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Wisley's Alpine Diary

This entry: 18 March 2010 by Paul Cumbleton

Log 69

Wisley's Alpine Log

By Paul Cumbleton

2010: Log 69... 18 March

Last weekend saw an event called ?World of Alpines? at Wisley. This wasn?t our event but was organised by the two local branches of the Alpine Garden Society, repeating a successful formula from previous years. The aim was to give visitors an introduction to alpines and encourage them to join the Alpine Garden Society and support their local branches.

 

There were of course plant displays which were accompanied by lots of information on boards, and explained by enthusiastic AGS members

 

Making up troughs is always popular and there were demonstrations throughout the day of how to paint a polystyrene box and plant it up.

There were truly extensive displays of photographs showing a vast and mouth-watering range of alpine plants. This one ran the full length of the back wall.

Many of these showed plants in their natural habitats as well as in cultivation and gave a good overall impression of the richness and beauty of the alpine flora.  Jon Evans also showed a large number of his photographs which have become well known within the AGS for their attractive portrayal of plants in close-up:

One of the AGS specialist groups, the Fritillaria Group, was present and advertising itself, using for the first time some large, new display signs which stood 2 metres tall.

The Cyclamen Society was also invited to take part and they showed a range of plants and plenty of photographs:

 

Visitors were of course also able to visit the Wisley Alpine House and see a vast further range of alpine plants. The house is looking really wonderful just now with a real burst of spring colour:

 

The Saxifrages, Primulas and Hepaticas are providing particularly plentiful displays of flowers and we have many pots of each of these in the house at the moment. These are supplemented by many bulbs and the first of the Pleione orchids.

 

The house is also full of scent, courtesy in particular of two pots of South African bulbs ? the Freesia fergusoniae you can see draped over the rocks in the picture (below) and Gladiolus uysiae. Both of these have powerful perfumes.

Finally just picking at random a couple of other plants flowering in the house now ? Draba spaeroides and the orchid Pterostylis curta:

 

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