The show was in the large exhibition hall in the Hillside Centre at RHS Wisley and it was shared with the British Iris Society Show.  This worked really well because of the shared interest and in many cases, shared members.  It was a real pleasure meeting up with some old friends who had limited their appearances to concentrate on Iris events. The only downside was the continued miserable drizzly, cold weather which no doubt put many members of the public off as it was not an ideal day to visit a large garden.

The foreseen access problems of small, escorted vehicle convoys to unload and reload at the Centre did not materialise and all went smoothly thanks to the very visible and helpful Wisley staff.

The show was small but the congested bench space conspired to make it look quite spectacular.  The dominant genera were, as expected, Galanthus and Narcissus with a good smattering of large Cyclamen and painstakingly grown Dionysia.

Indeed, the Farrer Medal was awarded to a Narcissus romieuxii x albidus hybrid made by Anne Wright under her number AW 3956.  The pollen parent was the wonderful N. albidus SF110 which had been introduced from Morocco in 1984 by Michael Salmon and Mark Fillan.  The judges particularly liked the large, upward-facing flowers which did not quite overtop the fine foliage.

In the same three-pan entry was a fabulous pot of Narcissus ‘Pallene’ which in this case was N romieuxii x cantabricus var petunioides.  These two, plus AW 4212, a beautiful pale lemon sister seedling to the Farrer plant, comprised Anne’s winning three pans of bulbs in the large Open Section.

A Certificate of Merit was awarded to Anne for her wonderful raising of Galanthus ‘Gold Star’ a deliberate cross that she had made between two yellow marked parents: G. ‘Wendy’s Gold’ and G nivalis var sandersii.  Anne has raised a number of these excellent, yellow-marked snowdrops by crossing two yellow-marked parents.

This really was a snowdrop show par excellence for Anne was awarded another Certificate of Merit for a fine potful of the species G. transcaucasicus, a native of northern Iran on the high mountains surrounding the Caspian Sea.  The broad, dark green, leaves of this species set off the single marked snowdrop flowers extremely well.

I was particularly surprised to see such a large plant of Cyclamen x wellensiekii.  This hybrid between CC. libanoticum and cyprium was in a 20cm pot with several flowers which are intermediate between the two parents.  The hybrid seems to be fertile for most plants in cultivation are derived by seed from the F1 generation over many further generations.  A very careful look at the plant showed that the exhibit actually comprised three tubers as the leaves were slightly different.  Mike Powell specialises in orchids so he makes use of his old potting compost.  The Cyclamen was grown in a very well drained mix of spent orchid compost with added leaf mould and John Innes No. 3.  It is watered by dipping the pot in a tray of water supplemented with “Boost” to a conductivity of 800 μS/cm.

There was a fine smattering of beautifully grown Dionysia on show.  The pick of the bunch for me was John Dixon’s 12-year-old D. afghanica G-W/H1308.  You may recall that the entire stock of this original introduction hung on by a thread, in this case a single cutting from the single surviving seedling.  The latter was self-sterile so there was no possibility of seed and it was dying.  Fortunately, this lone cutting rooted and the stock is now grown by a few very dedicated specialists.  It is extremely slow and anything approaching an 8 cm cushion is a real achievement as it gets more and more susceptible to fungal attack as it ages in our humid atmosphere here in western Europe.  John’s plant was awarded the Anna Griffith Trophy for the best plant in a 19cm pot.

Another Certificate of Merit went to Paul and Gill Ranson’s deep mauve Dionysia ‘Zdenek Zvolanek’.  This is a hybrid of D. afghanica x tapetodes and is somewhat easier to grow than the seed parent having a degree of hybrid vigour enabling larger cushions to be more resilient to cultivation.  Nevertheless, like all members of this genus, it does need airy conditions in a clean, dry atmosphere, a free draining compost and very careful watering.

The Leontocoides section of Corydalis has seen a real lease of life after the publication of the monograph in 1997 and subsequent follow up on “Bleeding Hearts, Corydalis and their Relatives” by Mark Tebbit, Magnus Lidén, & Henrik Zetterlund.  Bob & Rannveig Wallis put on a fine threesome in the 36cm class comprising the luminous red-violet Corydalis hyrcana, the very variable C. ledebouriana and an excellent plant of the popular C popovii.  The latter gained a Certificate of Merit.

All these are grown in an airy alpine house with a recent addition of supplementary lighting to prevent etiolation in our dull early springs.  They are kept dry in summer and not watered until mid-December in order to delay growth of leggy, potentially frost tender, shoots until the light levels are more reminiscent of their mountain habitat when the sun needs to be strong enough to melt the overlying snow.

Finally, there was a superb display of alpines in the corner of the hall put on by the RHS Wisley staff.  It was justly and unanimously awarded a Gold Award by the judges.  Thank you to all who contributed to a great display of plants on the day.

Reporter Bob Wallis
Photographer Jon Evans