Pershore High School has for several years provided us with a quality show venue. It has good access to major roads and, located in the Midlands, attracts exhibitors and visitors from all directions. The facilities and parking are good as is the catering and once more Gail Devries and her helpers organised another excellent early season show. One disadvantage is that it is some distance from our HQ and garden. Would that it were within walking distance so our lovely garden could help attract the public to our shows.

The show hall was a blaze of colour with splendid Dionysias, Cyclamen, Narcissi and other dwarf bulbs featuring prominently. It was refreshing to see a renaissance in the Artistic Section. In recent years it has been thinly populated at all venues. Eight exhibitors entered 31 pictures of quality and great variety. Rannveig Wallis, who has sustained the Artistic Section almost single-handedly in recent years, won the Open Section Aggregate and Stephen Shelley the Intermediate Aggregate. His drawing of a variety of Fritillaria flowers was particularly striking. An elegantly composed painting of Fritillaria meleagris won the Florence Baker best painting award for Caroline Jackson-Houlston.

It is unusual for a plant in a 19cm pot to win the Farrer Medal for the best plant in the show but Vic and Janet Aspland achieved this with perhaps the best and most mature specimen of Gymnospermium altaicum seen at our shows. This member of the Berberidaceae family originates from central Asia. From small tubers green shoots emerge in early spring with leaves tinted red. The winning plant carried a profusion of flowers of the brightest yellow, all slightly overhanging the sides of the pot with a delicate charm. It is a hardy species but requires excellent drainage and is most often given the protection of an alpine house.

Not for the first time Rannveig and Bob Wallis won the Open Section aggregate with a wonderful array of plants – no fewer than 29 formed part of first prize-winning entries! They won awards for both large and small 6-pan entries as well as a Certificate of Merit for a lovely pot of eight Iris kolpakowskiana, a rare, tricky and beautiful member of the Reticulate group from Central Asia.

One pot in their small 6-pan entry caught the eye of your reporter, however – seven lovely cream flowers of a hybrid between Narcissus asturiensis and N. alpestris. It was fascinating to compare it with a magnificent pot of Narcissus asturiensis exhibited in the Intermediate Section that won for Alastair Forsyth both a Certificate of Merit and the award for the best bulbous plant. This tiny snowmelt plant from the Picos de Europa in Northern Spain has the most perfect miniature trumpets. It takes some eight years to flower from seed but Alastair’s exhibit had developed from one original bulb acquired years earlier from the nursery of Simon Bond, who sadly passed away shortly before this show. Consequently every flower was identical in size and shape – seed grown plants almost always show some degree of variation.

The award of no fewer than six Certificates of Merit demonstrated the quality of the show. Don Peace won two with plants in his first prize-winning large 3-pan exhibit seen immediately on entering the show hall. In front was an outstanding Hepatica japonica forma magna. Its purple stamens contrasted with the pure white petals. Behind to the right was Corydalis popovii, a Central Asian species. Once more, white contrasted with purple but on flowers whose structure was completely different. On another day the third plant in the group, a glowing yellow Eranthis, might well have scored a hat trick for Don in just one class. Instead he secured his third Certificate with a glowing smaller pot of yellow Iris winogradowii, a pale yellow flowered species from the Caucasus with attractive dark spots on the falls.

The wonderful Dionysias of Paul and Gill Ransom and of John Dixon are always a delight at our spring shows. Paul and Gill secured a Certificate of Merit with an immaculate Dionysia ‘Ewesley Legacy’, its pink flowers with white centres contrasting well with a limestone top-dressing. This hybrid is one of many created by Eric Watson, an early pioneer of this beautiful but challenging family. The name Ewesley was taken from his address and he added to each of his creations a letter from the Greek alphabet – alpha, beta etc. However, on his death this hybrid remained unnamed so his friends gave it the epithet ‘Legacy’ in his memory.

Arguably the most beautiful Dionysia species is one of the smallest, Dionysia afghanica, and it was fascinating to see two specimens of the same clone shown side by side by these leading growers. The Ransom specimen was a tight raised dome of lilac flower with black centres, the leaves completely obscured by petals so tightly packed they could not fully open. It won first prize.

John’s entry, pipped to second prize on this occasion, was a flatter mat of similar size but with fewer flowers that did not fully cover the rosettes beneath. Consequently they were fully open and gazing upwards in all their beauty. Interestingly both tiny plants had been double-potted, a technique often used to raise small exhibits closer to the eye and enhance their beauty. Also both had come into full flower some days before the show and been kept in a refrigerator to ensure they were still in prime condition – a potentially hazardous business if the fridge is too cold or they are stored for too long!

No early spring show is complete without a formidable display of Ian Robertson’s Cyclamen and he won the sixth Certificate of Merit with a huge C. coum whose dark flowers contrasted well with the silvered leaves below. Close by on the show bench stood Ian’s large 3-pan entry with another superb C. coum in front of a C. pseudibericum roseum and a C. persicum f. puniceum, a rarely seen form of this later flowering species from Lebanon.

Last but by no means least comes the Novice Section in which four members showed a total of eight plants. The aggregate award was won by Mike Acton whose unusual Hepatica japonica ‘ex blue Sandan’ caught the eye, its flowers a mix of blue, white and green. Finally this show has a class for exhibitors who have never won a first prize at an AGS National show. There was one entry, a pretty pot of Narcissus ‘Arctic Bells’ from Louise Nicholls who was delighted to be awarded a red winner’s sticker at the very first show she has ever attended. Let us hope her success gives her confidence to continue exhibiting. She is an experienced professional gardener so we look forward to seeing more of her plants at future shows.

Show Reporter: David Charlton
Show Photographer: Jon Evans