In Honour of Lee Martin

I was deeply saddened this weekend to learn that my dear friend Lee Martin has finally lost his long battle with cancer at the age of 69. Lee was one of our premier exhibitors and a respected judge, but more importantly a wonderfully genuine, friendly, generous man.

Lee did not travel the country for every show, but visited only shows where he thought he had good plants, or which would make a good weekend break with his wife Julie.  They lived in Pevensey in Sussex, right on the South Coast, so almost every show was a long trip.

Nevertheless, he and Julie were regularly in the top five in the annual aggregate, even last season when he was struggling with illness and a demanding treatment regime.  In 27 years of exhibiting he achieved nineteen Gold Bars.  For those who are not familiar with shows that signifies a total of 1000 firsts at national shows, 50 for his Gold medal and then 50 for each bar.

Lee Martin’s Farrer Medal Wins

As an exhibitor, Lee Martin didn’t specialise in any particular genus, though the Campanulaceae were close to his heart; if anything, he specialised in growing plants for the summer shows.  Most of the plants Lee and Julie exhibited were familiar plants for the garden, grown in a cold frame, rather than the carefully controlled alpine house conditions used by the specialist growers.  His great skill was to grow these familiar plants superbly well.  He won his first Farrer medal in 1993, while he was still in the Intermediate Section, and went on to accumulate an amazing 36 Farrer medals.

Several of these date from before I regularly took photos at shows, or were at shows I didn’t visit, but here are a selection of Lee and Julie’s Farrer Medal winning plants from my archive.

Campanula pelia

Summer South Show 2003

This Campanula pelia MESE 311 (exhibited and formerly known as C. thessala) is a short-lived, monocarpic species.  It tends to flower as a small plant in its second year, and then dies.  Somehow or other Lee managed to produce a specimen with multiple rosettes and a foaming mass of flower.  A magnificent plant, and one I will always remember him by.

Androsace studiosorum ‘Doksa’

South West Show 2002

Narcissus obesus

South West Show 2004

Lee and Julie exhibited this as Narcissus bulbocodium; at the time Narcissus obesus had not been classified as a separate species.  When the two species were separated, the name Narcissus obesus became the correct one for these short stemmed plants with big yellow upward facing trumpets and reasonably prostrate leaves.  This clone was later named N. obesus ‘Lee Martin’ in honour of Lee.

Campanula choruhensis

Summer North Show 2004

Alstroemeria hookeri

Pershore Show 2006

Another fabulous exhibit

Androsace studiosorum

London Show 2008

Crocus goulimyi ‘Mani White’

Autumn South Show 2008

Dianthus squarrosus

East Anglia Show 2009

Saxifraga ‘Tumbling Waters’

Summer South Show 2009

This was a large, heavy and delicate plant, so I photographed it in situ on the showbench, with a piece of grey card behind most of the plant.  Because it was larger than the background, I then spent several hours in post processing to produce this result.

Iris rosenbachiana

Early Spring Show 2010

Of all the plants shown here, this is unquestionably the trickiest, and normally requires alpine house conditions.  It needs a warm summer rest, good drainage and careful watering (I’m not an expert), and then flowers in February when the weather could easily damage the flowers.

Trillium rivale

South West Show 2010

Dianthus ‘Eileen Lever’

Summer South Show 2010

Saxifraga ‘Tumbling Waters’

Summer South Show 2011

Please note that this is not the same plant which won in 2009.  Keen alpine growers will know that the silver saxifrages are monocarpic i.e. they die after flowering, so it is important to propagate selected clones like this by removing and rooting non-flowering side-rosettes.

Lee’s plants were often huge, and required meticulous care to avoid damage, both in the car and when moving them around the show.  He hated photographers moving his plants, and would always carry them himself.  Although he came to trust me over the years, I would still ask him to carry anything particularly large or delicate.

Sternbergia greuteriana

Autumn South Show 2011

Campanula aff. andrewsii MELJ200944

Summer South Show 2012

This plant was simply too heavy and too fragile; neither Lee nor I wanted to move it, so I photographed it in situ on the show bench.  It is closely related to Campanula pelia shown above, and was grown from seed collected by Melvyn Jope.  Both species come from rocky areas in central Greece.

Narcissus obesus ‘Lee Martin’

South West Show 2014

Arenaria hookeri var. desertorum

Wimborne Show 2015

Sternbergia sicula

Kent Autumn Show 2015

Lee Martin’s Flower Arrangements

However, the thing I will remember best about Lee Martin is his wonderful flower arrangements.  I can remember when he first started producing them. For a long time, the other exhibitors believed it was Julie who produced them.  I have photographed them regularly at shows over the years, so here are just a few (I have images of over 50).

Early Spring Show 2004

Summer North Show 2004

Early Spring Show 2016

Early Spring Show 2017

Loughborough Autumn Show 2017

At the Loughborough Autumn Show in 2017 the organisers had a public ballot for the best exhibit.  I was delighted that the “People’s Choice” award went to Lee and Julie Martin for their flower arrangement.

Wimborne Show 2018

For me, this is possibly the finest flower arrangement I have ever photographed at an AGS show.  In real life it was stunningly beautiful.  Some of the judges say you should be able to pick out the Farrer plant when you walk into the show hall.  If flower arrangements were eligible, I would have given the award to this arrangement that day.

Wimborne Show 2019

Pershore Show 2019

Kent Autumn Show 2019

It is sad to think that this is the last arrangement Lee will make.

Remembering Lee Martin 

With the current Coronavirus situation, the funeral will need to be a very small family affair.  Julie Martin asks that anyone who wants to remember Lee should do so via a donation to the hospice that cared for him:

St. Wilfrid’s Hospice
c/o Serenity Funeral Directors
43 South Street
Eastbourne  BN21 4UT

You can donate digitally, by visiting our Facebook page, finding the post about Lee and clicking the ‘donate’ button.