March 9, 2008

Thoughts

Makeovers: are they wrecking our gardens?
Fads, Chelsea Flower Show and other things.
The ephemeral garden.
Genetic integrity.
When a garden plant becomes an introduction or alien in our native flora.
Conservation, Biodiversity and Gardens.
British Snippets
Ladybirds
How many of today's new introductions will still be with us in fifty years time?
The colour yellow!
The Rio Convention and its consequences for horticulture.
Propagating from seed cultivars - problems!
How long do plants we grow in our gardens live for?
Global Warming - Fact or Fiction?
Paris polyphylla and other things!
Shows and medals
Whatever happened to the joys of an English (British?) spring?
'Odds and ends'
Worthy garden plants?
Blepharocalyx - a horticultural conundrum
A cardinal rule for successful cultivation?
Perfect Vegetables.
RHS, Chelsea Flower Show, sustainability, CBD, peat and anything else one can think of!
What do we mean by 'hardiness'?

Makeovers: are they wrecking our gardens?

Eric Robson, chairman of Radio 4's Gardener's Question Time in the Daily Mail and quoted in a number of tabloids considers that makeover programmes such as Ground Force, are encouraging people to take their power tools outside - with appalling results. Charlie Dimmock and her ilk "peddle the fiction that gardening can be innocent" - that you can rip up your "innocent suburban garden" and redecorate it as if it were a sitting room. The kind of blandly pretentious designs they favour are springing up every-where:"the decking, the blue gravel, the solitary plant shivering by the obligatory water feature". It isn't just ugly: it is hopelessly short-termist. A garden that develops slowly, acquiring detail and depth over the years, will provide pleasure for generations. The current "plague" of decking, by contrast, "will soon be to gardens what avocado suites are to bathrooms".

I am afraid that gardening is caught up in society's materialistic needs. TV programmes tend to pander to the lowest common denomination, they need viewers for their ratings - to make money. It is "easy" popular TV to make over someone's garden, a form of voyeurism for the viewers and perhaps something that they can relate to. Think of all the small patches of undeveloped gardens at the backs of modern houses, whose owners have not a clue what to do. Maybe it is better than doing nothing and what could Charlie Dimmock realistically do in a couple of days?

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Fads, Chelsea Flower Show and other things.

Fads are a real problem in gardening - Hostas, Grasses, Bamboos, Ferns, naturalistic gardens, rusty bits of iron work and so on. It is just like so many things in society, clothes, houses, what car you own - it is our expectations, our aspirations that money allows us to indulge in. Humans have always been like this. Last year (2003) I was lucky enough to be involved with one of the exhibits in the Chelsea Flower show and was able to gain entry for four days before its official opening, from Thursday to Sunday. A fantastic experience in more ways than one. Whilst on one hand I feel Chelsea is out of this world, it allows you to see a wide range of styles of gardens, the latest sundries, different unusual plants, interesting people; on the other it is a money making exercise. There is a lot of snobbery, but that is true in gardening in general in certain circles. Thank heavens there are some "normal" gardeners around more than ready to impart their knowledge and plants without the mention of money. I suppose it must be up to the individual to decide what gardening is to him or her. One man's meat is another's poison. For me as long as I can put the "money" aspect of Chelsea to one side, it is a wonderful experience. Even though you may disagree with certain aspects, it has at least made you think what is important to you personally. Thank heavens I do not make a living out of gardening, I just succeed in spending inordinate amounts on my obsession! I believe that there is still a lot of scope for educating people to realise that gardens are an extremely important refuge for wildlife and not suggesting that everyone produces natural gardens (what are those?), one can do some simple things to encourage our flora and fauna and increase what is an artificial biodiversity. A lot more emphasis could be placed here and so very easily. Think what the effect on wildlife would be across the country is all back gardens were "designed" with wild life in mind - even the smallest patch! There would be thousands of acres (sorry hectares - I am old!) involved.
Again, 2005, I have been fortunate to work on one of the stands - the Eden Project - 'Global Warming'. What are the trends this year? - perhaps yellow is the overriding colour and most try a naturalistic approach, but the word biodiversity and sustainability is still somewhat a dream in this exceedingly expensive business!
Diarmuid Gavin this year has behaved himself almost to the letter of the very exacting rules, but instead of 'balls' and 'pods', we now seem to be going through a 'teletubbies' phase surrounded by English lavender that has not flowered! We seem to have lost Bunny Guinness from the Show; pity and one hopes it is not due to bad feelings.
How much money and man sorry - person power can you spend on a garden? The Shaikh Zayed excels at spending money - the spare plants not used - wow! The Seville's Garden is one for the aristocracy - maybe not, perhaps it will be emulated by our noveaux-rich! The Merrill Lynch seems to be carrying on its usual trends. The Laurent Perrier Garden - 'Trentham Awakes' is nice but is it sustainable, would it survive in the real world?
Of those that are more truly Eco friendly, perhaps one would be more impressed with Ellen Landscape Designs, 'Moat and Castle Eco-Garden'. The good news is that this could be yours for around £25,000 - cheap compared to most here. It would genuinely encourage wildlife; maybe its the celtic blood that is closer to nature, trust the Irish - well done! The Landlab Ltd - 'The Boreal Forest Garden' is interesting but the plants would soon die in the South of England. I have visited the Taiga - boreal forest in Alaska and this does not remind me of what I saw. It is perhaps more akin to a Northern Scottish garden - is it meant to be a garden or just get the publics attention to the plight of what is going on in this environmentally sensitive ecosystem? If it is meant to be a garden for the public to create, it really is unsuitable, unless of course you live in Alaska!
The Cancer Research UK Garden is something I could live with, but that is me. Gardens are a very personal thing and Chelsea is the place to push the boundaries; a few do, the majority do not and seem to stick with the present trends. There is a fine line being between trite and good garden design, but today's designs must mar themselves with biodiversity and sustainability and not just a passing nod at this. Some gardens remind me of gardens I used to win first prize in my preparatory school on the top of a cake tin costing to all intents and purposes, nothing, except here the scale and money spent can at time be almost obscene. Should some sort of limit be set to what one can spent on these gardens?
Gardens in Chelsea are just a snapshot in time; real gardens evolve, every month a garden changes and sometimes hard decisions have to be made to 'maintain' an overall style. If I do not remove some branches of the Acers in 'My Garden' areas will become too shady and too dry with important consequences. This is one major difference between your gardens and Chelsea gardens. Only a few gardens in Chelsea would actually 'survive' with minimal maintenance, some are just madness - a garden of lavender and box - what would that look like in two years time and for most of the year it would just be a mass of green. Yes, it would have a sensory aspect with its smell. These show gardens should be realistic for gardeners to be able to use some of the ideas effectively.
As Christopher Stocks in The Independent on Sunday (21 May 2006) points out 'But the image Chelsea gives of gardening is, in many ways, a misleading one. - What all this proves is that proper gardening is a long-term process.' Trends this year - you guessed it, the environment, water shortages and sustainability.

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The ephemeral garden.

What happens to "My Garden" when I die? A hard question with a depressing answer. The chance of anyone taking over this garden and looking after it so that it gently evolves as time goes by, is realistically remote. This website, if I don't pay for the space on the server and pay every two years for the domain name will disappear! There is no answer apart from sharing your plants with others, at least this will allow one aspect of continuity. All my other gardens I have created as I have moved from one part of the country to another no longer exist. The future of personal garden sites may well turn out to be even more ephemeral in this virtual world than "real" gardens.
A good example of this problem is illustrated with A.T. Johnson's book "A Woodland Garden" (1937) at Rowen in the Conway valley opposite Bodnant. This was a really wonderful garden, a plantsman's dream, full of unusual plants. The last paragraph of the book states "It has given us a panacea for the stress of life, a refuge kindly and unfailing from the knocks of an oftimes rude and noisy world. And the essence of that comforting respite is that touch with the fundamental things of the common earth, the eternal yet simple things of the common earth, the eternal yet simple things of beauty and peace whose "fostering star", it is our prayer, this garden may for all time keep." The garden is sadly no more and that is true for the majority of private gardens. The chance of another gardener taking over and continuing is a possibility almost as remote as winning the lottery.

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Genetic integrity.

As soon as we plant seedlings of a plant from any source, including from the wild, we immediately select a genotype. It will not be the same as the original plant! So if you ever reintroduce a species back to the wild, the genetic integrity will not be the same as the original plant. This does happen unfortunately, but how important is this?
It certainly worries me that for example I have planted Chrysosplenium davidianum, C. languinosum v. formosanum, C. macrostemon v. shiobarense in close proximity to our wild species C. oppositifolium, occurring naturally in this garden. Am I being irresponsible? How much interchange of genetic material is taking place? It could be the Hyacinthoides non-scripta, H. hispanica story all over again - the "genetic pollution" of native species with foreign species. So what you might say? The problem really is that the final outcome is totally unpredictable. Is it worth such a risk? and this is one of the basic problems with G.M. crops; the scientific principles are the same.

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When a garden plant becomes an introduction or alien in our native flora.

This is a considerable problem; the majority of horticultural introductions present no problems which is just as well. Most introduced plants cannot compete with our native flora. However we are still introducing species from all over the World. How much care do we take? Not enough I would argue. Genera such as Polygonum, Pedastites, Epilobium, Heracleum should be all treated with great suspect. It is highly irresponsible to release some of these plants into the horticultural trade. The trouble is that they are being released right now. It seems quite easy to obtain a licence from DEFRA as a bone fide person to bring in plants/seeds into this country and once you have that licence you can import anything except what is on the banned list. The banned list is concerned mainly with commercial crops. There should be a lot more species even genera on that banned list. DEFRA should be far more careful as they are in New Zealand. Look at the distribution of the fungus responsible for sudden oak death. The maps on their website says it all, three hundred + plant nurseries with infections - how has this happened? This is symptomatic of our lax attitudes on the commercial and professional side of things. I wonder when things will change - if ever.

A recent DEFRA report (2003) gave costs for eradication of aliens - £0.7 million for Floating Pennywort (Hydrocotyle ranunculoides), £100 million for Giant Hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) and £1.56 billion for Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica). Sycamore (Acer pseudocampestre), European Gorse (Ulex europeaus) are not native - do we get rid of these? and at what cost? Rhododendron ponticum, which is so prevalent around here, has been controlled in some woodlands, but there will be considerable ongoing costs as it is never completely got rid of in nearby areas. In Blaenau Ffestiniog Rhododendron ponticum is one of the few angiosperms that stabilises to some extent, the slate tips around the town. Is this a "bad" alien in this context increasing the biodiversity of an otherwise very sterile man made environment! Epilobium brunnescens has been introduced as an alpine plant in the 1940's, now it is rampant on our mountains and on walls at lower levels. No one makes a fuss about this and it is still spreading. Control of this species would make Japanese Knotweed pale into insignificance! What about Canadian Pondweed (Elodea canadensis)? The list is endless. There are many native species which can be as aggressive or even more so than the "aliens" mentioned above.

If we want to control these, once an alien has begun to spread outside where they were originally planted, it is already too late. Literally shutting the stable door after the horse has fled! I would ask the question why we are bothering to "control" some of these species e.g. Japanese Knotweed - it is an excellent source of nectar for honey bees and in our area is an important plant for bees. Some of these decisions to "eradicate" some of these species is political - if you are one of these companies being paid to do this it must make some people millionaires, because there will always be Japanese Knotweed to get rid of! Going back to my original point, their entry into this country must be controlled very carefully by DEFRA, without this we have to accept these "aliens" and new ones in the future as a part of our ecosystems - depressing.

An article which expresses somewhat similar views can be found can be found in the BSBI News ed. L. Wolstenholme & G. Ellis April 2004 No.96. pages 41 - 42. To quote David Pearson "There is no alien crisis. There is a lack of traditional management - traditional in the sense that it created and nurtured the landscape that we seem to protect. It seems totally negative and unrealistic to maintain the charade of natives "good" and aliens "bad", especially when, to my knowledge, no - one has tried to put the invasiveness of aliens into any rational context. How much invasiveness is bad? Why are invasive natives completely ignored in this judgment?" I am afraid it revolves around the making of money for companies controlling the "favoured?" few. It is in their interests to create this hysterical media hype about the few they try (unsuccessfully) to control. To them it is worth millions and for them a very bright future!
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10th June - an interesting article in HorticultureWeek "Report blames disease increase on exotic trend" - New Scientist warns of further outbreaks of plant diseases in an article that accuses the gardening industry of "killing the planet" through insufficient checks. New Scientist reported that Phytophthora ramorum is part of a potentially devastating plant disease caused by global trade in exotics.
Forest Research emeritus mycologist Clive Brasier said the arrival of more Phytophthoras is inevitable. NS associate editor Stephanie Pain reported: "Today almost every one's small plot is filled with exotics. This obsession has created a multi-billion-dollar global industry and risk of importing lethal pathogens is far higher. Perhaps the only way to prevent future outbreaks is to restrict the movement of plants and return to local production. Specialist nurseries could propagate from small quantities of licensed and quarantined material" HTA director general David Gwyther said: " To control global trade rather than invest in science and import controls, which is DEFRA's job, is wrong. DEFRA has to ensure the effectiveness of import controls".
My own comments - its not only fungi that we need to worry about!
To paraphrase the New Scientist article (5th June 2004, p.5) "they point out the care that will be taken when NASA plans to collect a sample of Martian soil where it will be taken to a bio safety level-4 lab, the sort where deadly viruses such as Ebola are handled. However closer to home we move millions of plants from one continent to another with scant regard for the health of other ecosystems. Species that evolved together tend to achieve a balance; left in their natural habitat, most pathogens cause mild disease in their hosts. Let them loose among strange species and they can turn into serial killers.
Almost every serious epidemic of plant disease, from potato blight to Dutch elm disease and now sudden oak death, was the result of moving infected plants or timber around the world.
The main risk comes from the plant trade as there is a vast industry designed to feed the insatiable demand from gardeners for exotics from all over the world. The safe guards to prevent pathogens spreading are in place, but obviously do not work. The main problem most of the pathogens are unknown to science so do not feature on any quarantine schedule.
The simplest way to stop all this is to stop the mass transport of plants altogether. Retailers would have to switch to locally produced plants, grown from "clean material" propagated from seeds or cell cultures, or from small numbers of quarantined plants. Prices would inevitably soar. But what price our native ecosystems?"
Thank heavens there are some people in this world concerned about such matters! but as you can see from summaries of the two articles, the Horticultural trade wants DEFRA to be more vigilant rather than go down the road of local guaranteed disease free stock as the New Scientist quite rightly points out. DEFRA cannot identify pathogens unknown to science. However you can understand why the Horticultural trade is not interested in the correct alternative - money!

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Conservation, Biodiversity and Gardens.

At times I think I am a lone voice in the concept of making our gardens wildlife friendly, but there are some developments that give one some hope for the future. After wandering through so many "closed" web sites that do give information on this topic but are totally impossible to contact, or if you do manage, they will not answer you, it was heartening to see that the RHS in it's May issue (2004) of The Garden (vol. 129, part 5) has turned practically the whole issue over to the issue of biodiversity and gardens.
The RHS are to be congratulated on bring together some of the leading scientists and gardeners who are leading the way on this topic. Articles included in this issue were "BUGS in the borders" - Does wildlife live in urban gardens? ; "Gardening with a conscience" - Environmental issues to consider; "Globally planned, locally implemented" - Biodiversity Action Plans explained; "Artistic ecology" - Wildlife gardening in the Netherlands; "Grasping the nettle" - Attracting wildlife into the garden; "Heaps of enthusiasm" - The Community Composting Network; "By design, naturally" - Creating gardens for wildlife; "In Conversation" - Wildlife gardeners exchange views; and others.
Out of all of these very important articles perhaps one of the most important is work done by a group of scientists from the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences Sheffield University on the BUGS project - Biodiversity in Urban Gardens in Sheffield. 61 gardens were selected for this intensive study of their plants and their flying and crawling invertebrates. A range of types of gardens were studied from the tiny to the large, some in the middle of Sheffield , some close to countryside.
What was found was that in an area equal to no more than two football pitches, they found 1,176 different plants - more than two-thirds of the native British flora, of these just under a third were native. The most important native plants were weeds, big gardens had more species. 38,484 individual invertebrates were counted and 786 were named.
As the authors point out, there is a fairly fixed set of beliefs about garden wildlife. Wildlife gardening only works in big gardens and is not relevant to small, city-center gardens; wildlife gardens are hard work and untidy; and plants for wildlife have to be native, not exotic species and garden cultivars.
Results from this study gave little or no support for these beliefs. The main conclusion was that all gardens are good for wildlife, whether managed in a specifically "wildlife-friendly" way or not. Across all the different groups of animals, a single pattern stood out - the importance of trees. Gardens with more trees had more beetles, woodlice, millipedes, social swaps etc. The sheer diversity from trees hinted at the many ways in which trees encourage wildlife.
In this study, they were able to study some possible ways of encouraging wildlife. Included were artificial nest sites for solitary bees and wasps, others for bumblebees, dead wood for fungi and insects, and patches of nettles for butterfly larvae. Conclusions were - piles of birch logs provided habitats for a wide range of creatures - planting nettles is ineffective - nests for bumblebees were totally unsuccessful - inexpensive insect nest boxes worked well for solitary bees and wasps.
Quoting the final sentence -"Give up pesticides and plant a tree (or even better a small copse) otherwise garden however you like, and you will still be doing your bit for garden wildlife."
There you are, this work says it all - get hold of the whole article and read it and also look at their web site for more details - www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/bugs and even more important follow their advice!
What has been written here has been paraphrased or copied by kind permission from Professor K. Thompson, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, Sheffield University.
Giving up pesticides completely would cause problems - Polygonatums would have their leaves totally stripped. Rhododendrons would be badly affected by scale insects. What is the answer? Don't grow these genera might be the simplest solution, but life isn't quite that simple!

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British Snippets - with apologies to Noel Kingsbury.

Interesting article in Hortus No. 70 Summer 2004 - Noel Kingsbury's Snippets - "the Snippets are very much a 'letter from America'" many of the comments can be transferred to us in Britain. How about:

B is for Bleddyn Wynn-Jones and his good and very tolerant wife Sue with their now World famous Crug Farm Plants. This is the equivalent of D is for Dan Hinkley who is the North-West's garden guru with the almost exact mirror image nursery on the other side of the World - Heronswood. The ethos of both nurseries, plants and people involved are basically the same. They go on joint plant hunting expeditions. The plants they have to offer in their nurseries are practically the same - mostly shade-loving temperate woodland plants. Crug is part of the North Wales "Bermuda Triangle" of "Hortisexuals" paradise - AberConwy Nursery, Crug and Rickards. If your pockets have not been emptied, you are not a true plantaholic and certainly the back of your car will be overflowing and someone will have to find their way back home on the train!!

C is for Crugaholics. The British equivalent of the Hortisexuals, who are a group of connoisseur-gardeners from across North America who say they "share a mutual admiration of the eccentric and a disdain for the convention" or, alternatively, "get turned on by plants". We have the equivalent and I admit to being one of them, who, are completely hooked on Crug Farm Plants.

I is for Ivy, specifically "English" Ivy, Hedera helix, which has run rampant through native forest, smothering trilliums and other native woodlanders as it goes. Unfortunately the same is true in "My Garden". It is allowed to climb trees and a couple of patches are allowed to flower, elsewhere it is a real nuisance and one attempts to remove it whenever the opportunity arises. Snowdrops and Ivy do not go well together.

M is for Martin Richards - expert on ferns and ferns for gardens. He is famous for his Nursery - Rickards Ferns which is now sadly closed, but the name and expertise has been more than ably continued by Dick Hayward in the nursery of the same name located near Bangor at Carreg-y-Fedwen, Sling, Tregarth, Gwynedd - +44 01248 602944; Fax: +44 01248 600385; Evenings: +44 01286 677641. Martins book on ferns is an essential book on growing ferns in British Gardens - a reference book - Rickards, M. 2000/1/2. The Plantfinder's Guide to Garden Ferns. David & Charles (UK). ISBN 07153 08068 (hardback) / 0 7153 1536 6.

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Ladybirds

Where have our ordinary ladybirds gone this year (2004)? Only 1 has been recorded in this garden, locally similar numbers have been noted. This is a real population collapse and may explain the plague of aphids during the early part of the season. These were controlled by the hoards of wasps that became a feature of most of this country during recent months.
Even more worrying is the first report on the 19th of September, of the harlequin ladybird, Harmonia axyridis, which has been used for biological control of aphids, but spells disaster for a range of insects including butterflies, lacewings and many other ladybirds. It looks totally different to our native species and is easily identified. If you see such a ladybird please contact Dr. Majerus of the Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, who is monitoring the situation. More details on the RHS website.

	Harmonia axyridis spectabilis	Harmonia axyridis succinea	Harmonia axyridis conspicua

March 15th 2005 - A census is being launched today to try and ascertain the spread of this alien across the UK. Since the above paragraph was written last year, it seems to have been sighted across much of the South East. Join in this Harlequin Ladybird census and submit your information online as ladybirds come out of their dormancy. Yet another example of what happens because of our very lax (almost non-existent) quarantine regulations with Europe - DEFRA again! If you see ladybirds with the very characteristic head markings, make sure you fill in the online survey above. Enjoy our native ladybirds as you watch them become very rare or extinct - crazy!

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How many of today's new introductions will still be with us in fifty years time? Here today gone tomorrow?

A book that I bought recently (10th October 04) gives us some clues as to this question. 'Plants for the Connoisseur' by Thomas Hay, 1938, Putnam gives a listing of his experiences of testing rare and interesting plants around the turn of the centaury. This is the complete listing:

Whilst not saying that this is representative of anything, it does give an insight into how some garden plants have survived over the years. What makes a good garden plant? What determines whether a species continues in gardens? Some of the above species have changed their name and this complicates checking whether they are still in cultivation. Those that definitely are are coloured red. It also begs the question about the future of some new introductions we buy as plantaholics/hortisexuals.

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The colour yellow!

Am I the only one that likes the colour yellow?! Yellow I am told is a colour that never sells, yet the 'trend' in Chelsea Flower Show 2005 for colour scheme designs was yellow! This year in the garden for well over a month, late July through August the combination of reds and yellows of Patrinia scabiosifolia with Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Mrs Geoffrey Howard’ and Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Solfatare’ have been stunning especially with the evening light shining through them. Even though the Patrinia has acidic yellow flowers, I have been completely enthralled by this evening after evening- how can anyone hate yellows!

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The Rio Convention and its consequences for horticulture.

The idea of this Convention (Convention on Biological Diversity - CBD - 1992/3) which is part of the aims of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, is that the plants growing in a country belong to that country. That country has sovereign rights over their genetic resources and biodiversity. If you take plants, parts of plants, seed, or even photographs you need the permission of that countries' government to do so. Permission from a land owner, University or Botanic Garden will not suffice. If you do get permission and sell the plant or use the plant to obtain drugs and therefore make money, you must send a percentage back as royalties to the originating government or initiate some scheme where that country can benefit (the 'grand bargain'). 90% of the countries in the World including the EU have demonstrated a commitment to implementing the principles set out in the CBD. There have been six meetings so far and the last in 2002 has resulted in a Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. In theory this is an excellent idea and highly commendable as it should help with conservation 'bio-piracy' and the economies of the countries involved.

What does this mean if you go abroad and collect plants and want to bring them back to the UK? What does this mean for all our keen plant persons keen to grow some exotica from a far flung country from a wonderful forest or remote mountain top? For those countries who have signed up to CBD, it simply means you won't be able to enjoy such new treasures. Not legally at least. The only body who legally import such material into this country is Kew Gardens and some Botanic Gardens. They, however, will not distribute any potentially good garden plants, they cannot. This would immediately involve royalties for them and this is why they will not allow horticulture and therefore gardeners, to benefit from their world wide collecting. It means that wild collected plants cannot be collected by you. Unless you can do what Kew does, that is have an agreement with the particular government concerned, and of course satisfy DEFRA's regulations which are almost almost impossible (have you got quarantine facilities acceptable to DEFRA?). As far as I know, there is just one UK Nursery that satisfies DEFA's regulations and imports a few live plants both from the wild and nurseries abroad (outside the EU). Most of the plants are collected as seed by this nursery and it seems that unless these seeds belong to species listed under CITES (very outdated lists of banned species) or are banned by DEFRA, as long as they are 'clean' you can bring into this country anything and any quantity you like.

I am not sure whether the RHS has really caught up with these latest developments, their policies still state 'it welcomes the responsible introduction of plants new to horticulture.......ideally only small quantities of seed should be collected from large and healthy populations........strongly encourage propagation of wild collected and endangered plants in cultivation......important that plants or seeds raised in cultivation are made available to deter both illegal and excessive legal collections from the wild.' This is paraphrased from the RHS policy statements for wild and endangered plants in cultivation. There is no mention of all the paperwork tracking origins of plants and agreements with foreign countries that all the UK Botanic Gardens now have agreed to and it is complicated ( Material Transfer Agreements; MTA, Mutually Agreed Terms, MAT; Prior Informed Consent, PIC).

Steven Lacy in one of his Saturday Telegraph Gardening articles does broach this thorny problem. To quote the article 'British gardening seems to have acquired a spanner in its works. Over the centuries, wild plants from far-flung continents, collected both by professional plant-hunters and amateur enthusiasts, have been pouring freely into our gardens. These introductions have not only enriched our borders and glasshouses but also helped to stimulate great changes of style, from rose-filled cottage gardens, wacky Victorian bedding schemes and exotic, rhododendron woodlands to the naturalistic meadow and gravel plantings of today...... It is ironic, therefore, that the flow of wild-collected plants into British horticulture should now be in danger of being reduced to a trickle thanks to new international agreements on plant conservation...... Bleddyn Wynn-Jones, who runs the mouthwatering Crûg Farm Plants nursery near Caernarfon, North Wales, is one of our best-known modern day plant-hunters...'Most of the plants I introduce from collected seed sell in small numbers and since you can't get plant-breeder's rights on wild plants, I can't earn any royalties on them myself, let alone pass them on. Collecting is an expensive process and it would be prohibitive for me to spend large amounts on legal contracts, never mind wading through the bureaucracy,' he says. 'Already my plants are being blacklisted by Kew and other institutions, because I'm not following the strictest interpretation of the rules.'
'There are real challenges in adapting to the convention,' admits Kate Davies, Kew's CBD specialist. 'It is a big culture change, but one which Kew fully supports.' She acknowledges, however, that the agreements Kew now strikes often preclude the distribution of potentially exciting garden plants to the public.

Guy Sisson on his original Plantsman web site had an environmental policy on wild collecting under the heading 'Collecting plants in the wild'. To quote 'There is in my opinion a lot of nonsense talked about giving money back to the country where plant material is collected. On the whole (orchids being one exception and there are others) the type of material which is of interest to our nursery has no commercial value in its country of origin, and is not propagated there for ornamental purposes. My trip itself generates income for guides/drivers/hotels/government etc. which is money which would otherwise not be brought into that country. Lastly on this subject I would like to report about a scheme for a charity which I wanted to set up but which for reasons which follow was impossible. After my second and third trip to India I was struck by a paradox one day, that although school is free in India for all children regardless of class/caste/income etc. many children were unable to attend from the shanty districts because they couldn't buy the pencils and paper and books needed to attend the classes. How could any young child better himself without the chance of education in such a society? I was struck by the relatively small amount of funds needed to pay for this basic equipment and thought that if a small percentage of sales from each plant sold on the nursery here in the UK (If the original plant material had been collected in India) was donated to a fund scores of children would have the ability to learn and attend school. This may seem somewhat naive but in essence it seems a relatively easy act to perform. However, the idea was not feasible due to the wholly corrupt society that exists within the "charity system". It proved impossible to find someone who was honest to perform the simple task of distributing pencils and paper without operating some scam to extract money. Unless I had personally been on site and in charge it was an impossible task. It maybe that when the right person presents themselves I will try again but it is a sad fact that such a good simple idea should fail due to human nature'.

Plant Delights Nursery - Plant Exploration - A Personal Perspective by Tony Avent. This is his attitude to these problems discussed here - you can make up your own mind as to his ethics. I quote 'As you can imagine, there are always obstacles, primarily in the movement of plants from one country to another. Poorly thought out and outdated regulations that are still in force, both on the US side as well as in the country to be explored, often result in lost plants, wasted money, and lost time. Recent (2002) decisions by the USDA to require phytosanitary certificates for all incoming plants will effectively end legal plant exploration from most foreign countries. In the US, it is easy to get a phytosanitary certificate with a phone call and a small cash outlay. In foreign countries, there is often no workable system for a plant explorer to use, short of purchasing a black market phytosanitary certificate for an extraordinary fee. This unfortunately defeats the purpose of the phytosanitary certificate, which is to ensure that no prohibited pests are present in shipments entering the US. While the USDA is supposed to promote agriculture while protecting our crops, the effect of this regulation is the exact opposite. It deters the search for new agricultural products, promotes circumventing regulations by imposing impossible demands on importers, as well as abdicating responsibility for pest prevention to foreign inspectors.
The other major obstacle for plant exploration is the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). This idiotic treaty was formulated by countries who felt their natural resources were being raped and pillaged by large pharmaceutical companies. When a drug was developed from plants found in a particular country, that country felt slighted when they didn't get enough of the proceeds....even though they usually spent NO money on R&D. A global consortium then passed a treaty that gave the sovereign rights over all natural resources to the country of origin. This is opposite the long held global policy that sharing benefits everyone.
Now many countries have actually banned plant exploration as an unintended consequence of the CBD. Even top gardens such as Kew in the United Kingdom, which has led the world in acquiring plants from foreign countries before the treaty, now refuses to share with most other gardens, under the auspices of the CBD. Exclusionary treaties like the CBD are great for gardens which have already raped and pillaged the world for great plants and now want to promote themselves as the self-anointed guardians of the worlds flora. While the US has not ratified (and hopefully will not) the CBD, plant explorers need to be well aware of the CBD hoops that each country now requires.
Most foreign government representatives with whom we have had the privilege of working on our trips, realize that benefits can be an exchange of information and ideas that are not always directly financial. It is this mutual benefit that has long been the basis of plant exploration and exchange, and will hopefully take center stage again when the greed issue subsides'.
http://www.plantdelights.com/Tony/exploration.html

Dan Hinckley did have a policy on invasive plants on the now defunct Heronswood web site but did not really discuss the implications of the Rio treaty. Again quoting his policy 'During the past decade, proponents for the introduction of new plants in cultivation have been vilified by many as well as celebrated by others. I have taken an active stance in the exploration for and introduction of relatively unknown plant taxa through Heronswood Nursery, a business that I founded with my partner in 1987. Rather than skirting the issue or simply ignoring the controversy, I have attempted to prompt a conversation between the two arenas of thought by proposing methods through my enterprise to minimize the potential for unleashing a plant before evaluation has deemed it relatively safe. I do not propose that my methodologies are foolproof or even viable; however, I believe that this dialogue is necessary to make both camps understand their respective positions while helping to fine-tune the process.
Living in the Pacific Northwest, we are able to lucidly observe the impact of numerous exotic plants in disturbed habitat, especially at lower elevations. The Himalayan Blackberry, Rubus procerus, and Scotch Broom, Cytisus scoparius, have had a severe impact on the biodiversity of the marine-influenced areas of British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. The relatively intact higher elevation biomes are still mostly unaltered by introduced plant species, allowing a hallmark and a touchstone of how our unaltered lands once appeared. No-one would wish to have their name and actions associated with yet another species that has negatively impacted our natural system.
We have instituted the following methods to limit the potential of this occurring:
1. Pre-screening of all possibly invasive taxa before collection.
2. Evaluation of all collected taxa before introduction using a model of evaluation devised by Dr. Sarah Reichart, Center for Urban Horticulture, University of Washington.
3. Limiting shipment of plants to tropical and subtropical climates, i.e. Florida and Hawaii.
4. Voluntarily eliminating plant taxa that have proven to be invasive.
5. Delineating zones of restriction based on climate, i.e. restricting shipment of plants to climates where potential for bio-invasion has been proven or can be forecast.
6. Tagging all plants in our catalogue that have proven to be bio-invasive somewhere, aiding the customer to be more observant of potential problems that might arise.
In a time of increasing globalization and a burgeoning human population, the concerns of bio-invasion of plant species may seem relatively overblown. When millions of square miles of habitat are being paved over on a yearly basis and massive species extinction is no longer a threat but a fact, does providing refuge to any plant out of its natural place enhance or threaten bio-diversity? Can the concept of the preservation of plant species by their temporary cultivation outside of their natural ecosystems justify their collection and introduction as it has justified the intervention on behalf of animal and bird species? Can human impact on the land its diversity of species be considered all unnatural? These questions remain to be addressed as all sides in this issue the scientific, environmental and horticultural communities come together to engage in meaningful dialogue in the future'.

Clive Brasier and David Ingram (The Plantsman - Volume 4, Part 1, March 2005 ISSN 1352-4186 p.54-55;58-59.) in their articles 'Preventing invasive pathogens: deficiencies in the system' and 'Time to avert disaster' where they call for immediate action from the (horticultural) trade to prevent further imports of plant disease. They argue that if growers seized the initiative and introduced a voluntary code of practice, disaster might be averted. They suggests that any plant material from abroad should only be imported as meristem cultures or seed to ensure the long term reputation and financial health of the nursery trade. This should be done now and must be on the agenda of the next Earth Summit in 2010 and there should be local commercial propagation of exotic forest trees, shrubs and ornamentals.

In a letter by Hugh Povey, Bedford 'A plea for the continuation of plant imports' (The Plantsman - Volume 4, Part 2, June 2005 ISSN 1352-4186 p.124-125.) takes the attitude that he hopes the RHS will not support the above views and will do all it can to encourage the entrepreneurial attitude to plant hunting and breeding that has made the English garden the envy of the world. Professor Ingram replies that he is certain that there is already a sufficient plant diversity in the UK, or capable of being imported in the controlled manner suggested by Brasier, to ensure, through the application of a combination of traditional and modern breeding methods, a continuous supply of novel plants to go on enriching our gardens long into the future.

Of course there are other reasons for control of plant material across our borders - pests and diseases - always a threat as well as invasive plants - and those you only tend to find out they are invasive is when it is too late! How worried should we be? Normally one would say yes, very. However there is a fly in the ointment, in fact several rather awkward ones. There is a huge international trade in bedding plants and cut flowers from the EU and Africa and what about the international movement of vegetables from all over the World. Infections from viroids, fungi and other pests become an irrelevance with such trade on a vast scale. House plants, plants for our nursery trade with plenty of soil attached to their roots come from all over Europe and beyond. Free of pests and diseases? I think not even with phytosanitary certificates. Usually one plant in each box of a consignment is checked. As long as you do not contravene the CITES agreement, you can send any nursery stock to any EU country without any checks whatsoever. No one checks and if they did there would be no problem at all, it is perfectly legal! Of course we are not talking about wild plants. Importing cultivated plants from horticultural nurseries from non EU countries is very difficult or impossible. Try importing cultivated stock from New Zealand or Australia, simply you cannot. However there are again ironic situations, there are a number of, for example, Chinese plant nurseries advertising on the Internet incredibly rare plants all originating and obtained directly from the wild. On their lists there are CITES banned species listed such as Podophyllum hexandrum. Ironically all the other Podophyllum species listed are not banned but should be, most are much more endangered than the Podophyllum hexandrum listed on the banned CITES annex. I doubt whether you would have difficulties importing this banned species. There seems to be an active involvement in the buying of plants from such dubious sources, just look at some of the discussion threads on one of the Alpine Plant discussion groups. One thread seemed to think this trade was perfectly acceptable! These Chinese nurseries obtain phytosanitary certificates from their authorities (most business in China at the moment revolves around bribes) and you can easily buy and import such plants, DEFRA allows this as there is a phytosanitary certificate with the offending plants. There is a flourishing trade in this in this country. This is madness and makes a mockery of the CBD agreement. The other disturbing result of all these restrictions, is the illegal movement of plants and seed both wild collected and nursery stock in peoples suitcases from all over the World. A large number of people regularly do this and I know of no one being stopped. They are not bringing back CITES annex plants (one assumes) which have a number of restrictions depending on the species. Two wrongs do not make a right. I do not know what the answer is. What is also ironic, seed and spore importation from any country does not require a phytosanitary certificate in the UK as long as the seeds are 'clean'. These are DEFRA's rules.

What are my feelings? A very difficult one this as I wear 'two hats' as a taxonomist/ecologist of sorts and a plantsman perhaps. Wearing my professional hat, I would pose a rhetorical question - Would I be pleased if someone collected bulbs of Lloydia serotina, the Snowdon Lily? (very rare and only found in this country on the Snowdon massif in very few places), I would be furious; if someone collected seed, I would be very cross. This does highlight the problem with plant hunters and Kew included to some extent. Whether they have permission or not, it is very little relevance to the plants themselves. The plants don't know if you have permission or not! I doubt that the distributions of majority of plants collected are even vaguely understood and their taxonomy, from what I have seen, is invariably a total mess, and many collected and offered for sale in some of the more esoteric plantsman's catalogues are probably new species to science. So if collection of seed or plants takes place, it is possible that with certain populations, Kew and all these modern day plant hunters may well inadvertently and unwittingly push some species into extinction in the wild. Many of the species collected from areas where little ecological or taxonomic work has been done may well be new species and may have very limited or few populations. Is it right to collect these, whether as seed or plants? I would say that all commercial plant hunters have little or no knowledge of their distribution and their main aim will be to provide the money paying gardening public with plants new to gardens irrespective of any damage to the original wild populations to ultimately their own financial benefit. One has to remember that the majority of garden plant hunters are also running businesses so money becomes a very important factor. I would be the first to admit that I fall prey to the temptation of having a plant in my garden no-one else has or is very exclusive; it seems to be inherent in the human psyche, but it does not make things right for the actual plants. Every attempt should be made to protect plant populations in their own native habitats and study them there, at least if it were a perfect world! How many plants in my garden are on the borderline of extinction? Are these plants of any use in conservation? I would argue only under exceptional circumstances are they of value to conservation. The majority may hybridise with other closely related species in the garden and in any case their origins will not be sufficiently well documented to be of any real scientific use. The information gathered by commercial plant hunters is of poor scientific value as their primary objective is certainly not the same as botanic gardens, whose collecting hopefully today, is done under the strictest scientific parameters.

Another problem for present day commercial plant hunters is that collect seed in the autumn not having seen the plants in flower. How can they really tell what the real potential value of what they are collecting as 'good' garden plants? They will just 'graze' potential genera with the hope of getting something good or just take the attitude that any Thalictrum will sell irrespective of whether it is a good garden plant (and certainly some Thalictrums are of very poor value as 'good' garden plants).

Franklinia alatamaha is now not known in the wild but only in gardens. It is available for sale from Junkers and Burncoose Nurseries in this country. If this had not been collected and propagated by John Bartram on the Alatamaha which is part of Georgia during the late 1700's, we would not have this shrub on this planet today. If CBD existed then it would be only grown in botanic gardens today and would not be available for Roy Lancaster or any other lucky gardener, to grow. However this is very much the exceptional example.

At the moment Botanic Gardens are very coy about CBD and gardening/horticulture and only by implication are saying that plant/seed collection in the wild is unacceptable but are very definite about the role of Botanic Gardens and CBD. The plant hunters give no assurance that they are collecting from sustainable populations, they come out with excuses such as they would be destroyed in any case from logging etc and so is better to have them in gardens (I seem to remember that Pteridologists seemed (seem?) to have a similar attitude to collecting 'varieties' of fern species from the wild - they would not survive in the wild in any case!). Dan Hinkley seems more concerned about potential invasiveness of collected species. This is just one small part of the story - sorry. What is invasive in one ecosystem, may be benign in another. The list of invasive plants listed in his catalogue have little relevance to the UK. This is another complicated issue. Articles produced in the RHS 'The Garden' seem more worried about the introduction of pathogens into this country - still not grappling with the ultimate question of CBD. The RHS really needs to review its policies and I am afraid they will have to align themselves with and support Kew and other Botanic Gardens and take advice from these bodies to provide proper working policies on this most important topic.

It is interesting to see that the RHS is beginning to align itself with Botanic Gardens in a rather 'quiet' way. Have a look at the statement issued with the new 2005 - 2006 seed list! This makes it clear that any seed distributed by the RHS is strictly for non-commercial purposes and permission must be sought if the resulting plants are sold. This is the basis of CBD.

In the Plantsman (RHS), Vol. 4 Pt. 4, Dec. 2005, p. 193, in an article entitled 'Conservation through commercialism' shows how the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and the Chilean authorities are cooperating over the conservation of a number of threatened genera including the Myrtaceae. As a 'byproduct' of this project it is hoped to introduce suitable plants to the UK horticultural market and proceeds from their sale will be returned to Chile to help secure natural habitats. This is a real step ahead as it at long last incorporates a sustainable way for potentially good garden from the 'wild' to be brought into cultivation rather than the present 'methods' used by commercial 'plant hunters'.

Epigenetics is now another interesting development for the future implications of biodiversity. Without going into detail, it is now obvious that the environment has a greater influence on the inheritance of species than was ever thought. Certain DNA sequences can be switched off and on by environmental factors. Several generations removed from a mother suffering from post traumatic stress may suffer from the same stress symptoms even though they have not been exposed the original stress factors. This is a developing science with potential implications for reintroduction of species back to their original habitats several generations later. They may well not be the same - Botanic Gardens take note!

If CBD had been implemented from the early 1800's I would have no plants in my garden except those that have originated from this country (and at the moment, the EU!) and only those that I, of course, had obtained the land owners permission first! I wonder what Roy Lancaster thinks about all this.

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Propagating from seed cultivars - problems!

Fascinating this one! You have found a wonderful new species in the wild and have selected a varietal form and give it a name. Fine, but what are you buying in the nursery? So this new imaginary species, shall we call it Salvia williamensis WEH1. First problem is are you buying plants grown from the actual wild collected seed or 2nd generation seed collected from 1st generation plants in the nursery? If they are second generation plants, i.e. plants from seed collected from 'mother' plants, does genetic drift come into the equation or the worst scenario, has crossing taken place? Some genera are worse than others and Salvia is a good example of the worst for being promiscuous - almost as bad as another species I can think of! Bees will travel 6 miles to pollinate plants, so if other Salvias are grown on the nursery, you begin to see what the problem is. When you buy such a plant, do you know what you are buying? I have never seen a nursery being totally transparent about this and they often attach a collectors number giving the impression that they are from wild collected seed. On top of this, a new variety of this imaginary new Salvia has been selected - 'Midnight Madness' - and it might as well be! You would expect that this new variety would be propagated from cuttings, divisions or vegetatively produced. They should be to guarantee the plants you buy will be identical to the original variety. Sorry, not always! Quite a few have been caught propagating from seed again and it is very difficult to prove. Why seed? Simple, you can get thousands of plants very easily from a few plants and potentially you make lots more money. From cuttings, you need lots of stock plants to produce commercial quantities of plants and the excuse not to use cuttings is that the plants from seed are far stronger in their constitution. So, do you know what you have bought? I doubt it! In all fairness Dan Hinckley always says whether the plants originate from cuttings or seed in his catalogues. At least here you know exactly what you are buying and there is no confusion.
My advice is, if a plant has a collectors number or a varietal name and you think of buying it, ask how this has been propagated? - from wild collected seed, from seed collected on the nursery (with all its attendant problems) or from cuttings. I am getting to the point where I avoid plants with collectors numbers as they tend to be very 'experimental' and can be very expensive mistakes!
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How long do plants we grow in our gardens live for?

It is the realization that perennials seldom 'last forever' - whatever that means, and have to be propagated if you want them to 'continue'. Those that do persist such as Galeobdolon luteum, tend to be a threat as potentially invasive plants into 'natural' ecosystems. As a garden changes and it certainly does and often faster than one imagines, one year a particular spot may be perfect for the growth of a this plant, the following years as the surrounding plants change the environment, the original plant does not do so well or often dies out. It seems a case for constant monitoring and a preparedness to respond to changing circumstances. If you do nothing, a lot of what you plant will certainly die out and this has certainly happened here. This is especially true of perennials. Once trees or shrubs are established, they tend to be far more long lived. Quite a few of the Ericaceous plants in this garden are up to 40 years of age and have been transplanted from one garden to another several times during their lives. However these still have a life span just as we have! It will be interesting to see how many of the recently planted specimens will still be here in 5 and 10 years time. Time will tell especially as the garden gets more shady and perhaps drier!

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Global Warming - Fact or Fiction?

Over the millennia, the human animal has contributed to changes in the Earths ecosystems - the Sahara Desert, the Gobi Desert as we see them today, are all the result of man's intervention thousands of years ago just by removing the few shrubs for firewood and clearing for primitive agriculture. Just take a look at the Climate Change page of New Scientist and the evidence is overwhelming. Nowhere is there a suggestion that global warming is not taking place. Even President Bush has at long last reluctantly stated in a White House report that 'people cause global warming' (27 August 2004).
As a continuation of this 'Thought' have a look at the information collected by David Heaf who has collected weather data in the village quarter of a mile away.

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Paris polyphylla and other things!

Ever wondered where some of the plants you buy come from? From the wild in most cases or hopefully in the first instance. I bought a collection of bulbs and rhizomes from a well known nursery recently. My suspicions were aroused by a piece of newspaper with Sanskrit writing stuck to the carefully cleaned Arisaema rhizome! Amongst the plants I bought was the beautiful Paris polyphylla - the Asiatic Herb Paris. They were large rhizomes of this very slow growing rare species. A local nursery who grows this species from seed explained that it takes years to produce a sellable plant and provided an explanation where probably these plants came from. Northern India is the most likely source of these Paris rhizomes and they are being dug out of forest in large quantities. If you buy them there, they would cost you 35p! None are of cultivated origins. Most plants being sold in this country are charging £10 or more. If these plants originate from this source, you can begin to see the profits that can be made. The nursery that I had obtained these plants from assured me they were not from wild populations. Where to turn to voice my concerns was a very interesting experience. I tried the RHS Wisely - the RHS has no responsibility to police these activities was the answer. There is however some good news from the RHS, they are producing documentation which will be designed to help 'plant hunters' assess whether a plant could be collected or should be left alone - i.e. a CBD policy - a 'risk assessment' for plants. Kew Gardens referred me to the CITES section of DEFRA. They explained that every two years they review their policy on what plants are included in the annex lists which would make it illegal for Paris to be imported or exported from the countries of origin. The list as it stands, for plants, at least is very out of date. However you can begin to see why no-one will blow the whistle on these activities. The nurseryman makes a lot of money, the gardener has a bargain! Of course all these plants will certainly have passed any phytosanitary laws, but that is not the point. CITES kept on asking me whether I was a representative of an organisation, only this way could they consider any recommendations. They suggested that I write to the Indian Embassy expressing my concerns. Perhaps I should, But 35p is a lot of money in Northern India! This is the Galanthus story and Turkey all over again and it is happening now. Type in Paris polyphylla in the UK Google and you will find another very famous nursery probably sourcing from this country. Notice that I am careful with my wording or I am sure I would be in court! The only absolute way of proving these facts is to go to the offending nurseries in Northern India - any offers?!! An interesting website 'Asian Flora' does make comments about nurseries who do not make any efforts to comply with CBD or the Rio Convention and I suggest if you are interested in this information follow this link. At least someone is brave enough to name names!

What about the use of moss at our Horticultural Shows? Sphagnum moss and other moss genera are being used ubiquitously. The only legal source in the UK is if you own a bog or a woodland. Commercially you can buy bales of Sphagnum from Chile. So where is all this moss being derived from in our shows. I know - do you?

I thought that our UK Horticultural was going peat free? Not much evidence of this, or is there?

I had better stop complaining/moaning hadn't I?

As an adjunct to the above, articles have appeared in 'The Plantsman' Royal Horticultural Society - New Series Volume 5, Part 1 March 2006, pages 17 - 21 and 60 - 61. The editor, Mike Grant, asked for feedback and comments on these articles on the future of cultivated plant conservation.
I prepared a reaction to this following narrative, but decided not to send this. I would probably loose a lot of 'friends' in the world of the 'Plantsmen'!

I read with interest John Watson’s article in the March issue of the Plantsman.

Is modern plant-collecting being over-regulated to extinction? Given the way many modern plant-hunters behave, the answer to that question will be ‘yes’; plant-collecting will undoubtedly become extinct in the not too distant future. It will become illegal to collect wild-collected material in the way that it is done now. It will be forced upon the horticultural community because of our greed and stupidity.
 
This whole issue of collecting from the wild is a very complex one. All garden plants have come directly or indirectly from the wild. Ironically, most seed collecting from the wild will probably be of little significance to many plant populations. However, even with seed collecting, unless some mechanism is in place to determine the population dynamics of the species being collected, how can John or anyone else be certain that his collecting does not tip a plant species into extinction? We need consistent monitored tracking systems in place to be able to prove whether a plant is common or endangered and act accordingly.  The modern day plant hunter has no idea of the effect that his or her collecting of seed has on the survival of that plant in the wild-at best it would be just a hunch. The majority of these people are collecting primarily in order to sell the seeds or grow them to make money, i.e. to run a business. They have little interest in the survival of the plant in the wild, in fact the rarer the plant, the better as they will make more money. Plantsmen unfortunately have a prelediction for the rare, the difficult to grow. They have to have a plant that no one else has or very few others have; it is the ultimate gardening ‘high’. Plant hunters therefore will attempt to satisfy this demand no matter at what cost to the biodiversity or the survival of that species in its native habitat. What has happened in the past is no excuse for continuing in the present. Threats to biodiversity and to ecosystems across our planet are now far greater than in the days of Farrer and Wilson.

One worrying aspect of collecting seed is that now plant hunters cannot afford to visit an area twice to see a plant in flower and go back to collect seed as did the plant-hunters of yore. They will just collect ripe seed, often in a haphazard manner, without seeing the plants flowering. Identification under these circumstances is often difficult. Even when they are grown back in the nursery, identification, especially from little-botanised areas, is at best tentative. I have heard one nurseryman say when a plant does not fit any description in a Flora (with the temptation to say that it is new species), ‘If I don’t put a name to this plant, it will not sell’. The result is that plant hunters collect all these seeds with often little idea of what they are really collecting to species level, nor will they have any idea of those plants’ population biology or, even more worrying, their potential as garden plants. They are working on the basis that there are gardeners who will pay anything to have a plant that no or very few other people have. We have seen some really dubious introductions with little value as good garden plants. Compared to the era of the famous plant hunters, how many excellent garden plants have been recently introduced into our gardens? There is little trialling of species by nurserymen to determine their potential invasiveness in our own ecosystems. With tongue-in-cheek one could say that the famous plant hunters of yesterday have found the best garden plants and now what we are collecting is the rubbish they left - an extreme view with just a sliver of truth!

What is more disturbing than the seed collecting, is the still persistent collection of critically endangered species from the wild. These are knowingly or inadvertently being sold in our nurseries. This problem is not mentioned in the article. This practice is far more prevalent than one would imagine. Many intensely rare plants are being collected from the wild in China and Northern India. Some of these plants are being sold on the Internet. However, there is still a direct trade between these countries and some nurseries in the UK. This is really serious. Just one example out of many, far too many. Paris polyphylla, an Asiatic herb paris, is being collected from the wild in vast numbers. Rhizomes are being stripped from woodlands in Northern India, resulting in populations being decimated. This is being done by plant nurseries in that country. They charge 35 pence for each plant! They are washed of all soil, obtain a phytosanitary certificate without difficulty and are not in any CITES annex (CITES is seriously out of touch with reality). They are easily exported to this country. Nurseries in the UK that buy from this source, charge us around £10 for rhizomes which would represent at least ten years growth. Nurserymen are making a very good profit. If they were grown from cultivated stock, most nurserymen would have to charge three times that price for a similarly sized plant. Of course if it were from nursery stock, the plant would not be a washed rhizome, but a plant growing in compost in a pot. To make one thing clear, if you think these plants are being cultivated in Northern India, they are not. The chance of their survival from these wild sources in our gardens is very poor as the rhizomes will have been desiccated and maltreated. It is the Galanthus story in Turkey all over again. You only have to do a Google search to ‘see’ which nurseries are selling these rhizomes. If you challenge the nurseries, they will, and of course do, say that the plants come from cultivated stock.  This is one of the reasons why CBD and the Rio Convention will treat the gardening fraternity harshly. There are very few plant-hunters who collect plants with CBD in mind. The upshot of all this, in the future when CBD will make such trade officially illegal, will be an under-the-counter trade for these wild collected plants. It is happening now with the ‘suitcase and raincoat brigade’ running the gauntlet of customs. Customs almost never challenge live plants being carried in suitcases and some will be wild-collected. It is a shock to find out who is involved in this trade. It is also surprising to find out how many people will privately admit to knowing that these practices go on and are more widespread than most of us would ever imagine. It all boils down to money and profit on the side of the plant-hunters/nurserymen and the greed of the plantsman.

Often an 'excuse' for collecting from the wild, is that plant species could be an important scientific resource for the study of rare plants or even for their reintroduction. Gardeners need to decide whether they are running a Botanic Garden or just a garden. I doubt whether many garden plants are of use for scientific study, even if they have provenance. Cross breeding with other species, e.g. Thalictrum and Clematis makes their use highly suspect, coupled with the irritating habit of many nurseries who collect seeds from their original plants and then sell plants as if they were wild collected. These are certainly of no use for reintroduction into their original habitats as direct crossing or certainly genetic drift will have occurred. Perhaps the only exception might be monotypic genera.

Ah well, we only have ourselves to blame. Yes, we are 'fiddling whilst Rome burns'. We should clean up our act as gardeners and oh, I have not mentioned Sphagnum moss and its still prevalent use in plant shows - but that is another story! Even within the RHS itself there are committees who obviously cannot see the importance of CBD. To quote: ‘A discussion paper on RHS policy on access to genetic resources had been circulated to the Committee. It had also been considered by the Science & Horticultural Advice Committee and the Bursaries Committee. The latter had proposed that the RHS should ignore the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) until constrained by legislation.’ (14.2, Minutes of a meeting of the Conservation and Environment Advisory Committee held Thursday 6th October 2005).

A interesting website 'Biopiracy: The Legal Perspective' by Michael A. Gollin does spell out many of the above problems. It is worth reading and even though it has been written in 2001, the writing is not just on the wall, biopiracy and all its aspects is backed by legal penalties including jail time in some places. As he says 'There is a very simple reason for people who collect biological samples to follow the new rules on informed consent and benefit sharing. The consequences of following the old 'take-and-run' approach -- biopiracy -- are extremely serious.' Sobering thought for some of our present day plant hunters who persistently break these rules. Who is going to be brave enough to name and shame some of these people who take no notice of the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)?
Just in case people misunderstand where I am coming from - essentially I am not against controlled plant collecting under strict adherence to CBD for good garden plants (but what are these?). People (nurserymen/persons, private collectors) who are collecting from the wild now, really do need a rethink in their strategies, stop some of their dubious practices and not take plants without agreement of the countries involved. They should work out systems where the countries the plants come from, to benefit in some way e.g. a conservation scheme, certainly not necessarily money. They should always have accurate habitat descriptions and a proper assessment of the rarity of a plant. If its status cannot be determined, it should not be collected. If a plant is very rare or threatened, perhaps new methods of propagation should be involved such as cell tissue culture or if they are not in danger from exploitation preferably leave them where they are.
If you are worried whether plants you are buying from local nurseries are wild collected, have a look at advice given by BCGI - Botanic Gardens Conservation International - A Gardener's Checklist.

I enclose a summary of a conference 'Growing Heritage' held by the RHS on Wednesday 5 April – Thursday 6 April 2006 and a summary of Biodiversity targets for 2010. I make no comments and leave this up to your own judgments.

Yet more - this time, I quote from a reply made by Dr Christopher Grey-Wilson, but this was written in 2001 and now it is 2007. Has the RHS progressed in these matters?

'So where are the abuses taking place? By far the worst areas at present are in Asia, the Himalayas, western China and south-east Asia in particular, where genera like Arisaema, Cypripedium, Paphiopedilum, Paris and others are being systematically plundered from the wild. In China and India, collection of wild plants is outlawed, but both are huge countries to monitor and corruption is prolific. Dealers descend on villages and get the locals to collect all they can of a given genus. They are paid almost nothing for the sack-filled bags that they return with, having in the meantime virtually cleaned out a local population of slipper orchids or whatever has been requested. Many of these plants perish in transit back to the dealers warehouses where they are stacked unsympathetically in mounds; many others are discarded, yet still leaving the dealer with a handsome profit. And where do all these exciting and desirable plants go to. They go to Japan and to Western Europe primarily, creeping into the EC through illegal channels via the Czech Republic, Hungary and other eastern European countries (and I will add Ireland to that list).

It is also naive to assume that because rare plants get into cultivation that they are somehow being saved for posterity. Of course, some plants grow well after being dug from the wild, but many die within a comparatively short time. Nor is there any compelling evidence that this aids conservation, for within a few generations plants in cultivation undergo germ plasm changes. They may look the same as their wild counterpart, or they will change in some character or other. The result is that they have often changed in their physiology, making them difficult, if not impossible to re-introduce to the wild. In any case, it would be unrealistic to think that we can re-introduce hundreds of species back to the wild, even if the time and the money were available. It simply won't work.

In many instances there is no need to collect more material from the wild as the plant exists perfectly well in cultivation already. Often cultivated forms have been selected carefully over several generations and have been proved in gardens: they make by far the more satisfactory garden plants. Unfortunately, there is a caché attached to wild-collected plants, a snobbery that is putting many wild species to the test.

There is, and there always will be, a need to collect further material from the wild both for scientific purposes and for enhancing our gardens. Done carefully and with due consideration for wild populations, and with the full backing of the country of origin, this can do very little harm. Most plants can withstand the removal of a limited amount of material from the wild. What they cannot cope with is wholesale, unsophisticated and exploitative collecting.

Where does the RHS stand in all this. Well, it is difficult to ascertain from its publications and pronouncements. What is clear is that this great Society should make its policy on conservation much clearer to its Members and to the Public at large. It should certainly encourage good conservation practices as regards wild plants and good preservation policies for those already in cultivation. It is most certainly the duty of the Society to take a responsible and pro-active stance on the illegal importation, sale and showing of wild-collected plants, particularly at its shows. If the RHS does not do it then some other body will and the RHS will be the loser' (permission obtained from Dr Grey-Wilson for this quote).

I couldn't agree more!! - But where are we? Fiddling whilst Rome burns. In 2010 - three years time CBD will make decisions without the input of the RHS. The RHS can have as many committees taking about this but if it is not represented in 2010 in discussions with Botanic Gardens, Dr Grey-Wilson's prediction above will come true. After this date, what the majority of plant hunters do today will certainly be illegal (and if the truth be known, most is today!).

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Shows and medals

Are medals appropriate for nurseries? Design Gardens, fine, medals are appropriate. Perhaps, what I might consider a brilliantly designed garden, maybe you wouldn't. It is a problem. Of course the RHS has strict guidelines, tick boxes to fill in to reduce some objectivity. So how many times do exhibitors rightly or wrongly disagree with the judges? However going back to the first question, speaking to one nurseryman In the Malvern Spring Show, who was not pleased and upset with the medal awarded to his exhibit, one explained that on a personal note, one did not really care what medal had been awarded. The medal was irrelevant. His wonderful selection of plants was what really mattered and that I could buy them. To be honest, what do these nurseries do with their exhibits? The majority have been doing this for years. As far as one can see, all these nurseries have the same structure with obviously different selections of plants. All the plants are and look their best. How on earth under these circumstances, unless the plants are of poor quality (and who would put such plants out) can you award medals? I wouldn't like to judge this category. Are the medals relevant to these types of exhibits?

Whatever happened to the joys of an English (British?) spring?

'Sage words' by Mary Keen (Telegraph Gardening, Saturday, May 20, 2006 p.3). 'Yet less than a fortnight later (after the last weekend in April when the leaves were only just starting to push through on the hawthorn and the beech wood was barely green), after a couple of heat waves and a proper thunderstorm, we seem to be at midsummer pitch.......This business of winter tipping into summer and skipping spring also happened last year, and I'm not sure I like it'. Yes, I couldn't agree more - my Erythronium's - well, I just turned my back and they were gone. Many plants are late - looking back over the past years, the following should be in flower but are not - Crinodendron hookerianum, Rhododendron 'Martha Isaacson', Syringa pubescens subsp. patula Miss Kim, Podophyllum hexandrum, Nectaroscordum siculum, Kalmia angustifolia var. angustifolia f. candida, Kalmia angustifolia var. pumila, Digitalis purpurea. However it is not a phenomenon that is unique to the last few years. I suspect that for many years that winter has slipped into summer. Can you remember a 'real' spring of the traditional kind?

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'Odds and ends'

55% of the population spend more than two hours a week gardening.

Gardening fact: Britons spend an estimated £5.21 billion on garden products last year.

Last year, gardener's spent £41 million on rose bushes.

54% of people have gardens smaller than 2,000 sq. ft.

75% of people say their favourite thing to do in the garden is sit and relax.

20.5% of britons would choose a landscaped garden above all other home luxuries.

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Worthy Garden Plants?

I admit that I am one of these people who like certain genera, for example, Disporum, Disporopsis, Maianthemum. True to form, I buy a number of species of Maianthemum. Have a look at June 2006 to see an example of Maianthemum tatsiense. Is this worth introducing into gardens? I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder and every plant is beautiful in its own right. Would you sell Poa annua as a garden plant? Nurseries should be more responsible. As for Disporopsis I have a large collection and they all look much of a muchness. With new introductions, nurseries need to be more selective, otherwise let the buyer beware!

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Blepharocalyx - a horticultural conundrum.

Blepharocalyx cruckshanksii 'Heaven Scent' - this is a relatively new introduction from Chile where in the wild it is known a Temu. A certain botanic garden collected this and grew the plant. Now whether someone stole a piece from this Botanic Garden or a garden that had been given the plant with the agreement that it would not be released to the horticultural trade, I do not know. This is just one example of many. So what you might say? Why shouldn't such plants to introduced into horticulture from botanic gardens? In the good old days, this would have been a natural thing to happen. Today, no, we have CBD and the Rio Convention. Whoever is selling this 'stolen' plant, should be giving something back to its original country! Obviously this is not happening and I have several plants. To add insult to injury, whoever was responsible for the original misdemeanor, decided to give it a varietal name 'Heaven Scent'. The variety 'Heaven Scent' is the wild type not a selected form at all. I have seen this done by nurserymen on a number of occasions and often the plants are produced by seed not cuttings. I suppose this is a marketing ploy! This then raises the question of how plants are given varietal names. The system is far too lax. At the moment, all you need to do, is to sell your new variety through a nursery who lists it in the RHS Plant Finder. How on earth can you give a varietal name to a plant that has been propagated from seed? You would be amazed how many nurseries do. Haven't they heard of sexual reproduction? Or maybe they think that plants just produce identical twins? What complicated webs we weave?!!

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A cardinal rule for successful cultivation?

'Replicate the conditions the plant grows in the wild' - quote from a well known plant hunter. Irritating this one! Partially true and far from being true. Why do I say this? It is an ecological phenomenon which is typical of plants when you remove competition. Competition will mean all the plants, animals, in fact all living organisms in that plants natural habitat. How on earth can you replicate the conditions in the wild in your garden on this basis? - absolute rubbish - it simply is impossible. You might then say - 'Oh well, what about soil? If it is lime lover, this will be an important factor that should be replicated in one's garden'. It might be a factor, but surprisingly it might not be! Don't expect a plant in your garden to always behave in the same way as it did in the wild. I will illustrate this. Helianthemum nummularium, common on limestone in this country, is considered to be a strict calcicole (lime lover). In the 'wild' it will certainly not grow on peat, but in your garden it will happily grow in this soil type. The reason is simple, competition from other living organisms has been removed. You can never predict how a plant will react to the habitats in your garden. That is why it is a good idea to try a particular plant in several locations in your garden. On a personal note, it is usually Murphy's Law that I can almost guarantee I will chose the wrong place to plant that something special!! (sometimes I do get it right).
Conclusion - don't expect rules to be written in tablets of stone! Never say never!! That is the beauty of gardening, it is full of surprises.

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Perfect Vegetables.

If you want to grow those perfect, immaculate, blemish free vegetables, how does one do it? Easy really when you know how. What you need are controlled environment cabinets, greenhouses equipped with state of the art controls for light, temperature and I forgot, hydroponics. Nothing organic here, good lashings of chemicals, pesticides and fungicides. Viola, perfect vegetables!!

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RHS, Chelsea Flower Show, sustainability, CBD, peat and anything else one can think of!

Oh dear, sometimes I wonder why I worry or feel so strongly about certain issues as at the end of the day I am nobody with no influence on these matters. The December issue asked people to write in with questions to the Shows Director on matters pertaining to the up and coming Chelsea Flower Show this year. This is what I sent as a question(s).

'Dear Sirs,
I would be most grateful you could pass the following questions onto the RHS Shows Director, Stephen Bennett, for his consideration.

In relation to Chelsea Flower Show or any other RHS Show for that matter, how does the RHS monitor and track how nurseries and exhibitors are using materials that are sustainable, i.e. peat free composts, the avoidance or non-use of Sphagnum moss (Red listed), the use of wood materials from sustainable forests and the reduction in the use of concrete? What measures are in place by the RHS to ensure that exhibitors and nurseries are not using plants obtained directly from the wild (i.e. dug up from the wild or obtained through other nurseries in foreign countries who have dug them up from the wild) and they are not contravening the ethos of Convention on Biological Diversity?

Very many thanks for your time.
Yours faithfully,
William E. Hughes,

Monday Dec. 18th 2006 1.35 p.m.'

No answer as yet. I do hope there is a reply. The RHS should be a flagship leading the way for others to follow in these matters, with concrete policies that are applied throughout their organisation. Using the excuse that they are a charity and that their function is not to police such matters is just not good enough. They must set an example to the rest of the gardening and horticultural world.

Now in the March 2007 issue of the 'Garden' these questions have been answered on pages 194 and 195 under the title of the article 'Questions to... Stephen Bennett' RHS Shows Director.

I quote:

'How does the RHS police and monitor the use of sustainably-sourced timber by exhibitors?
The use of timber is a serious issue for us. It stems from a belief that we should only allow certain types of timber and that it should be from sustainable sources.

All exhibitors are treated the same: they have to prove certification of where their timber has come from. We have external auditors who police how they comply with this policy - in the first year it was 20% compliance, but now it is 80% compliance. It would have been unworkable to enforce it overnight, as many suppliers buy a large amount of timber in one order, so it takes a few years to use it up.
The certification audit shows a chain of custody from sustainable forests. At its simplest, a unique number is given to every felled tree across the world; through every stage of its travel (from trunk, to being cut into bits) that number stays with it. The certificate is traceable back to the stump. There are several schemes out there, but we comply with the Forest Stewardship Council, which requires the forest to be managed sustainability, and also monitors the living conditions and payment of forest workers.

Does the RHS monitor how nurseries and exhibitors use materials such as peat-free compost, avoidance of moss, reduced amounts of concrete and ensuring plants are not obtained directly from the wild?
Yes, we do monitor these issues closely, just as we do with timber. To answer each point individually:

• Peat: the RHS has a peat-minimisation policy. We send letters of encouragement to growers, asking them to reduce their peat use. It would be nearly impossible to police a totally peat-free policy. Peat is not allowed for staging.
• Moss (including Sphagnum): we have no problem with moss being used, as long as it is from a sustainable source - people must not go to the wild and harvest it. We rely on the exhibitors and judges' knowledge if concerns arise.
• Concrete: concrete and stone are permitted, but within the rule that no more than 25% of a show garden is hard landscaping. We do, however, ask what happens to these gardens after the show, and if everything is to be thrown away, then we would discuss this with the exhibitor. Water-worn limestone is certainly banned.
• Wild-source plants: we deplore people taking plants from the wild, so we regularly monitor and raise this issue with judges - every stand is looked at by an expert panel. There is often no cast-iron way of telling if plants have been obtained from the wild, but there are some distinctive features that we look out for (such as no full rootstock or unusual pest damage). In extreme cases we would contact the police (under CITES regulations); in lesser examples, we tell the exhibitor to take it off display or sale.'

This letter has now been sent to the 'Garden' Magazine (4th March)

Dear Sirs,

Further to some of the questions to Stephen Bennett, RHS Shows Director, it is very heartening that the RHS has formulated very sound policies concerning the use of timber from sustainable sources and is to be congratulated on this. It is a pity that other aspects of sustainability and issues concerning biodiversity have not been so well addressed. One worrying aspect is the use of materials, especially cement, in the design of gardens. Cement as a material has been used for many years in garden designs without much thought for its carbon footprint. Ten per cent of the total carbon footprint in the whole world is created by the manufacture of cement. It is estimated that cement production represents around 8.3% of man-made carbon dioxide. Using 10m3 of timber instead of 10m3 of steel or reinforced concrete will save 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide. It would be prudent and easy for the RHS to formulate policies to reduce or penalise such garden designs relying heavily on cement with such a large carbon footprint. The present policy of asking what happens after the show, to a garden whose usage of concrete exceeds 25% needs to be reconsidered in the light of sustainability.
The matter of biodiversity of ecosystems on our planet is of immense importance as everyone would agree. Therefore the prevalent use of moss is particularly worrying in horticultural shows. Vast quantities are being used on exhibits and it is inconceivable that all of this has come from sustainable sources. One would suggest that it would be far easier for the RHS to have a policy that no moss should be used rather than just monitoring the situation. Why is it used in the first place? One can think of only one reason and that it is a good material to
finish off staged exhibits, i.e. it looks pretty. Unless there is a good reason for using moss, it is simpler to ban its use rather than go into impossible arguments about where the moss has come from and whether or not it was a sustainable source. Clumps of some moss species can take several hundred years to develop!
The banning of peat on staging is an excellent step forward. It is a pity that the RHS cannot insist that all show gardens and exhibits will be peat free by 2010. This would reflect the RHS's commitment to transfer 90% of growing media requirements within its own gardens to peat alternatives.
It is commendable that the RHS is prepared to police the use of timber but in relation to other matters such as the use of wild collected plants it is a shame that it is only prepared to monitor the situation. Certain groups of plants (sino-asiatic for example) are more likely to be wild collected. The RHS could ask such exhibitors of proof of provenance. It would at least send a clear message that wild collected plants are not acceptable under any circumstances.
This in an opportunity for the RHS to set an example to horticulture worldwide in all these matters with solid well thought out policies so that where the RHS leads, others will follow.

Perhaps the above might be considered for inclusion in your 'Letters' page.
Thank you for your time,

And the story goes on!!! This letter has not not published in the April issue of 'The Garden'.

Chen Yi Nursery - Rare plants and bulbs from China - all wild collected, some intensely rare, makes CITES and any other regulating body totally stupid - someone visiting her describes crates of dried tubers, bulbs (in sphagnum moss) all stacked in her house (a small apartment) ready for export. The usual excuse for this plundering is that they are used for Chinese medicine and they would be destroyed anyway. You would be amazed who still buys from her! To quote from the webmaster of the site (from Norway) 'First of all I should tell you that I am the webmaster of this nursery; but that is all. Chen Yi Nursery has been supplying plants and bulbs from China for many years. She offers plants barely known to cultivation at a very low price. She also supplies bulbs to many large, well-known nurseries in Europe and the US; like rareplants.co.uk and europa-nursery.co.uk' (and there are plenty of others). Shame on whoever buys from this nursery. Here is a list from a dutch firm with plants from her.

I have repeated what is listed in the links section of this website and to add a bit more:

from a Aroid forum!

'I was just looking at the chen yi website. does anyone have any experience with this nursery? how are the plants/bulbs? are they a reliable nursery? I would like to order some jack in the pulpits and maybe some other things. is it true that they start to ship out the plants/bulbs in feb.? what do you guys do with the plants/bulbs when they arrive so early? when do you start ordering from them. they have some very interesting things but are a little leary about ordering from them. I would appreciate any input, experiences or opinions. thanks a lot'.

Next thread:

Oooohhhhh - wait til you hear from Dan! He orders from them all of the time! He likes to do "share" orders, so maybe you can get with him for an order, unless he's not doing any ordering right now. He highly recommends them, while at the same time, he'll be up front and tell you that you may not get what you order. Meaning, you'll get an arisaema, but it may not be the species you order. However, from everything he says about them, and he speaks highly of them, he highly recommends them for the tubers and the price.

Susan

Ah well, your sins find you out 'Dan'! There is obviously a flourishing trade in these rare wild collected Asiatics.

Chelsea 2007 - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly ( a concise synopsis - supposedly!).

The Good.

I had a wonderful day, meeting old friends, making new, the wonderful buzz that is Chelsea. The gardens, yes, the gardens, they are totally artificial but, wow, they are all spectacular, whatever you might say about them. A Tribute to Linnaeus was one of the best, but the judges didn't think so.
There was some attempt at 'going green', recycling, global warming which is certainly better than no attempt. However one had the feeling that it was mostly 'green wash' or 'business as usual' climate change.

The Bad.

Still there are wild collected plants paraded by gold medal winning nurseries - very bad. I can work this out why can't the judges? Moss, where did all that moss come from? Still too much being used and was it all from sustainable sources? Some was from sustainable sources as Graham Rice pointed out in his blog - that should have been put with the good category. Bunny Guinness in The Daily Telegraph (27 May) commented on the Garden of Clouds, created by Kazuyuki Ishihara. The entire 1.8m high wall were formed from ready grown moss held in place with compost and straw in a chicken wire skin. The moss came from Nine Elms market, New Covent Garden, London. Where did Nine Elms market get the moss? Chile? Was it from sustainable sources? One does wonder about stands exhibiting species orchids and insectivorous plants! Yes, well! Cement - still too much being used. Wood, I found that impossible to work out whether it was all coming from sustainable sources. Peat was still being widely used.

It is also worrying to listen to Bunny Guinness say about judging these gardens, that first of all we have a gut feeling, we then fill in these marking sheets which often result in a totally different outcome! (these are not her exact words - quoting from memory, sorry). These forms are meant to be more scientific. This is terribly worrying. In the area of education, where marking sheets widely differ from your 'gut' feeling, there is something terribly wrong. The two should more or less match. Who created these marking sheets for the RHS judges? The other general complaint I heard from many nurserymen was that no one knew what was on these 'marking sheets' and the feedback was poor. One nursery had feedback why they did not get a Gold Medal, was that the Allium leaves were in poor condition, even though that is how they are naturally and no matter how you treat them that is how they will always be! Judging should be transparent and accountable.

Another worrying trend was the increase in trade stands instead of the small garden on Ranleigh. I know Chelsea is a blatant commercial event, but this is a real shame replacing talent that does not cost the earth compared to the large gardens with albeit very nice sculptures for sale.

The Ugly.

Oh dear, were the judges mad? Best in Show? - 600 Days with Bradstone. This garden was based on a terrestrial space garden, situated within an assumed dome, on planet Mars. The garden belonged to an astronaut on a 600-day tour and explored the psychological importance of man’s relationship with his environment. Maybe this was his/hers toilet?

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What do we mean by 'hardiness'?
Fascinating problem this one. I can only talk about hardiness of plants in the gardens I have experienced - Bangor, Lancaster, Kendal, Backbarrow and now near Criccieth. This winter (2007) has been a good example of some of the problems defining whether or not a particular plant is hardy in this 'Garden'. The sequence of events before a plant experiences low temperatures appears to be an important factor. Several nights through the winter temperatures dropped to -6/7°C with little damage in general. However one night in February the temperatures dipped to -6°C with resultant considerable damage to many plants. Damage consisted of 'burning' of leaves and fronds on plants and ferns that had previously escaped unscathed.

Mulch - Is this really the answer?
Mulch, mulch, mulch we are told - for water conservation and to reduce weeding. Well, as usual there seems more than meets the eye to this one. I was going to buy a pallet of mini wood chippings but now I am thinking again. If your mulch originates from your garden compost, there are no problems. Brilliant material and wonderful for the garden in all aspects including biodiversity. However wood chippings are a problem. If they come straight from a saw mill they should not be used. Honey fungus will be a problem and as the chips slowly compost, the soil below will be seriously depleted of nitrogen and nutrients. Partially composted mini wood chip has been used in parts of the garden. Yes, it has reduced weeding and probably watering. On the other hand, the chippings have a high content of tannins, phenolics and is acidic. A lot of plants seed themselves around this garden. They won't if you mulch. You must be careful not to put the mulch too close to your plants or they will rot. The worst aspect of using mulch has been highlighted by research from the Division of Insect Biology, College of Natural Resources, University of California, Berkeley in an article entitled 'Mulch Madness, One More Deterrent To Beeing Successful' - to the establishment of ground nesting bees (an interesting website in general). This is just as relevant to gardens in the UK. Read this and think! Do you want to encourage bees? Remember bee populations have seriously declined over the past decades in the UK. Has 'Mulch Madness' contributed to this decline? Luckily in this garden has healthy population of bees with many nests in the rougher parts of the garden especially in the areas around the 'compost heaps'. No more mulching with wood chip in this garden.

Gardening in the USA, Gardening in the UK or how we fare(compare?) with the folks over the pond!
Perhaps comparisons are odorous, but we should not ignore some of the trends developing in the States and perhaps learn something from them; perhaps it should be a two way thing. Over the months since the inception of the garden blog 'Garden Rant', this 'institution' really does give a overall view of what 'ordinary' gardeners get up to in America. At times irreverent, at times very honest, this weblog is 'run' by four ladies, Susan Harris, Elizabeth Licata, Michele Owens and Amy Stewart. It is updated with new articles on a daily basis. As their manifesto points out, 'Convinced that gardening MATTERS; bored with perfect magazine gardens; in love with real, rambling, chaotic, dirty, bug-ridden gardens; suspicious of the "horticultural industry"; delighted by people with a passion for plants; appalled by chemical warfare in the garden; turned off by any activities that involve "landscaping" with "plant materials"; flabbergasted at the idea of a "no maintenance garden"; Gardening our asses off and having a hell of a lot of fun'. Every day there are new posts that really do reflect these ideals. Oh I hear you say, we have blogs in the UK - oh yes, but nothing like this one. The majority in the UK have 0 or very few comments. Garden Rant can often have 20 or more comments made and even more on controversial topics. The traffic on this site must be incredible. Look at the cluster map link for an idea of who is logging on. What is more there are hundreds of weblogs all over the country covering from tundra gardening all the way through to desert and tropical gardening.

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