Botanist Mike Ashford has turned his back on my ‘roofless roof garden’ which is really an old slab of concrete covered with soil and stone mulch |
My wife Brenda recently hosted a small gathering of long retired Askham Bryan colleagues and their partners in our garden. Please indulge me today as I wallow in nostalgia and share a few memories as old folks do.
Brenda’s lunch was as ever superb. Peter Williams not only took the pictures but after coffee on arrival we visited and marvelled at his own garden. He says his camera focus was out of focus but his pictures look good to me.
Prats examine pratia which invades my lawn |
Peter Hemsley (bending) told me that to capture this lovely invasive alpine’s true colour my camera needs a blue filter.
Botanist Philip Orton (great pullover) micro propagated Dicentra ‘Snowflakes’ when it was launched at Chelsea thirty years ago.
Wine buffer |
The copper beech was a former seedling from Bolton Percy cemetery (transported as a ten foot sapling - imagine my car). We are standing on a raised area which is a long gone rubbish dump
My guests look a little bored with my mulching stones (spoil from Worsbrough cemetery).
Peter (dig that hat) spots, identifies and admires my Salix fargesioides. No previous visitor has even noticed it!
“Peter Williams gave me another” |
David Willis breeder of Euphorbia ‘Silver Swan’ had lost the plant in his own garden. David is a former custodian of a section of the National narcissus collection and has been involved in rehabilitating old varieties such as ‘Weardale Perfection’
I hope David can grow his plant better next time and as well as Peter |
Wonderful 'Weardale Perfection' in a North Yorkshire churchyard |
“He never stakes - but Brenda sometimes follows him round” |
“Current theory might satisfactorily explain how water gets up this tree but not a hundred metre redwood” |
Alan’s tree Malus ‘Crimson Cascade was launched at Chelsea this year.
Peter Hemsley examines Inula hookeri (I had thought it was called Inula hemsleyana) |
“ He does not dig you know” |
"Brenda tells me he has lost his Stipa gigantea" |
Margaret Thompson snaps the frothy heads of the mature valerian flowers. She grows thirty different hostas and added one more today
Peter in clover |
Further information and links
Alan Warwick's water theory
See Isobel Ashford's rose-petal confetti when Brenda and I married two years ago
See Peter Williams' lovely garden in this post. Peter's and my own garden are both open on Tuesday 22nd August in aid of Yorkshire Arboretum - combined ticket £5. More details on their website.
Addendum
You learn something every day and Peter Williams yesterday told me of yet another of David Willis’s achievements. He invented Vitax Q4
This is probably the best of the fertilisers on the amateur market and for me is only now exceeded by professional ones such as yaramila.
Working in the fertiliser industry fifty years ago David reasoned that a good fertiliser should be formulated with more sensible proportions of NPK and should contain necessary trace elements.
Vitax has been a market leader for fifty years and the same company has produced it for all of that time. He was recently invited to a slap up celebration by the company for the fertiliser’s fiftieth anniversary. Great for an old employee to be remembered.
This post was fun to read, thank you! Thank you also to your visitors who so kindly gave you permission to use their photos on your blog. I wish my sister and my partner were not so shy so that I could show Pictures with them on, too, but they won't have it.
ReplyDeleteI am sure that they are all ok with it but I never asked... nor for my wedding ones
DeleteMy generation are not very comfortable with computers and most of my visitors have never read it - even after much prompting - and will never know!
I guess as my visitors have worked in public that they will not mind. I hope!
It looks to have been an enjoyable evening, you appear to be the only one with a glass of wine!
ReplyDeleteWith such a knowledge group of friends, are you all still learning?
Empty too by the look of it.
DeleteNot evening Brian, lunch
DeleteWe are all in bed by eight!
I learnt to get to the wine first
You look to be revelling in the occasion :-)
ReplyDeleteI always do Sue.
DeleteSo glad you all had a jolly good get together, now I have a question....
ReplyDeleteWhat is the collective noun for a group of horticulturalist of a "certain age" ??
Best wishes, Bridget
Bridget
That was only one "Bridget" got a gremlin!!
Deletei thought there was two of you!
DeleteA gaggle of backwoodsmen. comes to mind...
a pastime of gardeners?
How about a passion of plantsmen?
DeleteI don't know about a collective noun, but an anagram for gardener is deranger! That seems entirely apposite!
DeleteDeranged dodderers perhaps
Delete(dodder is a scrambling parasitic plant in the cucumber family)
What a wonderful gathering, it must have been a real pleasure. We just had a gathering here in Chicago of a handful of garden bloggers. Also made for a very pleasant and stimulating day.
ReplyDeleteAmazing to see wonderful natural surrounding. It,s always an peaceful experience in the garden.I am an gardener and lives in San Diego. My best wishes to old gardeners.
ReplyDelete