"Shady Characters" - 10th October

What a privilege is was to welcome Colin Crosbie, a distinguished horticulturalist, to speak to us about plants for shade in the garden.

“After working in the gardens of Auchincruive as a young adult, Colin undertook Horticulture studies at West of Scotland Agricultural College, now SRUC. He then worked at the Windsor Great Park- the Savill and Valley gardens- before being appointed as Head Gardener to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, where he worked for five years. Colin then became Superintendent at RHS Wisley, before working as the Garden Manager and finally the Curator. He returned home to Scotland and has his own business as a horticultural consultant and leads garden tours around the world.”

Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) 

Firstly, Colin reminded us about the vertical layers within the garden’s tree canopy.

He then presented a selection of A-Z plants that grow in the low, shady layers of this canopy (i.e. the herbaceous and soil surface layers).

Arisema - thunbergii / candidissimum + red form / griffithi var pradhanii /

Cobra Lily      kiushianum / sikokianum / nepenthoides

A. candidissimum red form

A.  sikokianum - Jack in Pulpit or Loo Brush

Anemone 'Wild Swan'

"About 15 years ago, amongst a batch of Anemone seedlings,

Elizabeth spotted a plant very with different character 

to the parent and showing real hybrid vigour. 

This was placed aside to grow on and watch. 

This young plant was delightful and has since proved to be

 the most beautiful and long flowering plant we grow."

www.elizabethmacgregornursery.co.uk

 

Cypripedium 'Gisela'

Cypripedium parviflora / kentuckiense / ‘Gisela’

Dicksonia antartica

Dryopteris wallichiara

E. grandifolium 'Beni-chidori'

Epimedium ‘Amber Queen’ / youngianum ‘Yenomoto’ / ogisui / acuminatum / davidii  / brevicomu / grandifolium ‘Beni-chidori / ‘Pink Elf’

E. calfonicum 'WhiteBeaty'

Erythronium californicum ‘White Beauty’ / revolutum ‘Knightshayes Pink’ / dens-canis ‘Purple King’ / ‘Pagoda’

Hellebores

Hosta ‘El Nino’ / ‘Fire Island’ / ‘Mouse Ears’

L.cardiocrinum giganteum - can reach 11 feet in height!

Lilium ‘Vivo Queen’ / hansonii / martagon var album / lancifolium ‘Splendens’ / lankongense / cardiocrinum giganteum

Lilies like their feet in the shade 

& flowers in the sun

Mecanopsis betonicifolia / ‘Mrs Jebb’

Mukdenia rossii

Miaianthemum racemosum ‘Wisley Spangles’ / japonicum

Polygonatum x hybridum / odoratum ‘Red Stem’

Primulas

Roscoea humeana lutea

Roscoea purpurea / tumjensis / humeana varieties / cautleyoides / forrestii / ‘Monique’

Trillium kurabayashii / flexipen / rivale

Uvularia grandifolium + variety pallida

SHRUBS

Daphne bholua

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’

Magnolia stellata ‘JanePlatt’ / kobus

Rhododendrom yakushimanum

Rhododendron yakushimanum / ‘Hydon Velvet’

Sacoccocca wilsonii

 

Colin’s own garden at Dalswinton Mill (north of Dumfries, in Dumfries & Galloway) opens via the Scotland Garden Scheme.

https://scotlandsgardens.org/dalswinton-mill

Colin is also closely involved with the charity, Independence from Drugs and Alcohol Scotland (IFDAS) which purchased SRUC’s walled garden at Auchincruive, Ayr.

“If some one had said to me, when I was working here as an 18 year old, and then going on to study Horticulture at Auchincruive, that I would end up travelling the world, looking for plants in the wild- in China and Japan; managing big gardens down south- I would have said ‘not in a million years!’, but Auchincruive gave me the opportunity and I am so grateful. And this is why I am keen to give something back to the gardens here, because of what it gave me.”

Colin Crosbie

www.ifdas.net 

Written by PMR

Various reference sources used

The Firewood Poem
by Lady Celia Congreve

Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year,

Chestnut's only good they say,
If for logs 'tis laid away.
Make a fire of Elder tree,
Death within your house will be;
But ash new or ash old,
Is fit for a queen with crown of gold

Birch and fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last,
it is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,
E'en the very flames are cold
But ash green or ash brown
Is fit for a queen with golden crown

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke,
Apple wood will scent your room
Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom
Oaken logs, if dry and old
keep away the winter's cold
But ash wet or ash dry
a king shall warm his slippers by.