The RHS Harlow Carr gardens were at their glorious best as a backdrop to the first AGS spring show, held in the light, airy marquee erected in the grounds last year.  What a delight for exhibitors and visitors alike to be able to wander freely from alpine house to formal borders to floriferous woodland glades and then admire the splendid array of show plants.

Thankfully this show benefitted from warm, dry weather.  Nurseries were able to sell their sales plants outside as well as in, doing brisk business all day.  If this is to become a permanent show venue, however, access to the marquee from the car park with heavy plants does need improvement.  There is a choice between a rough, rocky driveway across which laden trolleys have to trundle or a slippery path covered in torn matting.

Ian and Georgina Instone once more ran a very well organised show with help from their friends in the West Yorkshire Group.  They were very busy indeed as both are prolific exhibitors too.  Ian won no fewer than seven first prizes and was awarded the cup for the Open Section aggregate.  Well done, Ian!  Of his many exhibits, I have selected a small, well-presented Physoplexis comosa for inclusion in this report, its numerous ‘Devil’s Claw’ flowers just about to open.  He was offering for sale on the AGS members’ table a number of small plants of this sought-after species, grown from hand pollinated seed.

There were no entries at all in the Novice Section, always a shame, but the Intermediate classes contained some good plants.  Steve Clements won the trophy for the Intermediate aggregate.  He is an orchid specialist but sadly lost many of his best plants while suffering poor health during the pandemic years.  This year he has shown some high class pleiones, Pleione Mauna Loa gx. ‘Glossy Starling’ being just one example.

Heather Barraclough showed the best plant in the Intermediate Section, a compact Rhodohypoxis baurii with white flowers and pink buds. The real talking point however was the trophy she won. It should have been the Dawson Trophy, which unfortunately is lost. An elegant glass decanter was substituted, a redundant trophy from the erstwhile Summer North show. It had been exquisitely engraved in years past with a Pulsatilla design – by none other than Heather herself!

Before we turn to more awards, four unusual and interesting plants deserve comment. First and by the far the largest was Lawrence Peet’s Antirrhinum sempervirens in the class for a dwarf shrub. It reopened an issue that has often provoked discussion and disagreement – what is the difference between a shrub and a subshrub?  Before judging commenced several members were asserting that it is a subshrub and therefore not eligible.  The AGS Encyclopaedia says it is a shrub. That was held to be definitive for this purpose and as it was the best plant in the class, it received a red sticker.

Brian Burrow won the class for a plant new in cultivation with a diminutive Eryngium glaciale, a high alpine from 2,500m in southern Spain’s Sierra Nevada.  It had caught your reporter’s eye a couple of weeks earlier when in bud at the East Lancs show and was now showing quietly charming pale blue flowers.  A treat for those who enjoy the beauty of small things.

Next two plants that won nothing at all but require skilled cultivation.  Neil Hubbard, another orchid specialist, showed Himantoglossum jankae, a lizard orchid from the Balkans with flamboyant pink, white and green flowers.  Cliff Booker entered Berardia subacaulis, a member of the Compositae from the European Alps whose place would surely have been in the class for a plant rare in cultivation, had its pot not been too large.  A solitary cream flower stood above a rosette of green leaves felted with white hairs.

Four plants were awarded Certificates of Merit, which proves that this was a show of high quality.  Andean rosulate violas always attracts attention – they are so different to the violas that we all know and grow and are a notorious challenge to grow and flower well.  Fred and Pat Bundy exhibited a plant with a rosette of hairy, veined leaves and tiny purple and white flowers. They had labelled it Viola philippi but later research established that it is in fact Viola montagnei.

Don Peace won a Certificate with his magnificent Cypripedium parviflorum subsp. parviflorum that had won the Farrer Medal two weeks earlier and was still in excellent condition. For further details, see the East Lancashire show report.

Frank and Barbara Hoyle received the remaining Certificates with two splendid plants. The largest Eriogonum ovalifolium var. nivale your reporter has ever seen formed a dome of felted silver foliage visible throughout the show hall with just a couple of flower stems starting to emerge.  Their Boykinia jamesii, a plant that on its day could well win Best in Show, dominated its class with many spikes of reddish-purple flowers.  Close examination showed that it was in fact just past its best (Frank said that he had spent time the evening before removing faded petals).  He grows this Rocky Mountain plant, which he has seen growing in granite on Pikes Peak, plunged in damp sand, under glass, in a 50/50 mix of compost and grit.  Only the sand plunge is watered when the plant is dormant.

Geoff Rollinson won the Glebelands Trophy for the best plant in a small pot. He has for many decades set the standard for growing cushion androsaces and exhibited an immaculate A. hirtella covered in freshly opened white flowers.

There were two completely contrasting entries competing for an AGS Medal in Class 1 for six rock plants. Chris Lilley deservedly won with a classic mix of quality plants – a shrub, a succulent, a silver Saxifraga, a Dodecatheon, a Viola and a Lamium – a complete rock garden with plants originating from a range of countries.

His rival was Michael Sullivan who brought to the show a quite astonishing car load of huge silver saxifrage hybrids, all grown from seed and in full flower.  He carefully chose six for his entry that were all subtly different, as show rules require.  Other similar plants featured throughout the show and unsurprisingly he won the Open Section large Saxifrage class.

Mention must also be made of Chris’s huge Sempervivum arachnoideum subsp. tomentosum, a plant from the high Pyrenees that won the Sempervivum class, as it does at almost every show it graces.  This magnificent plant is about 15 years old and has won as many first prizes over the years. Given the age these plants can reach, it is difficult to predict when it is likely to be beaten.

In conclusion, to his immense surprise and great delight your show reporter won his first Farrer Medal after 30+ years of trying!  Daphne jasminea in its prostrate form from the mountains around Delphi in southern Greece is always well received when shown covered in crystalline white flowers.  It is slow growing with very fragile branches that make re-potting a hazardous business. Bought some 15 years ago, it has lived in a succession of pots plunged in sand in an alpine house.  In 2011 it won an award for the best plant in a small pot at the Malvern Show.  By 2018 it had reached its present size, was flowering well and its owner had high hopes but it did not meet with the judges’ approval.  Since then it has failed to increase in size and has flowered less prolifically but this time it was deemed good enough to win.  Phew!  Its reward this summer will be a further re-potting.  Given the fickle habits of the Daphne elite, who can tell whether it will make it to next year’s shows?

Reporter: David Charlton

Photographer: Don Peace