GARDEN NOTES MARCH
Imagine a plant with the following name: “Growing from a
bulb, spear-like leaves, yellow flower with trumpet in spring, with acorn-sized
seed pod afterwards”. Now translate that into Latin, and you have an old-style
plant name – for a daffodil of course.
Plants have both common names and Latin names. The wild
daffodil is known also as a Lent Lily, The best site for them near here is
Dimock in Gloucestershire but we knew them first in North
Yorkshire . The names we use today go back to Carl Linnaeus who
invented a system meant to be simple. He used mythology on occasion: as we
write this the Iris is in flower and is advertised for the feastday of Saint
Valentine – Iris was the Greek goddess of sea, sky and rainbow, blue like an
iris flower. She carries a ewer, a waterpot, and fills the clouds with rain, so
she is busy at the moment. Irises flowering now are the bulbous ‘reticulata’
hybrids, essential plants for the spring garden with commercial names such as
‘Harmony’, ‘Pauline’, ’Jenny’, ‘George’ – but our favourite is the pale blue ‘Katharine
Hodgkin’. Reticulata, literally ‘net’, refers to the net of fibre around the
bulb. A hybrid will have cross-pollinated different species. Commercial names
have a marketing function; named plants unfortunately rarely come ‘true’ from
seed but revert to their original mix of species.
The most topical plant for February is the snowdrop,
resembling a tear-drop in shape but as white as the snow, or even milk. In
plant mythology, snow flakes dropped to earth and became flowers to cheer up
Adam and Eve after a hard winter. Its Latin name Galanthus joins the Greek
gala, ‘milk’ with anthus, ‘flower’. Its common form in galanthus nivalis, ‘of
the snow’. The name snowdrop dates at least back to 1633. It is not a native
species, but when it was brought over from Turkey is a mystery. There is also
a double (‘full-flowered’) form named galanthus nivalis flore plena There are
hundreds of different varieties, the differences visible only to specialist
collectors, but of these tall snowdrops are well worth looking out for. Of the
rarest forms (such as yellow tinted forms) a single rare bulb might cost you
hundreds of pounds. Round hear snowdrops of many varieties are best seen at Colesbourne Park
The Lent Lily we began with was given the name Narcissus by
Linnaeus after the classical myth of narcissus the youth who fell in love with
his own reflection in the pond. Wild daffodils have been hybridised into the
miniature and dwarf varies offered for natualising in grass, of which Tête a Tête
has a stranglehold. There are many better, albeit more expensive types with
different shapes and colours – white, orange and now even pink. They are best planted
as bulbs in Autumn, but again, potted bulbs can be bought in now.
Daffodils are divided into trumpet, large cup, small cup,
double-flowered, triandrus (multi-flowered per stem), cyclamineus, poeticus
(pheasant-eyed) and wild. There is an enormous range so it is fun to
experiment. Our garden has the remnants of Jetfire, 10 inch but robust flowers
with orange trumpets. Of the whites, Mount Hood
is ever more difficult to find, but Ice Follies and Ice Wings are passable alternatives. Bravoura is now
impossible to source, and I have found it beautiful but not robust. Pheasant
Eyes have never liked our garden. Of the miniatures, the best catalogue we have
is from www.miniaturebulbs.co.uk, a Yorkshire
company. If only for the pictures, the catalogue is worth a drool.
Finally, in flower now, the native hellebore kept its
well-known name into Latin – helleborus. Most garden varieties are hybrids,
giving a wide range of colour, but there are many wild varieties.
Our last comments are a warning. You will be tempted with
baby plants like fuchsias to grow on, plug plants etc. These are tender, one
frost and they are finished, so you will need to give them protection. We have
so far been spared hard frosts, but it’s best not to be too complacent. We have
however bought in from Duchy Nursery in Cornwall
a collection of unusual fuchsias which are sitting inside on a windowsill.
Since there are two dozen of them, it needs to be a big windowsill. Ten or so
were bred by John Wilson at the then Lechlade Fuchia Nursey (now a garden
centre) and he gave his new plants names beginning with Lechlade – e.g.
Lechlade Tinkerbell. John Wilson then moved to Reading and his later new plants are prefaced
by Whiteknights (e.g. Whiteknights Amerthyst). We will let you know how they
get on. If anyone has any Lechlade or Whiteknights varieties, please get in
touch.
Stephen & Jean Bigger.
