Zatloukal's Border Perennials

ZATLOUKAL’S

BORDER

PERENNIALS

A discursive encyclopaedia

Richard G. Z. Zatloukal, FRES

Reimar Engellage

Smashwords Edition

Design & Layout by Reimar Engellage

Copyright © 2010 by Reimar Engellage

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

About: Zatloukal’s Border Perennials

SECTION A

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2: TAXONOMY & NOMENCLATURE

CHAPTER 3: PLANNING & DESIGN

CHAPTER 4: CULTIVATION & PROPAGATION

CHAPTER 5: HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

CHAPTER 6: CLIMATIC ZONES: EXPLANATION AND DISCUSSION

CHAPTER 7: GLOSSARY OF TERMS UNAVOIDABLY USED

CHAPTER 8: ABBREVIATIONS

SECTION B

PLANTS, sorted by name from A to Z

SECTION C

PLANT SELECTOR

LIST OF LIST’S, sorted by Season, Color, Size and Foliage in alphabetic order

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to express his gratitude to the authors of all previous books on garden plants for both the pleasure he has derived from reading many of them and the information which he has been able to extract from them where his own experience has proved wanting.  He also owes a great deal to his succession of wives (Hermione, Ione and Puk) for their tolerance of his spending so much time dealing with beetles, badgers, hens, gardening and writing, and to his various employers for apparently not minding that he cared, or perhaps knew, little about their businesses.  He is much indebted, too, to his sister, Marina Zatloukal-Williams, without whose constant supply of articles from gardening periodicals he would have been unable to keep abreast of developments in the temperate plant world.

This book is dedicated to Ione with thanks for her patience and encouragement.

The photographs were mostly taken by the author together with a number contributed by Prue Zatloukal-Williams, 93-year-old artist, mother, maniacal driver and gardener of Lyons la Forêt, Eure, France.

A thousand thanks, however, are due to Vanessa Witt of Taihape, North Island, New Zealand for the great number of pictures marked VW:  Vanessa and her husband, Toby Schweikert, own an interesting nursery and plant centre called Greenhaus, while the latter also supervises the famed Waitoka Gardens.  I hope to meet them one day.

Many thanks are also due to each of Darleen T. Auber of Cameron, West Virginia, USA for pictures marked DA; Nigel Baldwin of Evesham, Worcs., UK and until lately Bangkok, Thailand for pictures marked NB; Janice Connors of Troy, New York, USA for pictures marked JC; Keith Discipline of Cobourg, Ontario, Canada for pictures marked KD; Roger Douthitt of Everett, Washington, USA for pictures marked RD; Tanya Hale of Fort Blackmore, Virginia, USA for pictures marked TH; Marion Harper of England and Brittany for the scanned image marked MH; Bill Maddux of Catoosa, Oklahoma, USA for pictures marked BM; Grant E. Meyer of Scottsdale, Arizona, USA for pictures marked GEM; Roland of Maine, USA for pictures marked RM; Sharon Rowe of Wainwright, Alberta, Canada for pictures marked CM; Jan Schwarz of Brno, Czech Republic for pictures marked JS and Banquo Yuen of Arlington, Virginia, USA for pictures marked BY.  The photographs of Hemerocallis cultivars were virtually all taken by Veronica Glover or Reba Jordan (those of the latter being so attributed on the photographs) and I am extraordinarily grateful to both these enthusiastic growers for permission to download their pictures from the Internet and use them here.    

About: Zatloukal’s Border Perennials

Perhaps one of the world’s most complete and up to date books on herbaceous perennials (excepting those more suitable for rockeries) with about 4,140 plants in 376 genera housing 1,817 species, 311 subspecies, forms and varieties, and 2009 cultivars. Of course it cannot rival, and does not attempt to do so, monographs on specific genera such as Hemerocallis and Hosta in which the number of cultivars runs to many thousands, many indistinguishable from one another but, with, for instance, 15 pages of salvias and 22 pages of geraniums, it can claim to provide extraordinary in depth coverage. It touches on bulbs, ferns and grasses, highlighting a number of each of them for further consideration.

Herbaceous perennials of the types covered are suitable for most of Europe, and temperate Asia, great chunks of Canada (though particularly British Columbia) and wide areas of the United States, the whole of New Zealand and temperate parts of Australia and South Africa.

The author has avoided technical terms wherever possible and provides an adequate description of each plant treated to enable the reader to assess its merits and suitability for any proposed site. He has not been afraid to express his own views which sometimes run counter to current fashion: indeed some reviewers have described either the author or his book as idiosyncratic, which is frankly no more than saying that some of his views are unfashionable. The reader is free, of course, to ignore the author’s sensible views in favour of the dictates of fashion or of the subjects of modern sales techniques and, I add, in a fit of generosity, equally free to form his or her subjective opinion.

There are short chapters on taxonomy and nomenclature, cultivation and propagation, and planning and design, as well as a glossary, a brief but annotated bibliography and also notes on hardiness zones and toxic plants.

In the main A-Z section each genus has a descriptive headnote which usually gives the derivation of the botanical name and lists common names applied to it: it also contains a general characterisation of the genus, including its cultivation and propagation, as well as other interesting information about it, perhaps mentioning how it is or was used by herbalists or murderers. The entries for each species follow roughly the following pattern: the scientific name of the species with its author’s name plus any synonyms (these are of historical interest as well as enabling the reader to be certain of the species referred to, even if using an elderly book), then there may be an asterisk shewing that the plant is listed in The Plant Finder as being currently commercially available in the UK and where; this is followed by the expected height and spread (in both imperial and metric systems) after a couple of years or so. If the plant has a common name in the UK or USA and sometimes elsewhere, it is, if known to the author, often here inserted. There follows a description of the habit, foliage, flowers and, if appropriate seeds or berries. If the plant has been judged worthy of the Award of Garden Merit (AGM) by the Royal Horticultural Society a symbol is used to indicate the fact. At this point the author’s personal view of the plant’s merit or otherwise may intrude. Any special cultural requirements are then mentioned, together often with comments on hardiness. Further information includes the flowering period, date of introduction to horticulture, the areas to which it is native and its hardiness zone, often followed by a possible survival range based on hardiness zones.

Following the A-Z of species, there are a large number of lists intended to assist the reader in selecting plants appropriate to the proposed situation, colour, height or flowering period. Suppose you want a yellow-flowered plant, flowering in September or later and reaching at least 4' (1.2m) in height, to be planted in a damp spot near water: you would go to list no. 64 called Late-Yellow-Tall (there is an index of lists) and, amongst the 18 plants listed there, you would be able to pick out Ligularia przewalskii and L. stenocephala and their close relation Sinacalia tangutica as fitting your bill precisely by glancing at the symbols following their names: reading their entries in the A-Z section would enable you to refine your choice. The symbols, incidentally, shew whether a plant will produce its best in sun or dappled or full shade and whether it requires a rather dry or rather damp position or looks particularly good beside, or even in, water.

Besides the lists based on Season/Colour/Height, there are separate lists for various colours of foliage (there is even one for interesting green foliage), plants having attractive seeds or berries, plants for clay soils, sandy soils, soils on chalk and lime, acid soils, for dry or damp positions, for dry or damp shade, and plants useful as ground for either sunny or shady areas.

The lists are followed by an index of 1,000 common names: many others appear in the body of the text. The final section is a lexicon of specific names: these are usually based on Latin and, when translated for the benefit of those whose knowledge of that language is patchy, they often reveal an interesting or distinguishing characteristic of the plant.

There are 629-840 pages of text, depending on your version of Microsoft Word or Open Office.

In addition, there are some 1,374 photographs of plants (of which a small selection follows) plus on the CD, if requested, 1,000 photographs of Hemerocallis (Day Lily) cultivars which, courtesy of the great kindness of two American enthusiasts, I am able to add at no cost. The CD version also includes all of Nicholson's illustrations from his The Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening (1887).

Reactions to an early, printed version of this book with only 348 pages (and no illustrations!) included:

The late Graham Stuart Thomas: …my very best congratulations on what is a most remarkable + interesting treatise. (You) seem to have left nothing out….I feel honoured to be mentioned in it.

The late Rosemary Verey: It is…an extremely useful reference book when I am trying to write about plants.

Beth Chatto: "I am delighted to have your Border Perennials. It has already been put to good use, looking for information and finding it – in spite of having walls full of gardening books….You are helping me make notes of new plantings I want to make in the garden.

Yours fascinated,

Beth Chatto.

Diana Ross reviewing the same version in Hortus: It is a book of scholarship despite its idiosyncrasy….(It contains) a wealth of information…(and) is full of charm and interest.

Tim Longville reviewing the same version in the Journal of the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens: Mr Zatloukal has in fact a sharp eye for a fine but undervalued plant….(One of the virtues of the idiosyncratic individual is that he or she tends to appreciate idiosyncratic individuality in others – including plants)…I enjoyed and recommend it.

Dirk van der Werff reviewing the same version in New, Rare & Unusual Plants: …with a good description of thousands of plants and cultivars…with his own personal comments about many of the plants….Well produced and a book that sits well on the beginner’s or the experienced gardener’s bookshelf.

SECTION   A

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION 

Apologia pro libro meo

In fact I make no apology, in the English sense, for yet another book on plants or gardening:  the pleasure is entirely mine.

I decided to write about the herbaceous perennials or, more restrictively, perennials suitable for borders, my first love, because they can be grown in virtually any garden and, to a large extent, are easy to cultivate and maintain, once established, without perpetual hard labour or excessive expenditure.  That is, of course, until one is infected by that dangerous virus, obsessio cum flora perenne or Stufrose’s Disease as it is referred to in common parlance:  the prognosis is poor since the only certain cure is disposal of any rural assets and removal to a town house with tiny patio or, better, to a flat above the ground floor.  The symptom is an irresistible desire to acquire new species or varieties whether or not room exists to accommodate them.  At its worst the disease leads to theft of plants or the unauthorised taking of cuttings (which is, of course, also theft).  I suffer from the disease but, happily, have not yet reached this terminal stage:  a surprising number of otherwise perfectly respectable people have, as numerous owners of gardens open to the public will testify.  Odd really, because gardeners are a friendly lot and will almost invariably display considerable generosity with cuttings, divisions and seed – especially if asked nicely.

So why another book, especially when ones already exist as good as Graham Stuart Thomas’ Modern Florilegium or as beautifully illustrated as Perennials by Phillips and Rix?  Partly to please myself because I love plants and have enjoyed writing about them, something which I have never done before:  partly because I do see a continuing need for a book combining as full a coverage as possible of perennials suitable for temperate gardens with a reasonably informal style, avoiding technical language where feasible.

Most gardeners seem to own a number of gardening books and I make the glib assumption that they like ones with a personal view on the merits or demerits of particular plants.  I have, therefore, not suppressed my dislikes nor failed to indulge my own prejudices to the extent, even, of including certain plants with which no one in their right mind would properly deal in a book on border perennials, assuming that any sensible definition of these would, for instance, exclude herbaceous climbers or rock garden plants but would permit the inclusion of any evergreen species whose behaviour or habit is otherwise so like that of a truly herbaceous perennial as to make its exclusion risible.  I have also, as a matter of convenient limitation, excluded virtually all bulbs, grasses and ferns as well as plants under about a foot in height, although any of these may find a perfectly good place in an otherwise traditional herbaceous border:  they are sufficiently covered elsewhere.  I have, however, listed under each of those categories a number of species and cultivars worthy of consideration.  I do include quite a number of woodland plants, many of which will thrive in a rich, moist but well drained, lightly or fully shaded border.

This book combines synthesis and experience, mostly other people’s (unless you are a reviewer, you have probably already bought a copy or you would hardly be reading the introduction, so it does not matter if I now make confessions):  synthesis is represented by the works of all those who have written about, grown, developed and loved these plants before, and the experience is both mine and theirs.  I owe a great debt to those authors whose works I have consulted but also to those people whose enthusiasm has enabled me to see many of the species and cultivars which I have not myself grown:  my part has been to put into words an indication of the nature of each plant covered and to add only such adjectives as sufficiently convey my prejudices, whether based on approbation or dislike.  For prejudices they are, not always wholly reasoned:  the extremes of those prejudices can be judged by my inclusion of Ajuga and Tropaeolum, neither of them falling within the apparent confines of my subject – the one included as worthy of dislike, the other as representing the quintessence of elegance and beauty.

I am an adventitious gardener, the kind who takes cuttings of hebes in January if that is when they are offered; who splits and moves paeonies happily in the usually successful expectation that they will be flowering again in a couple of years; who does things when he remembers, whether the time is right or not.  I do not claim that this approach works all the time, but it does more often than not:  anyway if I didn’t try, it couldn’t.  I take a relatively laid back approach to gardening in general:  heavy digging  I have always left to my wives – also weeding and edge trimming, but I rather like coltsfoot and ground elder in flower so restraint is necessary:  even so they have managed to uproot my lesser gems when I have forgotten to label them.  They would, of course, have found it all a great deal easier if any of them actually liked gardening, rather than merely admiring  the more successful results.

Talking of weeds, plants growing where one does not want them or of insufficient beauty or utility to justify cultivation, I often wonder why some people look down on those plants most commonly encountered in ‘ordinary’ gardens; in general they are deservedly popular whether for the splash they make, ease of growing or merely, as both cause and effect, ease of availability.  However there are a great many plants which are harder to find (although very much less so with the latest editions of The Plant Finder, published by The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) but formerly by The Hardy Plant Society) or harder to cultivate and which appeal perhaps by their more muted colouring or different flowering periods:  there is also, of course, the matter of snobbery, of pleasure in the esoteric.  All that said, there is scarcely a single gardening enthusiast who can resist the opportunity to acquire a new plant or a new variety of a much-loved species:  one has only to look at The Royal Horticultural Society’s shows in Vincent Square, London and the buying and ordering which goes on there, reminding one of nothing so much as the feeding frenzy of sharks attracted by blood.

Mention of the RHS leads me to suggest to those whose membership has been purchased (at a more expensive rate indeed) with the principal object of gaining admission to the Chelsea Flower Show on Members’ Days that they would do a great deal better to attend the first day of the main Vincent Square shows – the Spring, Summer and Autumn Shows:  there is little to be seen at Chelsea that you will not find in the calmer atmosphere of the Halls in Vincent Square with the additional charm of being able to bear away taxi-loads of plants.  Chelsea no doubt has its own draw but I have now long eschewed it and so I need no longer be prey to the vagaries of the weather or risk death at the whim of the pressing crowd.  A visit to Wisley is also to be recommended as highly instructive and it does have quite a good selection of plants for sale:  other people’s gardens are always worth visiting (particularly those in your own area as they are more likely to share your soil and temperature characteristics), whether for ideas, especially of plant associations, or seeing for the first time a species new to you.

An interesting sideline to the writing of this book occurred some years ago in the course of my visit to an exhibition by members of the Society of Botanical Artists:  seeking a particular style of finely drawn, botanically accurate painting, I came away with a list of twenty-nine artists whose work fitted my particular bill; twenty-seven of them were women.  If this were the Nineteenth Century, when amateur watercolouring of a high order was a peculiarly female accomplishment, I could well understand it and, although I appreciate that, despite the advent of Women’s Lib, men remain by and large the principal breadwinners in the family and so may have less time for the creation of detailed flower paintings, I am fascinated that this style and even this subject seem to be almost exclusively female preserves.  And indeed, although I paint in watercolour and produce detailed pictures of insects (as well as landscapes), I have only ever painted two small, undetailed pictures of flowers:  one has been pressed into use to decorate the front page of this book.

I have been able to add to the CD some 1,770 photographs (largely taken with a digital camera) but, were it not for the kindness of my 93-year old mother (though she has not always been 93) in rushing about taking photographs for me or ferrying me to various gardens in Normandy and of other people in allowing me to capture so many of their photographs via the Internet, the photographs would be even less representative of the various seasons than they are:  living in Bangkok, my trips to Europe are limited.  I can, however, warmly recommend the illustrations in Perennials by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix, published by Pan:  they exemplify superbly the advances in photographic reproduction as well as being magnificent photographs in their own right.  If they have a failing (and they do), it is that bright blues in nature are still hard to reproduce on film and tend to have a purple cast:  digital photography produces accurate colours but printers of books seem to be too pathetic to adapt to this new technology.  This book was rejected by an enthusiastic and well-known publisher on the sole grounds that the photographs were in the digital format JPEG and that it would be too expensive to convert them.  A recent book with excellent text and illustrations (and good reproduction of blues) is the RHS Encyclopedia of Perennials, published by Dorling Kindersley.

I will feel that I have succeeded if those who seek general and sometimes even fairly detailed information about perennials find it here, but at the same time those whose knowledge and experience is more limited find it useful as well.  I hope that they will find the lists (tentatively called, in a ghastly way but I cannot think of anything better than this, the Plant Selector) of more use than the normal limited list:  these lists include in one form or another (maybe only in Fruits or Yellow Foliage) most of the plants described in the book and if they only succeed in making the reader aware of the whole range of possibilities for any given need, then I shall have achieved my object.

A feature of the plant descriptions in the A-Z section which deserves particular mention is the asterisk preceding the colon following the name of the plant and its author:  this indicates that the plant in question is available from at least one commercial source listed in The Plant Finder, but I would like to stress that this does not mean that it is unavailable elsewhere:  indeed I know at least two sources of rich, rare and wonderful plants not listed in The Plant Finder within 15 miles of Shaftesbury in Dorset; there are undoubtedly others.  Also, local plant sales occasionally harbour long-sought jewels.  In addition, this book describes a number of American species and cultivars which may not yet be available here or which only figure occasionally in seed lists. 

CHAPTER 2

TAXONOMY & NOMENCLATURE with asides on dichotomous keys and plant relationships    

 Taxonomy and Nomenclature

 The Collins English Dictionary (1986 edition) defines these two terms thus:-

Taxonomy:  1. a. the branch of biology concerned with the classification of organisms into groups based on similarities of structure, origin, etc....2. the science or practice of classification.

Nomenclature:  the terminology used in a particular science.... and a nomenclator is defined as a person who invents or assigns names, as in scientific classification.

Nomenclature is a funny business and is a source of much confusion to the average gardener; it does however have certain rules which give it a sound basis.  It is clearly unsatisfactory for any given plant or, for instance, beetle, to take a more complicated grouping, to be known only by a vernacular name:  indeed this proposition is rendered the more absurd by the sheer number of local and dialect names applied to a single species.  Into the bargain, where there exists a large grouping whose members fall into distinct sub-groups sometimes numbering into the tens and hundreds, the mind boggles at the job of producing vernacular names in such numbers:  this raises the separate question of who is to produce vernacular names in such quantity and with sufficient precision to identify subspecies.  Additionally anyone writing for an international readership or, worse, addressing an international audience would have to utilise half his text or address listing the vernacular names by which the species under discussion were known in each country likely to be represented in order to make his address comprehensible to his readership or audience.

Based on Linnaeus’ Species Plantarum, the 1753 edition, a system of nomenclature was accepted as universally recognisable.  Carl Linné, as he is also occasionally known, was a Swede who, before he ironically lost the ability due to affliction perhaps by aphasia but more probably due to a couple of strokes late in life to remember the name of even the most everyday object, developed the basic idea that every natural species should have in effect a surname followed by a Christian name, forename or whatever.  The surname denotes the genus, representing a group of closely related species or sometimes containing only a single species:  while the Christian name (which cannot be used for any other member of the same genus) is used for the species within that genus and represents the smallest subdivision where individuals are not noticeably distinct from one another except for sexual differences – and these can be quite major as is the case with the female flowers and male catkins of many shrubs and trees – an amusing case of confusion stemming from this arose in connection with the Stag Beetle which was named Lucanus cervus by Linnaeus whilst the female, lacking the huge antler-like jaws, was named Lucanus inermis (the Unarmed Stag Beetle) by a later author, whose name escapes me, who took her to be a member of a different species.  Members of the same species naturally breed with one another, producing fertile offspring normally similar in all respects to the parents, and do not ordinarily interbreed with another species (though if they do so, the offspring will be hybrids and share characteristics of both parents).  Linnaeus refined his idea into orders, families, genera and species, although there are intermediate and further subdivisions with which we need not be over-concerned:  this book refers to families, generally but not always ending -aceae, genera, species and the occasional subspecies – it does also refer to varieties, cultivars and forms, but these are touched on later in this chapter.

It is perhaps (no, certainly) worth noting that a genus…has seldom any real existence in nature as a positively determined group, and must rather be considered as a mere contrivance for assisting us in comparing and studying the enormous multitude of species, which, without arrangement, our minds could not embrace.  Thus George Bentham in Labiatarum Genera et Species, 1832-6.  So there!

Linnaeus himself named a huge number of species in accordance with his system and these can be currently identified by the use of the abbreviations L. or Linn. following the botanical name.  His son is identified by the abbreviation L. f. (the f. stands for filius, the Latin for son).

To recapitulate, in the Linnaean binomial system the surname, written first and always with an initial capital letter, is the generic name (as in the genus Geranium); the Christian name is the specific name as in the species renardii of the genus Geranium, the specific name being written with a small initial letter.  (My mother, whose views on the merits of any religion or philosophy based on faith are similar to mine, wanted me to substitute ‘forename’ for ‘Christian name’ until I pointed out the absurdity of referring to a forename following a surname.)  There are in fact also subspecies often representing geographical variants or dealing with some other minor difference thought unworthy of full specific rank.  So you have the basic Geranium renardii and that name, provided that it was the first name published after 1753 for a given species, is the only valid name for that species and under that name can be recognised by an Englishman, a Swede or anyone else for that matter.

There are, of course, snags.  One is the language used:  it is hardly calculated to come tripping off the tongue unless one has had the benefit of a classical education.  Luckily no one much spoke Swedish in Linnaeus’ day (and indeed only a few million Swedes and a handful of Americans probably speak it nowadays), so he used a system based loosely on Greek for generic names and largely on Latin for specific names; at least everyone with claims to education in the then ‘known’ world learnt those languages.  That remains the convention today with the addition, naturally, of words from such instantly useful and recognisable roots as Japanese, Arabic and Hindi:  Kirengeshoma springs to mind as not being 100% Greek.  Some generic names are hellenised forms of proper names (such as Kamel = Camellia, Dahl = Dahlia, Fuchs = Fuchsia, etc.), while names commemorated by specific names are latinised (such as Douglas = douglasii, Kashmir = cashmeriana, etc.).

Another snag is the continued necessity for appending to the botanical name the name of the author, albeit often in abbreviated form.  This is because after Linnaeus’ time the vast majority of the world’s species of this and that were still to be named or, indeed, discovered (and still are) and, whilst often there would be agreement on the genus to which a new discovery belonged, different authorities often ascribed different names to the same species or the same name to different species; frequently, too, publication might be in some limited-circulation periodical or other easily overlooked source:  for convenient communication, it became vital to know that Polemonium humile, Salisbury and Polemonium humile, Willdenow are not the same species, whereas Polemonium humile, Willdenow and Polemonium boreale, Adams are one and the same, with the last name being the valid one.  It is fair to say that in the ordinary course of conversation in the public houses and potting sheds of Britain this is not an immense problem.

In one of the few useful services to mankind ever performed by any so-called world body, the International Commission on Scientific Nomenclature laid down a number of general rules governing the practice of nomenclators in order to provide a sensible system:  in the case of plants, this is the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN).  Its most simple pronouncement was that any name first published after 1753, beginning with the 1753 edition of Linnaeus’ Species Plantarum, should have priority over any name published subsequently for the same genus or species.  In the case of cultivated varieties (cultivars, abbreviated to cv.), the governing rules are set out in the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, the latest (7th) edition of which was published in 2004:  they are produced by the Code Commission of the International Union of Biological Sciences.

Naturally it has been discovered that in a number of cases a plant or creature well-known under one name had earlier been described and given a different name which under the Law of Priority would be the valid name: in order to avoid unnecessary upheaval, the International Association for Plant Taxonomy has published Concessions sanctioning continued use of the well-known name.  This has not always happened and gardeners often find to their fury that something which they have known and grown for years under one name has now to be re-labelled and re-remembered.  Revisions are continually being undertaken but often only reflect the unsolicited opinion of a single taxonomist whose views may never gain universal acceptance.  There is no absolute obligation to accept changes of name or even genus where these are not related to the Law of Priority, provided that if necessary, to avoid confusion, one is able to produce the author’s name.  The rose Rosa glauca is a good example:  for many years it has been grown by countless gardeners as Rosa rubrifolia, a singularly inapt name as the upper and more visible side of its leaves are indeed glaucous and not red.  No doubt many, if not most, will continue to know it as R. rubrifolia until all editions of gardening books get round to calling it R. glauca and the users of the old name die off – the old name continues to have such wide acceptance that die-hard users of it will for years find that their interlocutors know what they are talking about.  Until, that is, the name R. rubrifolia, being now a so-called vacant name, is used for some newly-discovered species which may actually, God willing, have red foliage; then confusion will arise.  Are you talking about R. rubrifolia, Vill. (now properly known as R. glauca, Pourr.) or R. rubrifolia, Snod., named by a perhaps yet-to-be-born Mr. or Miss Snodweasel who has yet to stumble on this so far undiscovered rose?  As it happens, it may well be that the name R. rubrifolia has already been published as a name for another species but ruled invalid because it was not at that time a valid name; having now acquired validity, it will also have acquired priority over the replacement name for the plant it designated.  By the way, the  R. glauca, Vill., not Pourr. is not the same as R. glauca, Pourr., not Vill.:  it is now agreed to be R. dumalis, Bechst.  Clear?

Questions still present themselves to non-taxonomists.  One example.  Why is it Wisteria?  Nuttall named the genus in 1818 in The Genera of North American Plants (because it’s Chinese) and must have spelt it Wisteria:  fine, I hear you cry.  But he named it after an American anatomist of such competence that, discovering the first dinosaur bone and recognising it as a massive and ancient bone, he failed to attach any further importance to it.  His name?  Caspar Wistar.  A Mr Sprengel tried to correct the name to Wistaria in 1826 in his Systema Vegetabilum, a spelling noted as (? illegit. orth. var. of Wisteria, Nutt. ) – which we can assume stands for ‘illegitimate orthographic variant’ – in the Missouri Botanic Garden database:  to solve the problem of Wistaria’s perhaps becoming fashionable, the name Wisteria was declared a nomen conservandum:  a name to be retained.  Presumably Mr Nuttall, printer by profession, botanist by inclination, could not spell correctly the name of the person he professed to honour.

As far as I know, it is easy to establish a valid scientific name, particularly for a variety or aberration and, by way of example, I now do so – in what is clearly a most convenient publication for coleopterists.  There is in my collection of beetles a series of specimens of Carabus nitens, L.; normally having a shiny metallic red thorax and brilliant metallic green elytra (wing cases), one specimen taken on Lancaster Sands has elytra of a decided metallic blue and I hereby propose for it the name ab. caerulescens and designate the specimen in my collection as the holotype.  That’s it.  Done and dusted.  The name Carabus nitens, Linnaeus ab. caerulescens, Zatloukal neatly tucked away in a book on plants:  ‘ab.’ stands for aberratio or aberration, by the way. 

Subspecies, Varieties, Forms, Cultivars, Clones, Hybrids, Sports & Chimaeras

After the simple account given above, the time has come to muddy the water a little by dealing with the more subtle nuances detected by taxonomists or carefully nurtured by nurserymen.

Subspecies:  this is simply a subdivision of a species where the distinguishing characteristics are slight and due almost certainly to geographical separation so that tiny differences in individuals slowly spread throughout that group until an idle taxonomist decides to give that group the status of a subspecies; it is interesting (to me at any rate) that each Pyrenean peak supports a different subspecies of a particular species of the beetle genus Carabus because each population has become isolated.  A subspecies is indicated by the addition of a second Christian name to the Linnean binomial name:  for instance, the subspecies incana of Veronica spicata is known as Veronica spicata incana: sometimes ssp. or subsp. is inserted between spicata and incana, as is the usage adopted in this book.

Variety:  a sort of sub-subspecies and should strictly be applied only to naturally occurring varieties, with 'cultivar' being reserved for cultivated varieties, but in truth usage is fairly slapdash.  The naturally-occurring pink-flowered variety of the Lily of the Valley should be known as Convallaria majalis var. rosea or, with the authors’ names correctly inserted (but in their recognised abbreviated forms), Convallaria majalis, L. var. rosea, Reichb.

Form:  generally applied to colour variations in otherwise unexceptionably recognised species and a white form would generally merely have f. alba or f. album added to the name as in the white form of the Greater Periwinkle, Vinca major f. alba.

Cultivar:  varieties occur naturally in plants, but when these natural varieties are selected, cultivated and propagated for sale they become known as cultivars, the word ‘cultivar’ being short for ‘cultivated variety’.  They should nowadays be named as in, for example, Bergenia 'Silberlicht' or Bergenia cv. 'Silberlicht'.  Cultivar names are dealt with separately from natural species and fall within the International Code of Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants (ICNCP).  The ICSN frowns on the use of Latin cultivar names whether or not placed within inverted commas, though this discouragement only applies to cultivar names created after the first wrinkles appeared on the forehead of ICSN.  Just to amuse you, English catalogues are quite capable of listing Bergenia 'Silberlicht' as Bergenia 'Silverlight', which is not madly helpful unless you know all the languages from which they might choose to translate:  I await with interest translation of the cultivar name of Iris 'Gei-sho-ui' and wonder how many users of the catalogue in which it appears will know what they are buying.

Clone:  plants are clones if they are descended from a single ancestor; as this rules out ordinary sexual reproduction, they have to be produced by what is called vegetative reproduction, whether by cuttings, meristem culture or division.  It follows that they are genetically identical to their common ancestor as well as to each other.  A lot of cultivars are in effect clones.

Hybrid:  hybrids occur naturally but are also encouraged by nurserymen and plant breeders and are a cross between two species of the same genus, although bi-generic hybrids are also possible between closely related genera. Ordinary hybrids are indicated thus: Geranium x magnificum, while bi-generic hybrids are indicated as follows:  x Heucherella tiarelloides, which is a hybrid between Heuchera x brizoides (itself a hybrid!) and Tiarella cordifolia.  Hybrids are usually but by no means always sterile.

Sport:  best described as a mutation and may be, for instance, a single variegated twig on an otherwise green bush.

Chimaera:  a monstrosity, I suppose, where two plants of different (although closely related) genera can be induced to grow together in the outward form of a single plant although sometimes displaying visible characteristics of both while retaining under the surface two genetically differing tissues.  The most well-known chimaera is +Laburnocytisus adamii, the + indicating its nature:  it is produced by grafting a broom plant onto a laburnum.  Ordinary grafts are created almost invariably by grafting a modern improvement onto a more vigorous or perhaps standard or dwarf rootstock of the same genus.

For those interested in pursuing the subject as well as possessing a comprehensive list of synonyms, I can warmly recommend Index Hortensis Vol. I: Perennials by Piers Trehane or the Index of Garden Plants by Mark Griffiths.

Dichotomous keys

This is very much an aside as dichotomous keys are not used in this book:  they are, however, used in both the RHS Dictionary of Gardening and the European Garden Flora.  They are undoubtedly the best method of identifying species without resorting to lengthy individual descriptions; the drawbacks are that they are necessarily technical and work best with a number of related species available for examination.

They operate on the basis of twin-choice decisions.  Let us assume that you are trying to identify a plant and that you have by whatever means decided that it belongs to a particular genus; the key will offer you a series of couplets to work through with the object of arriving at the species.

I give a simple example:-

29 (33)  Stems quadrangular

30          Stems rounded

31          Leaves smooth, Species A

32          Leaves hairy, Species B

33          3' tall, Species C

34          2" tall, Species D

You have reached couplet 29/30:  if the stems are rounded then you have either Species A or B, and you have only to decide whether the leaves are smooth or hairy.  If, on the other hand, the stems are quadrangular, the 33 in brackets gives you your next destination, namely the couplet 33/34 where height will determine the species for you.

The real difficulty comes when, clutching only one plant, you come to a couplet which requires you to make a comparative choice of the following kind:

46 (53), Leaves broader

47, Leaves narrower

In many cases, where the differences may not be marked, you will now be at a slight loss: following the route via couplet 53/54 (perhaps 53 has yellow flowers, while 54 has blue ones) may help because your specimen may fit the criterion for the species there keyed out.  But very often (and I find this to be particularly the case with small beetles) you are now stymied:  it very much depends on the skill of the author of the key.  If possible he needs to avoid the sort of choice where in order to decide whether something's leaves are broader you have to possess a specimen with narrower leaves as well.

Plant relationships

To the lay gardener, including myself, the family groupings of plants are quite astonishing.  General appearance is by no means a guide to the characters used for differentiation by taxonomists.  Who would believe that thistles belong to the Daisy family (Compositae) or that, while Goat’s Beard (Aruncus) and Meadowsweet (Filipendula) belong to the Rose family (Rosaceae), Astilbes (Astilbe) belong to the Saxifrages (Saxifragaceae)?  It is quite obvious that Aruncus, Filipendula and Astilbe all belong to the same family.  Only they don’t.  More surprisingly, Rhododendrons and Azaleas are classified as members of the Heather family, Ericaceae, while Astrantia, Chaerophyllum and Eryngium, not very obviously related to each other, all belong to the Umbelliferae (Apiaceae).  My advice is not to worry about it.  Although I fear the potential upheaval, I nonetheless await with some interest the results of the DNA testing of plants which has already begun and which, it is said, will provide positive evidence of true relationships superior to the mere examination of external characteristics.

Below I list, for want of anything better to do but wishing in any case to record somewhere the comments immediately following, the families with representatives treated in this book.

There has been a move to convert all family names so that they end –aceae, but changes, and it seems to me unnecessary changes, were made to a few of the root names at the same time.  Thus Umbelliferae became Apiaceae:  why not Umbelliferaceae?  Compositae became Asteraceae:  why not Composaceae?  Leguminosae became Fabaceae:  why not Leguminaceae (though I really have no huge objections to Papilionaceae because of its lepidopterous rather than vegetable associations)?  Cruciferae became Brassicaceae:  why not Cruciferaceae?  Labiatae became Lamiaceae:  why not Labiaceae?  It seems that the old names have been abandoned in their entirety for no good reason.  I can see very good arguments for making all family names have the same ending, but what was the necessity for changing the root as well?

New families have been carved out of old ones and may or may not gain general acceptance.  One finds, for instance though not often, the Acoraceae containing the single genus Acorus, Agapanthaceae created from within Liliaceae, considered by some to be in the separate family Alliaceae but, by others, to be its own family containing the genus Agapanthus and, I assume, without knowing, Tulbaghia.  Splitting Liliaceae into Liliaceae and Alliaceae was probably justified.  One also finds Anthericaceae, Asparagaceae, Asphodelaceae, Convallariaceae, Hostaceae, Hyacinthaceae and Phormiaceae as other families proposed to be created from within Liliaceae.  Apart from Hostaceae, I am not sure how many of these changes have been sanctified by general acceptance.  Compositae (Asteraceae) is known in the UK as the daisy family;  in the US as the sunflower family:  I am faintly surprised that no one has demanded that we all start calling it the aster family.

Acanthaceae

Agavaceae

Alliaceae

Amaryllidaceae

Apocynaceae

Araceae

Araliaceae

Asclepiadaceae

Berberidaceae

Bignoniaceae

Boraginaceae

Butomaceae

Campanulaceae

Caryophyllaceae

Clusiaceae, (formerly Guttiferae)

Commelinaceae

Compositae, (Asteraceae)

Convallariaceae

Convolvulaceae

Crassulaceae

Cruciferae, (Brassicaceae)

Datiscaceae

Diapensiaceae

Dipsacaceae

Euphorbiaceae

Fabaceae

Fumariaceae

Gentianaceae

Geraniaceae

Glaucidiaceae

Gunneraceae

Haemodoraceae

Hostaceae

Hydrangeaceae

Iridaceae

Labiatae. (Lamiaceae)

Leguminosae, (Fabaceae)

Liliaceae

Linaceae

Loganiaceae

Lythraceae

Malvaceae

Melanthiaceae

Morinaceae

Onagraceae

Paeoniaceae

Papaveraceae

Papilionaceae

Phytolaccaceae

Plantaginaceae

Plumbaginaceae

Polemoniaceae

Polygonaceae

Primulaceae

Ranunculaceae

Rosaceae

Rubiaceae

Rutaceae

Saururaceae

Saxifragaceae

Scrophulariaceae

Solanaceae

Tropaeolaceae

Umbelliferae, (Apiaceae)

Urticaceae

Valerianaceae

Verbenaceae

Violaceae

Zingiberaceae

CHAPTER 3

PLANNING & DESIGN    

A Few General Principles

Frankly I am no expert in this area.  I always seem to make the most elementary errors based on I must have that and where can I jam it in?  My first real garden was between Wandsworth and Clapham Commons on the Balham/Battersea borders in London, about ½ acre in size and already partly planted:  I tinkered about, adding, from an increasing interest in the sheer variety of plants, a number of hugely unsuitable items and, whilst achieving quite a show, never really succeeded in creating shapes and forms, particularly as much of the planting was based on single specimens of rather unusual species.  A move to Gloucestershire and a 7-acre garden proved horticulturally more satisfactory:  there I replaced a shrub border (laurels, philadelphus and forsythias of the kind which should be described as pauciflorous, having few flowers), completely replanted a 40 yd double border, created a new one of about the same length and inserted a ½ acre shrubbery for what turned out to be the principal amusement of the thriving population of local hares.  I bought myself a 6' Paulownia and within a few days had strimmed it in one nervous jerk down to a less impressive 6":  I took it with me to Wiltshire where it took eight years to regain its former height, although a much better shape:  over the next four years it added another 6'.  Then the new owners cut it down, together with a Liriodendron and a Liquidambar – no wonder since they both used to work for Slaughter & May.  Another success was a Gingko which for various reasons I kept in its undersized container for three years:  it became a sort of 4' bonsai and only after being planted out for eight years did it unravel its roots sufficiently to continue upward growth:  it was another plant they destroyed – all to preserve a wild cherry which flowered listlessly and produced a minuscule number of uneatable fruit.  The garden in Wiltshire was a 1-acre cottage garden (including dell and orchard) and, at its peaks, a wonderful riot of colour, but designed?  I think not:  it was only a week-end retreat and the limited time was largely used in maintenance and squeezing new plants in.  Following major replanting in the early years, watering, lawn mowing, hedge cutting and shrub pruning took over. For the last twenty years I have been living in Bangkok where perennials are not quite the thing.

Certainly, though, over the last forty-five years I have learnt enough and read enough to be reasonably confident that I could make a brave stab at producing congenial plantings based not just on colour or rarity but also on foliage and shape, and, if you like, ecology – the relationship of the plants to their environment and their interplay with one another.

It is said to be invidious to pick out names but it might be interesting if I were to mention some of the authors or books which, however indirectly, would probably influence the design of my next English garden should I be fortunate enough to have one.  You should certainly read anything by Christopher Lloyd but I also enjoyed The Startling Jungle by Stephen Lacey and a nice little book, whose name escapes me, by Robin Lane Fox.  Articles by the late Molly Thorn in old numbers of The Hardy Plant, a periodical produced by The Hardy Plant Society, are also worth reading.  For the complete novice, much can be learned from The Reader’s Digest’s Creative Gardening.  But above all towers Beth Chatto who writes in chatty, discursive style about her garden in Essex but who extracts from her experiences the basic principles which, I believe, underlie the creation of any successful garden.

Mrs. Chatto, in various books, shews how she has wrestled successfully with the idiosyncratically diverse nature of her own garden on clay and created wet and dry areas, changing the soil texture where necessary:  her Chelsea exhibits with their habitual Gold Medal award are testimony to the accepted success of her ideas, the crowds round her stand even more so.

There is another book, with the ghastly title Colour Your Garden (by the Mary Keen who wrote The Garden Border Book), subtitled A Portfolio of Inventive Planting Schemes, a title I don’t much care for either:  however, the book itself is another matter.  Whilst the author implicitly denies being an artist herself (and there is indeed no suggestion that she is one in the biographical note on the dustcover), at least in the sense of being a painter or sculptor or whatever, it is clear that she has a thorough grasp of colour theory and an ability to explain its application to colour design in the garden and this absorbing book is complemented by excellent photography.

One or two very brief thoughts about colour may not be wholly out of place here.  Colours are not always they seem:  since they can vary in different soils and can appear to vary in different atmospheric conditions and even at different times of the day, it will come as no surprise to learn that one’s perception of them also varies according to the colours next to which they are placed.  Colours also have characteristics which affect one’s judgement of distance:  hot colours like red foreshorten distances whilst cool colours, notably blue, appear to lead the eye further away.  This could be used, I suppose, to deliberate effect in a long double border:  planted from red via yellow and white to blue at the further end, it would seem longer when viewed from the red end than if seen from the blue end.  Talking of red, it is quite a difficult colour to place; unless used deliberately to create a stunning effect when it can be used with bright yellows and strong blues, it needs to be softened by more pastel shades of pink, lemon, white and pale blue:  it works well with silvery foliage as well.  Pure primary blue is fairly rare in plants although pure sky-blue is more common.  Flowers with true primary blue flowers include Tecophilaea cyanocrocus,  Salvia patens and a number of other Salvias, Lobelia siphilitica and some annual Lobelias, some Veronicas and the bluest version of Clitoria ternatea.  Blue flowers otherwise nearly always incorporate shades or nuances of purples or reds.  They go well with whites and yellows as well as with grey foliage.  White is useful both for separating colours and acccentuating them.  Some things are obvious:  red flowers don't make much of an impression against a red-brick house; 'Iceberg' roses probably shouldn't be planted in front of a white-washed cottage.  But there are no real rules.  Another thing about colors.  In the house, there are colors which absolutely WILL NOT DO together.  But outdoors...Well, I don't know of any colors that really clash.  They all seem to go together somehow.  I mean, you probably wouldn't decorate your house in orange and green, but it looks great on a California poppy.  (A delightful passage from an internet answer to a questioner by Cynthia Brennemann of Belleville, Illinois, reproduced with her permission.)

A garden is a personal thing and will tend to reflect its owner’s nature – untidy, scatterbrained, eclectic, ordered, boring.  If the owner wants serried ranks of annuals, so be it.  If, like the owners of one Normandy château, you only visit your property for one period of six weeks each summer, by all means plan for six glorious weeks.  If your arty-crafty interior designer insists that you have a white garden or a black and white garden, humour him if you wish.  If you dote on sterility or can think of nothing better to do than meditate, create a Japanese garden.

Whether you would like a water garden or are in a position to create a series of compartments, perhaps hedged or walled, maybe containing themes or perhaps plants of a single family, or want a purely herbaceous border or a mixed border with shrubs and perennials or island beds is up to you and will also depend on other considerations such as space, cost and maybe on how long you intend to stay in the same house.  I make two mild suggestions.  The first is that you should not on mere principle exclude bulbs (particularly Alliums, Fritillaries and Lilies), grasses and ferns from any otherwise purely herbaceous planting.  The second is that I really would advise against the addition of annuals to perennial or mixed borders or beds:  firstly, I do not think that it is necessary given the number of perennial alternatives; secondly, it makes for extra work; thirdly, I believe that the result is never wholly satisfactory.  But I do have a feeling that Mrs. Hobhouse and Mr. Lloyd would disagree with me, if my memory of what I have read serves me:  Mrs. Keen would certainly disagree.

As a general rule it is at least wise in a conventional one-sided border to have taller plants at the back and lower ones at the front:  in an island bed, the taller plants should be in the centre.  There is quite a good reason for this:  you may wish to be able to see all the plants without using a ladder.  Breaking the pattern, however, and bringing a taller group forward a little may serve to reduce the regimentation of an evenly sloped planting.

Similarly, planting in groups of uneven numbers (1, 3, 5, 7, etc.) has greater aesthetic appeal than groups of even numbers on the whole:  not that I am for a moment suggesting that you plant a whole bed in groups of three or five; you will want to vary the group numbers to take account of the relative size of the plants and the effect you wish to create.

The single most important principle is to examine your site, improve it, change it if you must or want and can, but at the end of the day plant in it what will be suited by it.  A related point is that, given particular growing conditions and choosing plants according to those conditions, you will have a selection of plants which suit each other and it only remains to play with their positioning to create interesting features of colour in flower and foliage, height, shape and so on to produce a reasonably coherent scheme which, in so far as you have got it wrong, you can always jiggle about in the assurance that at least there will be nothing wholly inapposite in the overall effect.

So what are the considerations you need to have in mind when deciding what to plant where?  They are legion, alas, and not readily resolved by merely resorting to the simplistic system of zoning plants according to their ability to withstand average annual minimum temperatures of x degrees.  Most gardens are an assortment of microclimates.  Just to give the general idea, one neighbour lay 50 yards to the north of my garden but probably 75 feet lower and more protected from the winds which hurtled down the valley; her garden was on average some two weeks earlier than mine:  my neighbours to the west, similarly about 50 yards away, were nearly two weeks later than me because they only got late afternoon and evening sun.  My garden was greensand with two or three patches of clay, some of the village gardens on the opposite slope of the valley were exclusively clay, while friends 400 yards away at the furthest end of our small valley had an acid soil and a lovely collection of Rhododendrons and Camellias with hostas and willow gentians growing in huge clumps amongst them like weeds.  The foot of a south-facing wall will provide very different conditions from the foot of a north-facing one:  hedges provide protection from chilling winds.

The answer lies in the soil.  Well, and so in a general sense it does.  Plants react differently in different soils, not only to the chemical structure and the pH, but also to the physical structure.  Sandy soils drain rapidly, while clay soils are water retentive but in prolonged drought become as hard as iron; for general purposes, a mixed loam is best but there are plenty of desirable plants for which it is quite unsuited.

Plants are also affected by such factors as aspect, temperature, both mean and extreme, and weather patterns including rainfall and wind routes, the local existence of frost pockets and other conveniences.

This all makes it sound more difficult than it is to find plants that will thrive in a given area.  Plants are amazingly tolerant.  Nonetheless, grouping plants coming from the same general habitat tends to produce the best schemes, provided that an approximation of their natural conditions can be created or is already available.

Another general decision which you might feel called upon to make is between sticking largely to the natural species or choosing the often garish, overblown productions of the breeders.  There is of course room for both:  some plants are hopelessly insignificant for the garden whilst quite satisfactory if you are a bee, but the cultivated form can have a shape or colour wanting in the unimproved species.  There is a snobbery to the cult of growing only species and I cannot see any intrinsic merit in it.  Notwithstanding that, I have come over the years to look behind the breeders’ results at the species behind them and frequently found plants of great charm and delicacy.  The fat-spiked Delphiniums, for instance, encompass a host of pretty species (e.g. D. tricorne, D. cardinale, D. nudicaule, D. semibarbatum, D. pylzovianum):  that is not to suggest that I eschewed the 'fatties'; indeed I grew them, and the Blackmore & Langdon strains and the 'Pacific Hybrids' are to be found gracing many of the borders I admire in other people’s gardens.  Another assumption often made, particularly by professionals, is that anything new is always an improvement on anything old:  this is clearly arrant nonsense; if nothing else, the continued existence of old forms is testimony to that.  In many cases marketing has more to do with the availability and therefore apparent popularity of some plants than their merits, reliability or longevity warrant.

Following an allied line of thought, I cannot see the point of some of the refinements attained or sought by the indefatigable seekers after the new or recherché.  A white Willow Gentian (Gentiana asclepiadea) seems to me the very essence of pointlessness:  two admissions though – the first specimen undoubtedly occurred naturally and in any case I have never actually seen one.  White Lychnis chalcedonica, normally with vermilion flowers shaped like a Maltese Cross (which is its common name) can only be slightly more interesting – and I did buy a few to try!  Variegation in foliage is another overworked theme:  I prefer it in shrubs anyway but, for instance, the 'Sunningdale' variety of Astrantia I find unappealing (pace Mrs. Chatto), while the Phlox 'Norah Leigh' has dowdy flowers and its leaves only barely justify growing it (pace Mrs. Thorn).  Variegated hollies by contrast are wonderful and a great improvement on their green congeners.  The Hostas or Plantain Lilies are amongst the obviously handsome and desirable foliage plants where some of the variegated forms are absolutely splendid:  breeders however, particularly in the United States, have gone mad and it would not be difficult to list several hundred cultivars; it would be a singularly pointless exercise as the differences between most of them, if indeed differences