orderly nursery, avondale, on the outskirts of Coventry in Warwickshire, draws likeminded plant hunters and collectors from across the country and beyond. In search of rich pickings, clients often come armed with their own rarities, hoping for a mutually beneficial plant exchange. The nursery’s national Collection status helps to draw like-minded anemone specialists, as well as curious customers from the adjoining garden centre.
Mr ellis has organised many of his plants in a ‘Library Garden’, in a meticulous, but aesthetically pleasing fashion (his earlier art-school training is apparent); he catalogues and labels each entry, allowing visitors to be inspired by a wide range of living plants. However, the national Collection of Anemone nemorosa is kept in pots, which are easier to exhibit in the nursery area and protect true specimen identities.
In the wild, wood anemones spangle deciduous woodland glades and dappled banks right across europe. Colonies of mostly white, star-shaped flowers, with occasional hints of pink or blue and eggyellow stamens, are held aloft in ruffs of dissected green foliage, before leafing trees cast shade and anemones retreat to lie dormant until the following spring.
They’re low and shallow growing, merely 6in tall, but they spread rapidly; the slender rhizomes seemingly rustle through the friable
Many of these named cultivars were found naturally occurring in the wild
layer of organic matter directly below fallen leaf litter, creating a matted, interwoven carpet of flowers. ‘Historically, wild animals and people trampling the earth as they foraged for food would snap the rhizomes with their feet, only to create an additional array of new plantlets,’ explains Mr Ellis, who propagates his more precious and colourful cultivars in a similar fashion.
He takes root cuttings and these flower more readily than seed-sown plants, which take five years to bloom. This vegetative propagation is also essential for more complicated, pollen-sparse double forms, which are difficult or impossible to propagate from seed.
There are more than 70 named, and therefore RHS registered, cultivars of Anemone nemorosa, but Mr Ellis has more, having tracked down in excess of 80 different specimens, some inevitably unnamed so far. ‘An unnamed specimen is not officially recognised, so, potentially, it could be lost from circulation,’ he warns— to help protect and preserve unique anemones, he’s named and registered a particularly attractive anemone-centred specimen, Salt and Pepper.