Hexham Alpine Shows continue to be popular with exhibitors and the public alike. Easy access to the A69, together with generous parking, and a capacious Hall next to a well-stocked café and handy for an attractive and historic town (well, I would say that!) attracts alpine enthusiasts from both England and Scotland. Thirty-two exhibitors benched 361 plants, making for a large and colourful Show. Happily, the public rock in in battalions, delighting the trade stands, so in many ways this is an ideal Show venue, if early starters can ignore the ‘perfume’ emanating from the Mart next door.

Alan Furness enjoyed a successful Show, winning three awards, one for an example of his many large Celmisia hybrids (Millenium Trophy for the best foliage plant). This particular plant appeared to count C. traversii and C. verbascifolia amongst its antecedents.

However, my eye was drawn rather to the much smaller Celmisia lyallii, another Kiwi from South Island (they nearly all are), but with stiff linear leaves tinted white with meal at the base. Both Alan and I have struggled with this species in the garden (mine rotted), but Alan’s pot-grown plants were in fine fettle.

Autumn Shows are known for their foliage exhibits. Of the many on offer, I was taken by Centaurea ‘Snowy Owl’ (Stan da Prato who brought a characteristically heavily-laden car south over the border). This white-felted beauty is a form of C. ragusina, endemic to limestone cliffs on some of the many islands which line the Croatian coast. In flower, it produces large yellow ‘knapweeds’, not seen here. Probably, this lovely thing would be best grown under cold glass.

Cushions are also a feature of autumn Shows. Dionysia esfandieri (John Dixon) took the eye, not only for the regularity of its 20 cm cushion, but for the dove-grey tone of the foliage.

Satureja (savoury) seems to me a rather neglected genus of autumn-flowering herbs. Many have a neat habit and produce white labiate-type flowers late in the year. As a bonus, they smell wonderful when you brush against them. S. parnassica is a delight with me, but here we saw Satureja spicigera  (Raymond Hurd) from the Caucasus. Known as ‘Creeping Savoury’, this is available from the culinary cognoscenti, but it makes for an attractive dwarf shrub as well.

Autumn Shows would be poorer without Sternbergias, always supposing that you can get them to flower on the right day. These pages have queried before why what appears to be typical S. lutea is labelled ‘Pamukkale’ (Don Peace). Maybe it is a particularly compliant form, as it seems to have no visible distinctions from the species.

The same cannot be said for a delightful pan of S. greuteriana (David Millward). At times it has been queried whether this endemic of limestone cliff faces high in the Cretan mountains is different from S. sicula (which also grows on Cretan cliffs). No-one viewing Dave’s plants should harbour further doubts.

I shall finish this brief review with a grouse. Some years ago, a neighbour who grows tropical orchids handed me some pots of dormant bulbs, saying that they were Haemanthus and he was tired of them. Envisaging scarlet spheres at flowering time, I accepted the gift with pleasure, rapture much modified when white shaving brushes appeared amongst fleshy foliage. Those that remained outside rapidly turned to mush. Now, Haemanthus albiflos is appearing on our autumn Show benches with alarming regularity. Maybe some folk love them, but please spare the rest of us!

Reporter: John Richards
Photographer: Peter Maguire