The Alpine Gardener
ALPINES FOR ALL
By our President, Professor John Richards

Many of us who belong to the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation were first introduced to the pleasures of poetry through a volume that we were required to study for GCE English Literature. This contained the remarkable stanza:

‘I have a Vision of the future, Chum,
The workers flats in fields of soya beans
Tower up like silver pencils, score on score.’

Punningly perhaps, John Betjeman called his poem ‘The Plantsters Vision’. Today we might think of it as ‘The Plantsman’s Nightmare’! The tower blocks he envisaged
proved socially disastrous, in the UK at least, and many have since been demolished. Nevertheless, the essence of Betjeman’s message is still valid today.
In the UK we like to live permanently at ground level in our own ‘patch’. Small wonder we are said to be the pre-eminent ‘Nation of Gardeners’! Horticulture is
our biggest leisure industry, outstripping even DIY and foreign holidays. One third of us spend more than £500 annually on garden goods and plants. Audiences
of gardening television programmes number many millions, and hundreds of thousands subscribe to popular garden magazines. One in a hundred and eighty is
a member of the world’s foremost garden society, the Royal Horticultural Society. There are dozens of specialist garden societies, amongst which the AGS figures
conspicuously. There are many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of local garden societies, allotment associations and local plant show committees. Superficially, it seems that
British horticulture is in rude good health. However, take a closer look and the picture becomes much less optimistic.
With the possible exception of the RHS, the membership of all our other garden societies is falling, and when this shortfall is analysed, we find that it is the younger
generation that has declined to become involved. Our ‘green and pleasant land’, with its mild, even climate is made for gardening, and it is often seen as a gardeners
paradise by horticulturists in other countries. Nevertheless, it looks as if specialist hobby gardening may be lost to the next generation and Britain will cease to be ‘a
Nation of Gardeners’. Why should this be? We are a small country with a large population which can ill-afford the luxury of
allowing everyone their own patch. The cost of houses and land has risen uncontrollably in the last 30 years. The average age of first time British homeowners
rose to 34 in 2003, and most of those venturing onto the property ladder could only afford apartments. Many younger people live in cities where their growing space may be limited to a balcony, roof, courtyard, window box, or hanging basket.
Another social change relates to to work patterns. The British spend more time in commuting daily than any other country (in Europe the commuting is weekly,
not daily; those of us who holiday in the European mountains by car avoid traveling on Friday night and Monday morning!). To make matters worse, the British work
more days and longer hours than workers in any other European country. For much of the year, commuters only have free time to garden at the weekends, when
exhaustion, homework and demands of the family discourage any lingering desire to create a garden. There is a magnificent irony in the nation in which most
people want a garden and then, as a direct consequence, cannot find the time to spend in it! There is also a fundamental incongruity between a population mad on
gardening, and one which no longer has the space in which to garden freely. Compared to any other branch of horticulture, alpine gardening is in the strongest
position to address these problems. For the Alpine Garden Society, the greatest challenge is to persuade the next generation that it is so. This, our 75th anniversary,
is perhaps an ideal opportunity for the Society to pause, take stock and realise that we are not doing enough to influence younger gardeners. It would be tragic if the
pastime that gives us such rewards, and such a high quality of life, becomes lost to our successors.

A modern lightweight trough filled with colourful alpines, ideal for today’s small garden or for the patio

All that many alpines ask is good drainage and an open, even exposed site. Many of us have very little space in which to garden, often only a patio, terrace, window box or hanging basket. The tiny scale of alpines allows us to build well-designed, artistic, miniature landscapes in containers within restricted areas, these giving long-lasting satisfaction and pleasure. Look at the design and the advances, experiment, adventure, which are displayed in the very best miniature gardens or troughs at our shows. Here is a developing art form which has scarcely been mentioned outside alpine garden circles. Alpines take up very little space and adapt very well to container gardening. As a Society, we should respond creatively by encouraging experimental planting of alpines in restricted inner city areas, perhaps as ‘miniature gardens’ in lightweight containers, to be constructed and publicised on television and in journalism. For example, many alpines thrive in ‘hanging baskets’; recent hanging basket classics such as Veronica peduncularis ‘Georgia Blue’, Diascia barberae ‘Blackthorn Apricot’ and Jamesbrittenia jurassica started their horticultural careers as ‘alpines’. There is a great potential for adventurous
experiments; what about autumn gentians in hanging baskets, or the possibilities that early alpines can provide for so-called ‘winter
baskets’? (Anything would be better than the ubiquitous Narcissus ‘Tête-à-tête’, blowsy primroses, pansies and the scrap of ivy which are turned out ad nauseam!) There are considerable possibilities for trialling alpines in other familiar but limited garden settings; for instance windowboxes, decorative pots, patio containers, not to mention such unconventional and jokey containers as WCs, hipbaths and (pace Bob Flowerdew) disused motor-tyres. Not everyone can find, as the late Joe Elliott did, a Saxon coffin to plant up! Undoubtedly major talking
points, coffins nevertheless have many drawbacks, being unobtainable and extremely heavy! The weight of containers is frequently an issue (for instance on roof gardens) and one of the great breakthroughs of recent years has been the lightweight container. It seems to have taken Aberdonians to realise

The AGS exhibit at Chelsea 2003 was designed to show the use of alpines in confined areas and integrating alpines with other plants: the patio area (top), the moist, shady area (centre) and the dry courtyard (bottom)alpines, ideal for today’s small garden or for the patio

that the modern fishbox, composed of expanded polystyrene produced in a mould, is a useful shape and size, weather-proof, durable, and extremely light. You can wash
them to lose the smell, but as you reach an Intercity train terminus, pause for a moment by the buffet car and you will find that the sandwiches have been transported
in disposable, odour-free fishboxes. It’s polite to ask before you walk off with them! Aberdeen also seems to have originated then technique of ‘distressing’ the fishbox with a hot air gun (not a blowtorch: polystyrene is inflammable!) to give it weathered outlines. Alternatively, some fishbox gardeners cover the box with a conventional 'hypertufa’ mix, too frequently described in these pages to repeat the recipe on this occasion. Instead I learned from a friend how to paint the outside with a heavy-duty paint designed for outside use, the colour carefully mixed to mimic sandstone in colour when dry, and into which handfuls of very dry coarse sandy grit are thrown at it while the paint is still wet. Keep under cover until the paint is completely dry and then plant it up, not forgetting drainage holes (easily made with a screwdriver). Critics have complained that if you follow this formula the result looks like a fishbox covered with sand. A fishbox is quite an acceptable shape, in fact. At least it no longer says ‘Grimsby’ on the side! Alternatively, if you are more fastidious and have a little spare cash, excellent featherweight replicas of stone troughs can now be purchased, not least from the AGS Centre! If you use a humus-based compost with plenty of Perlite, even a thoroughly watered, fully-planted trough is remarkably light. This has huge advantages. Move it around! Tired of it by one window? Move it to another! Hot day? Put it in the shade! Dull day, into full light! Put it in the back of the car and take it round to show friends, to a meeting or to a Show! Furthermore, the expanded polystyrene has great thermal inertia, so that the compost remains refreshingly cool on the hottest day.

Even formal bedding can provide opportunities for the alpine gardener. I am a member of a local ‘Britain in Bloom’ group which concentrates its efforts (and expense) on dazzling displays of annual bedding plants in the summer months, usually designed to peak on the day when the judges are due to arrive! But tourists visit our town throughout the year. Do they really expect retinal abuse from floral display at all times of year? Would they not rather view well-designed, year-long exhibits of small perennial plants, well matched in form and foliage? In parks and on roundabouts, larger brasher plantings may be to scale, but for the window boxes, planters and hanging baskets which urban businesses provide, judiciously chosen alpines might be far more satisfactory. Alpines really should be ‘for all’! By emphasising the long-term interest that alpines provide in such limited conditions, we can welcome a whole new audience to our world of alpine plants. To encourage alpine gardening, there is no substitute for friendliness and generosity. I wonder how many of us started by being intrigued by the alpine garden of a friend or neighbour, being asked round, and leaving with a few rooted bits in a poly-bag? Maybe it is your turn to be that friend. Those of us who canvas for membership at national and AGS shows, and in other contexts, encounter a great deal of interest in the Society, but when this interest is not translated into membership, the reason most commonly given is that the Society is too ‘specialised’, or even too ‘botanical’. We know that the key to our affection for alpine plants is their variety. By growing challenging, unusual, beautiful or quirky plants, which between them generate interest from January to December, we are blessed with an absorbing pastime throughout the year. Our delight in this diversity causes us to write and publish articles about plants of remote and distant lands, about exciting new introductions to cultivation, and about those who grow these wonderful plants to perfection. Most of the plants have no English names, which some find a barrier, just as others are worried about holidaying in a country in which English is not commonly spoken. In both cases, those who take the plunge reap the rewards!

As a concluding remark, I am concerned that gardening television has not helped our cause since it does little to encourage the budding plantsman and real enthusiast.
Instead it often seeks out the lowest common denominator, season after repetitive season. Those responsible for making the programmes seem to be worried that if
there is too much talk about plants they risk committing the ultimate televisual sin, a reduction in the size of the viewing audience. Is there any other enthusiasm
where a knowledgeable television audience of millions is invariably treated as if they were callow novices? Does ‘Test-Match Special’ have to explain that a cricket
over consists of six balls? Fishing programmes set a splendid example by assuming that their audience already possesses a considerable understanding of basic angling
lore. Instead, gardening programmes never fail to emphasise that when the transformation is complete, there will be plenty of time to put one’s feet up and
enjoy the garden, gin in hand. This is akin to saying that fishermen only want to watch a motionless float, rather than catch a fish!