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Vancouver Hardy Plant GroupWelcome to the Vancouver Hardy Plant Group, founded in 1997. We are dedicated to the cultivation and study of hardy, herbaceous perennials. Meetings are held occasionally, when gifted and brilliant speakers are obtainable. Open
gardens are enjoyed by members, a bi-monthly newsletter is published To
join, please write or e-mail for an application form to :
Click here for correspondence regarding memberships. Click here for regular e-mail correspondence. Upcoming EventsCalendar of Events
When attending VHPG events, please respect your fellow group members and refrain from wearing perfumes or colognes. CLUB EVENTS
ArticlesAlpine
Plants of Upper Burma and West China: This evening looked intriguing but a little daunting, given that the list had over 200 plants. However, after the first 111 slides were over, the audience was enthralled enough to cheerfully ask for the next 97. It was a tribute to Josef Halda's beautifully detailed presentation - the colours of the flowers leapt off the screen - and his useful descriptions of the growing conditions for many of his favourites. Because there was a lot of information coming at us, it is difficult to report on it all, and so I will stick to what I felt were the highlights. He is very firm about growing conditions, hates plastic pots as they get hot and can boil plant roots. He talked about his mother's skill in nursing declining plants back to health, and a funny story about an errant Lewisia seedling which grew to amazing strength in her lettuce bed - quite contrary to the accepted growing rules for Lewisias at the time. Josef is famous for making crevice gardens to emulate situations in the wild, where plants may "grow in nothing," Aquilegia jonesii being a case in point. The drainage is perfect, and the roots can plunge deep into the coolness provided by the rocks. Josef pointed out that although meadow plants may be shown to grow in boggy conditions, often they are perched on hummocks, and thus have more air around their roots. He advised looking beyond the literature on growing demanding plants, and research the local conditions, and even then one may "never know how they will do." Some of the plants which were particularly memorable included gentians; he showed almost two dozen pictures. One, Gentiana tetraphylla, was photographed over three years to obtain the exact colour of the flowers. Josef is that precise. G. aff. wardii is the most beautiful, and he has named a selection after his granddaughter Barbara. He was a bit disparaging about the subtle browny green fritillarias, but did acknowledge Fritillaria delavayi has potential. It has shiny reddish petals. The meconopsis he showed included Meconopsis horridula with spiny leaves which grows at high elevations; M. lyrata with mauve, clematis-like flowers; and M. punicea, the red flowers looking "like a crumpled prostitute in the mountains." You can see why the audience loved his presentation! Rhododendron kelecticum is his favourite because of the flowers, and there were others, such as R. anthopogon, which grows at timberline and is a joy because of its fragrant flowers. Saxifraga jarmilae is named after his wife; it is a green kabschia with white flowers. And it was very good to see her acknowledged; after all, we had seen the pictures of Jarmila working as a "personal assistant" clambering up steep and slippery slopes in miserably wet conditions to collect seed! It is tempting to go through the whole list because as I look over it the presentation comes back so vividly. But I think you had to be there! There were too many exquisite plants, beautifully photographed, and the commentary was knowledgeable, opinionated and humorous. The evening stands out as a very special glimpse of a difficult region to explore. The collaboration of the Alpine Garden Club of BC and the Vancouver Hardy Plant Group to sponsor this evening was very worthwhile.
Joseph Halda: The Magic Ten Minutes Waiting for the lights to dim above the greetings and chatter typical of gardeners, I study the plant lists. Holy cow! Next to me KL is reporting on the 208 entries on "Alpine Plants of Upper Burma and West China." I only have 77 "Bulbs from Turkey and China." (This pleading of being hearing-impaired really works!) However, re-reading these lists I am struck by the number of plants totally foreign to me, even as an AGCBC member who often sees plants new to cultivation, or damn near impossible in cultivation, shown by their discoverer. What will be the effect of these difficult, tiny, weird, etc., plants on the Hardy Planters? Obviously, hardy blooming on the edge of snowmelt in August. Do these folks with the rich complex borders, the pergolas with the intertwining clematis and old roses, and the Australasian beds by the baking driveway know just how difficult, tiny and weird some of these plants are? Do they know that few of them can be ordered on the Internet or scooped up on frenzied bus tours? The room darkens and a reverential hush descends, only to be broken with gasps and hums and the scratching of pens on slide lists by the second slide. Gentians! Primulas! Meconopsis! Saussureas! Cremanthodiums! Two hundred and eight images later, the crowd is definitely quieter, perhaps smarting from the fact that they moved from Winnipeg to a wet winter area where one- and two-inch-high gentians are very hard to grown in a well-manured garden, all the gravel having been removed to somebody else's garden in Cache Creek. Now my 77 - not just bulbs but corms - stoloniferous storage organs and cleverly contrived contractile roots, diving for cover in the cracks and screes of seemingly inhospitable terrain. My glaciated granite-cracks at home look positively inviting. The Allium narcissiflorum dancing in the wind in the tufted meadow. A. cernuum (hey - this looks not like ours at all, is this really the same?) Arisaema franchettianum, naughty boy, is familiar. Oh, oh, corydalis. Gasps as electric blue flowers and glaucus foliage work their charm. We see not at all the pine needles nearby that indicate these delicacies are two centimeters tall. Those ARE Ponderosa pines, right? I recognize orchids - a Bletilla hyacinthine - white - is scrumptious, but B. ochracea an endemic from Szechuan I've never even imagined. It produces a deep gurgle from a couple of Alpine Garden Club-ers behind me and ends in a choke when the huge pouch of a pure white Cypripedium tibeticum fills the screen. I'm starting to see a pattern here. Cyclamen graecum corms, huge, emerging from baked gravel, shriveled grass and oak leaves as a top dressing. Fritillaria cirrhosa greenly rising above clay like muck. Gagea hissarica 'Lipsky', a dear little yellow tulipy thing sparkling away above dry caked mud. Sternbergias in short grasses and oak leaves. Is that high shade above them? A little protection from wind perhaps, among those huge round boulders? Am I suddenly seeing the surroundings (though very little is shown, really) rather than the plants? Am I starting to see what Joseph Halda really sees when he looks at all these plants in their true homes? Was it a mistake to form a neighbourhood watch-like group and put all those horrid white lumps of limestone rock in a dumpster after the house on the corner went up for sale? Are we not getting it? Then it was over. Applause - shuffling - going-to-bed noises. Oh yeah - any questions? And that's when it happened. Approximately 10 minutes of spellbinding revelation from Mr. Halda's heart, summing up our ridiculous plant acquisition without true thought for habitat. The fact that plants can adapt to our gardens if we observe carefully. If we start from seed and let the plant and its habitat dictate how we grow it. If we observe, if we observe, if [only] we observe. Sometime later - 11:30pm to be precise, standing in the dark in my driveway, wondering if I poke some seeds in the cracks in the asphalt will I at last GET IT? ~ RUTH ANDERSON |
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