When you have so many wonderful plants, the only problem here was what to leave out

With so much colour in the garden today, I couldn’t possibly include everything and it was a real problem deciding what to include. There’s always next year. All pictures were taken on 11th April.

Some of the Wisley flowering cherries are found in the rock garden

The rock garden has some lovely flowering cherries at this time of year. Prunus ‘Ichiyo’ is particularly nice, having a double flower. It was introduced to the UK by plant collector Captain Collingwood Ingram (1880 – 1981) who was the world  authority outside Japan, on Japanese cherries. It reaches 6m x 6m and flowers in April / May. He introduced many cultivars to the trade. Ichiyo is Japanese for one leaf, the leaf like pistil at the heart of the flower.

At the edge of the fern glade there is a row of different flowering cherries. The first, Prunus ‘Kofuku’ is in the sato-zakura group, meaning village or garden cherries. This was given an AGM in 2012. Raised by Mr Masatoshi Asari, from the Matsumae area at the southern tip of Hokkaido, in northern Japan. Kofufu is Japanese for joy, well-being, happiness or blessedness and I’m sure on a nice sunny day, like today, it will bring all of that to the observer. It has large semi-double pale pink flowers, flushed with deeper pink.

Prunus ‘Matsumae – hanazomei’ has the same hybridizer and was also introduced in 1961. It is a cross of P. ‘Higurashi’ x P. ‘Fukurokuju’. From the Japanese hana – flower or blossom and zome – dye. A Japanese artistic technique is to put petals from flowers onto a surface and to lightly hammer them to extract the colour from the petals. I have not personally tried it, so can’t vouch for its success.  Prunus serrulate ‘Bendono’ is of garden origin and was introduced to the UK in 1926 from Japan. It was recorded there from 1821 – 1841.

Prunus ‘Matsumae-beni-batan’ is the third of Mr. Masatoshi Asari hybrids, also introduced in 1961. It is a small to medium white semi-double flowering mid-season cultivar. A hybrid of P. ‘Batan’ x P. Amayador’ (or possibly P. ’Kechimiyaku-zakura’). From the Japanese – beni – red and botan – peony. As the flowers are not that colour it is perhaps reference to the autumn leaves.

Prunus serrulata ‘Asagi’. The specific epithet is from the Latin – finely toothed (the leaves). From the Japanese – asagi – pale green,

The Alpine meadow is filling up with colour

At the edge of the alpine meadow is another very popular tree Amelanchier larmackii. Some authorities show the name as A. x larmackii as they believe it is a hybrid of A. arborea x A. laevis. I’ll keep with the RHS recognized name. The genus name is from the French – Amelanchier – an old name in the Savoy area for A. vulgaris, the snowy Mespilus. The specific epithet is to honour Jean Baptise Antoine Monet de Lamarck (1744 – 1829). He was a French botanist and solider. An early proponent of biological evolution and whose works influenced Charles Darwin. It comes from the north east of Canada and into the eastern USA. In the alpine meadow Fritillaria meleagris and its white form are also coming into flower.

In the Alpine Display house

There is an RHS trial of Tulips being undertaken at Wisley currently, but it is not just in the trials area where you can see lots of lovely Tulips, and some of them may even be from Amsterdam.

There were many pots of tulips on display today, and the flowers were open in the bright sunshine. Tulipa clusiana var. chrysantha ‘Tubergen’s Gem’  grows to 20 – 30cm and has red and canary yellow flowers. It was selected by van Tubergen in the Netherlands. The specific epithet was to honour Carolus Clusius, a Flemish physician and botanist (1526 – 1609)  who was the man behind Tulip mania in Holland. That didn’t end well with a rapid unscheduled implosion of the market. The variety is from the Latin – yellow flowered. T. clusiana ‘Sheila’ was a selection made by W. Van Lierop & Zonen. B.V. and was registered in 1992.

Tulipa clusiana ‘Peppermint stick’ AGM is another W. Van Lierop & Zn. B.V. introduction, this time registered in 1998, with cherry red flowers, white edges and violet hearts. It grows 20 – 30cms and naturalises readily. T.c.’Taco’ another W. Van Lierop & Zn. B.V. introduction again registered in 1998, the flowers are red with yellow edges. The petals are edible and taco in Mexican Spanish is the name for a light meal, so perhaps there is a link in the naming. Before tucking into a light meal of tulip flowers I’d do your own research to confirm their suitability.

T.c. ‘Cynthia’ AGM was introduced by Van Tubergen in 1959. It has pale yellow outer tepals of pin-red edged with pale yellow. It is one of the Lady Tulips, so named for their elegant and sophisticated or dainty appearance. Tulipa montana is native to the mountains of Iran and Turkmenistan. No prizes for working out that the specific epithet if from the Latin – of mountains or mountain dweller.

There were also a number of Tulipa linifolia (Batalinii Group) flowering. T. batalinii  used to have specific rank but was re-classified following research and analysis. They were named to honour Russian botanist Dr. Alexander Feodorowicz Batalin (1847 – 1896) who became the Director of the Imperial Botanic Garden at St. Petersburg. He began his career in the garden in 1870. Amongst his studies and published papers he wrote on “The mechanics of movement of insectivorous plants”, don’t we all. Some of his observations were passed on to Charles Darwin who used them in his works. Tulipa linifolia (Batalinii Group) ‘Red Hunter’ has scarlet – red flowers with a black heart, growing to 20cms. It was selected by the RHS to mark its bi-centenary. The specific epithet is from the Latin – lini – flax and folia – leaved. It is native to Afghanistan, Iran, Tadzhikistan and Uzbekistan. Tulipa linifolia (Batalinii Group) ‘Yellow Jewel’ is slightly smaller at only 15cm and has grey green leaves with yellow flowers.

Tulipa linifolia (Batalinii Group) ‘Bronze Charm’ has yellow, bronze-feathered flowers which are bronze coloured in bud. It is native to the countries that made up the  area of the Soviet Central Asia, growing on stony hillsides. There were other species available to admire, T. humilis ‘Little Beauty’ being one of them. It was awarded an AGM in 1997 and the flowers are scented. It has reddish pink petals with a blue centre. It is another W. van Lierop & Zn. B.V. introduction in 1991.

Tulipa humilis is found at the eastern end of the mediterranean including Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria and North Caucasus. The specific epithet is from the Latin – low growing or smaller than most of its kind. T. ‘Honky Tonk’ has grey-green wavy leaves with soft yellow flowers with a pink blush on the outside. Again, a W. van Lierop & Zn. B.V. introduction from 1998.

It wasn’t all Tulips on show

Primula auricula ‘Cambodunum’ was raised by Derek Telford in 1990 and was named after a Roman settlement near Huddersfield as detailed on Barnhaven’s Primrose website. P. a. ‘Fluffy duckling’ was bred by Derek Parson who has named over 50 cultivars.

Primula farinosa was on display in the ADH but the picture below is from the tufa wall outside the cushion house, as it was a better example. It’s our birds-eye primrose being native to northern Europe and northern Asia. It thrives in grazed meadows rich in lime. The specific epithet is from the Latin – mealy, the foliage and the stems. P. ‘Mauve Mist’ is an Ashwood hybrid, a seedling from ‘Drake’s form’ that was open pollinated.

Iris ‘Pogo’ was registered in 1953 by Doulas Geddes, its parents were I. (Golden Hind x Yellow Jewel) x I. pumila (yellow). It is classified as a standard dwarf bearded Iris because of its stature. It has yellow falls with brown marks growing to 25cm. It blooms middle to late season. Iris ‘Raspberry Ice’ was introduced by K. Keppel in 2012 and is another standard dwarf bearded Iris.

Fritillaria acmopetala is not the most brightly coloured flower but interesting never-the-less. It comes from Turkey, south western and south Anatolia to Cyprus and Lebanon. It grows in scrub and open woods as well as corn fields up to 1000m. The specific epithet is from the Latin – acmo – pointed and petala  – petal. I keep thinking the daffodils are over only to discover another one in display. Narcissus ‘Petrel’ produces 2 – 5 scented flowers per stem. It was registered by Grant. E. Mitsch, Oregon, USA in 1970. It’s seed parent was N. Quick Step’ and the pollen was supplied from N. triandrus subsp. triandrus var. triandrus.

It’s not all about classic spring plants

Dionysia esfandiarii is native to the Zagros mountains in southwest Iran, it has grey green cushions with violet flowers. The specific epithet was to honour Dr. Esfandiar Esfandiari who was an Iranian Scientist and botanist, professor of Botany at Keedj University in Iran. He celebrated his 80^th birthday in 1989. D. involucrata has its holotype location (single specimen designated by an author as the type of a species) in Tajikistan and in particular the Pamir and Hisar mountains, growing on shaded granite cliffs at 1000 – 2500m. It is said to be one of the more easy plants in the genus to grow. D. involucrata (white -flowered) was first introduced in 1975 from a plant raised at Gothenburg Botanic Garden.

Paeonia cambessedesii is known as the Majorcan Peony. Not surprisingly it is native to Majorca growing in sunny places among limestone rocks. It was named to honour French botanist Jacques Cambessedes (1799 – 1863) who collected many plants in the Balearic Islands. It grows up to 45cm. Nothoscordum ostenii is known as the false garlic. The genus name is from the Greek – nothos – illegitimate or false and scordum – garlic. It is native from Uruguay to Argentina and requires a frost-free green house, and is named to honour Cornelius Osten, a German born businessman and botanist who emigrated to Uruguay when he was 23.

On this day, 11 April 1970

The mission to put the third lunar crew on the moon took off on this day in 1970. On the third day of the mission, John L. ‘Jack’ Swigert made a call to mission control, “Okay Houston, we’ve had a problem here”. He was asked to repeat his message. There had been an explosion in one of the fuel cell oxygen tanks. The crew of Apollo 13 consisted of Jim Lovell (commander), Fred W. Haise (lunar module pilot) and Jack Swigert (command module pilot). In the 1995 film, Tom Hanks played Jim Lovell and delivered the line “Houston we have a problem”. To be historically accurate it should have been Kevin Bacon playing Jack Swigert who delivered the line. In hind sight the 1995 film version might have been more correct, as they were just at the start of their problems. As we all know the crew transferred from Odyssey (the command module) and into Aquarius (the lunar module) and were able to make it back to earth. An investigation was quickly completed and concluded “the accident was not the result of a chance malfunction in a statistical sense, but rather resulted from an unusual combination of mistakes, complete with a somewhat deficient and unforgiving design”. It was the same Aerospace engineers who had previously coined the expression Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) to describe an explosion and some sources add “Event” to the expression. How RUDE. There are earlier references to the military using the expression as well, when a gun malfunctioned. I thought it was a new expression coined by Elon Musk when the Falcon 9 rocket, belonging to SpaceX failed in January 2015, suffering a RUD. I hope that all my problems will only be of a plant nature and the only explosions will be of colours in the Alpine Display House. Gardening is not rocket science, thank goodness..