The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Plant heritage in safe hands
Where do they all come from? T h a t ’s the question on e v e r y o n e’s lips at the moment as daily we see plant pictures taking up whole pages in newspapers and magazines, inviting us to buy, buy, buy.
Granted, some of the pictures feature well - known varieties which keen gardeners will be familiar with – some of the narcissus on offer are a good example.
Ho w e v e r, we do see “new” introductions like gardenia, for example, and that is when I tend to slip in the wee reminder about doing your homework.
As I look out the window, I can see an array of plants – cotoneasters and berberis, for example – that I have known through much of my gardening life, and these same varieties are still being propagated for us to buy today.
That said, with so many enthusiasts breeding and introducing “bigger and better” variations, how do we judge if they are worthy of the name?
Answer: we have an organisation called Plant Heritage which protects plant varieties when they have been registered.
Quite separately, doing a slightly different job, the RHS has a whole range of trials at its various sites where breeders will contribute newly bred material to be judged by a panel of experts.
The Plant Heritage role is to protect existing varieties. It is quite a set-up.
I was involved in it for a year or two when I served on the NTS Gardens Advisory Committee.
One example of how it works concerns hostas.
For Beechgrove I went to see a lady in Carmunnock, just outside Glasgow, who had a fine collection of hostas.
As a result, she had been chosen by the experts at Plant Heritage to grow a representative sample of hostas, each one having been accredited as a variety with sufficient individual desirable and outstanding characteristics to make it different from all other known varieties.
It was her duty to cultivate these varieties and maintain them in such a way as to preserve their acknowledged properties as to foliage colour, size, flowering, etc.
The collection would be subject to regular inspection by a group of experts to check on its health, freedom from seedlings, etc.
Having a collection of something like 20 different kinds there was an ongoing danger that these plants might cross-pollinate, thus producing seedlings with a completely different set of characteristics.
To maintain the purity of the reference collection, these seedlings had to be destroyed.
That same collection would be duplicated in gardens of amateurs and professionals across the whole of the UK.
Plant Heritage has more than 600 of these reference garden sites in the UK, protecting the reputation of many of our garden plants.
And what if one of these hosta seedlings looked to be a rather promising and attractive “issue” from the cross- pollination – did it have to be composted? No, of course not. The trick was to move it to another garden and record its progress.
In a year or two, should it be judged significantly different, and grow well, it might then be offered up for trial as a new variety.
Meanwhile, I received notification from the RHS the other day of the latest scam.
Some people have reported receiving mystery packets of seed through the post.
I wonder if this has resulted because early on in the Covid-19 pandemic, garden centres were closed down and so gardeners turned to buying online?
It’s hard to believe, but people were receiving seeds, ordered online but marked incorrectly – peas and tomatoes, for example – but arriving labelled as necklaces.
Apparently, these came from the Far East, and one can only imagine they were so-labelled to evade border clearance.
Cases have been recorded here, in the US and in Australia, of people receiving mystery seeds they haven’t ordered.
If you have experienced this scam and would like more information, then email planthealth.info@apha.gov.uk
But let’s get back to the garden...
In our area I have noticed some of the civic displays are still full of colour, while in others, “the troops” have been busy removing the summer subjects and planting up spring replacements.
The question is often asked, what do I do with perennials?
I have already mentioned the drying and storing of tuberous-rooted begonias.
Our fuchsias have been pruned ( roots and top growth), potted up and placed in the greenhouse.
So what about geraniums, then?
Actually I will probably dispose of our geraniums because I have already rooted cuttings from the ones I liked best.
They will be overwintered with the fuchsias in the end sec tion of the glasshouse which is bubble- lined and kept frost-free.
For those of you who don’t have such a facility, lift the geraniums, prune them back and pot up.
Keep them on a windowsill and water sparingly.
If you are bold enough, there is another technique which I’m told works a treat.
Lift the plants, shake off the soil from the roots, don’ t prune, leave the entire plant, leaves and all then pack lightly on their sides in a cardboard box, one plant on top of the other.
Close the box and store in the garage or perhaps in a basement.
I suppose, come February or March, you take them out, prune back the tops, pot them up and off they go.
Apparently it works a treat.
However, I will stick to my own technique!