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Strictly speaking, the acknowledged habitat of true
alpine plants, as classed by botanists, is between the limit of coniferous
tree growth, (the Treeline) and the permanent snow line. This area
can be found at or near sea level in arctic regions and can be above
6,000 feet (1,830 meters) in mountain regions. Some will be found
tightly wedged between cracks and fissures on rocky cliff faces, whilst
others grow on steep shifting scree slopes. Many are the travelers
who have risked life and limb to get a closer look at these alpine
aristocrats growing in these inaccessible places. However, the alpine
gardener has expanded the range of habitats to include the alpine
meadows and valleys, the cool earthy-smelling forests and woodlands;
the prairies, tundra and steppes and the regions too dry to support
a forest; but not dry enough to be a classed as a desert. In general
then, (from the point of the alpine gardener) an alpine plant is a
reasonably hardy perennial, of compact habit and doesn’t necessarily
have to come from high altitudes. We may equally refer to these plants
as 'rock garden plants' - even though not all of them grow amongst
rocks and not all of them grow in alpine regions.
Annuals are almost none-existent at the higher altitudes
and few are suitable for the rock garden. The majority of alpine plants
are true species, true wild plants that haven’t been altered
in anyway by plant breeders, as have such plants as roses, chrysanthemums,
pelargonium’s auriculars and begonias etc., where countless
newer “improved” cultivars are being offered each year.
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The
Mountains. |
 The
mountains of the world cover one-fifth of the earth’s land surface,
and occur in 75 percent of the countries of the world. More than half
of the world’s fresh water originates high in the mountains;
and the entire world's great river systems are fed from mountain sources.
The Himalayas are the highest and one of the youngest mountain ranges
in the world, forming a 1,500 mile (2,400 km) broad crescent through
Northeastern Pakistan, Northern India, Southern Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim
and Bhutan.
The Mountains of the Andes in South America are the longest and one
of the highest mountain ranges in the world, stretching 4,500 miles
(7,200 km) from north to south, along the west coast of the continent.
The Rocky Mountains, one of the oldest mountain ranges, are situated
in Western North America, extending north-south from British Columbia
to New Mexico, a distance of about 3,000 miles (4,800 km). Though
part of North America's Pacific Cordillera, the Rockies are distinct
from the Pacific Coast Ranges which are located immediately adjacent
to the Pacific coast.
The mountain ranges of Europe consist of the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians,
Apennines, Urals and Balkan Mountains. Many other familiar mountain
ranges in Europe are included
within those mentioned above.
There are other significant mountain ranges around the world and to
go into further detail would fill many more pages. There are the mountains
of Africa, Japan and New Zealand where a number of choice alpine plants
come from.
Mountains
affect the climate of the world. Whilst some mountain peaks may be
covered in ice and snow, the foothills may have a tropical climate.
There will often be a range of differing temperate regions between
these two extremes. The Himalayas, Tibet and other mountain ranges
such as the Rocky Mountains and the Andes are good examples of this
climate variation. In some parts of the world a mountain range may
block the rainfall, so that one side may be rainy, whilst the other
side may be a dry desert. Accordingly, the plants would be very different
from one side of the mountain to the other.
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Why
are some alpine plants difficult to grow in cultivation? |
 The
vast majority of alpine plants are easy to grow in any reasonably
good well-drained garden soil with adequate humus; and ask for nothing
more than to be placed in an open sunny position, and not have to
compete with pernicious weeds. Those that are considered difficult
are so, for a variety of different reasons.
For many months of the year the plants that grow at high altitudes
above the treeline are covered by a deep blanket of snow which keeps
them dry and at a constant low temperature, but not as low as the
air temperature above the snow. They are also protected from cold
bitter winds. When spring arrives and the snow melts these plants
receive an abundance of moisture, and they soon put on rapid growth.
Many have a deep tap-root system that provides a strong anchorage
in the often shifting and moving scree; so even if there is a land-slide
which decapitates the plant, it often has the ability to put up new
growth from the root, much as a dandelion does. Because the neck of
these high
altitudes alpines have a good dressing of fine pebbles and stones
around them and the water and nutrients they receive is soon filtered
from the surface to the roots, they survive and flourish.
Very often the snow at these higher altitudes may not disappear until
late June; then in September the plants will be covered and protected
again with a blanket of snow. So in their short season of spring and
summer they must bloom and set seed, and then hibernate under the
snow until the following spring snow melt. The Soldanella grows in
damp meadows, mountain valleys, river banks and along the edge of
melting snow patches. Throughout the winter the plant remains dormant
under a thick blanket of snow, and then, with the first trickling
of water from the start of the snow melt in spring reaching the roots,
it is “kick-started” into germination. The flower stalks
with its unopened bud starts to generates heat from the fuel stored
up in the leaves. It pushes its way upwards through the snow, melting
an area around the flower stalk as it does so; to eventually emerge
in the spring sunlight with snow and ice still around its feet. By
melting its way through the snow and flowering before other plants
have grown, the Soldanella preserves its life and produces seeds which
will grow and carry on the species.
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 Now
consider the different environment alpine plants are obliged to grow
in when bought into cultivation; perhaps for example in a garden in
Staffordshire in the United Kingdom. The winter months are cold and
damp, with usually little snowfall and fluctuating temperatures –
a damp, foggy day, followed by a night of frost and then a sunny morning.
This cycle of damp, fog, frost and sunshine could continue for a number
of weeks, and the foliage of the plant, which would otherwise be covered
by snow in its mountain home, will become a damp mush that will just
wither, rot away and die. Whilst we can’t provide a deep covering
of snow for several months to protect our choice alpines in cultivation,
we can go some way into providing an environment in which they will
be contented and induced to put on a magnificent show of flowers.
The plant shown right (Androsace vandellii) is a high altitude alpine
plant from the granite cliffs in the Central and Southern Alps where
it forms tight cushions whose roots penetrate deep into the calcareous
rocks in search of food. It can be grow outside with a covering of
glass during the winter months, but only with limited success! By
far the best environment in cultivation is the alpine house; where
it can be cosseted so that it puts on a show worthy of a Farrer Medal
at the spring shows. Dionysia is a genus related to Androsace, and
these too need alpine house protection, they come from Iran and Afghanistan
where their habitat is crevices and fissures on shady cliff faces
and cave entrances. They were at one time regarded as being almost
impossible to keep in cultivation, and a few decades ago there were
only a few species grown, and clinging tentatively to life in cultivation.
Today, around half of the known species are in cultivation, and regularly
appear at many alpine plant shows – grown to perfection! This
is due, in no small way, to the skill of dedicated growers, whose
understanding, devotion and cultural knowledge of these wild plants
has led to them gaining a more secure foothold in cultivation. There
are possibly other species in the wild that are not in cultivation,
but because of the political instability in their native lands, it
will be many years before they do become available.
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The
Alpine House |
An
alpine house differs from the more conventional greenhouse in that it
serves to provide a home and conditions for the plants, similar to what
they would experience in their native habitats. It should have a reasonably
low pitch in order that the plants are not grown out of character and
their growth is not drawn up. It should also be well ventilated with
lights, (windows) that can be opened along the whole length of the ridge,
as well as those along the length of both sides, as the free movement
of fresh air over the plants is of paramount importance. Heating in
the alpine house is not strictly necessary but if used with discretion
by the alpine grower it can prevent some losses, as although direct
rain is prevented from falling on the plants, the high humidity which
can occur during dark, dull and foggy spells could be detrimental to
those plants with ‘woolly’ foliage that could hold the damp
air. A little heat on such days can help to dry the air to some extent.
Likewise, in the summer when the days are very hot and there is little
or no outside breeze a cool electric fan can be of great benefit. Some
form of shading will be required on very hot sunny days, and this is
best done by means of one of the various adjustable laths or plastic
material blinds; a colour wash on the glass is not recommended, as they
cannot be easily removed when shading is not needed. 
Nowadays, advanced technology gives the alpine grower the option of
having sophisticated electronic controls in the alpine house, to open
and close the lights, the shade blinds, the heaters and fans, and even
a time/humidity controlled Micro-Drip water irrigation system.
The staging, which should be strongly and securely build, should be
covered with sheet iron and have a slight slope to carry away surplus
water to the pre-drilled drainage holes. The staging should finish up
at a height that the top of the pots are at about waist height when
placed on a fine shingle covering, or better still to plunge them up
to the rims into coarse and sterile sand. At this waist height the alpine
grower has the advantage of being able to admire and tend to the plans
at a comfortable and convenient level.
It is the cushion-forming plants that are most typically grown in the
alpine house – like the beautiful Dionysia and Androsace, (see
pictures above). The well known Kabschia and Engleria saxifrages, the
many species of bulbous plants, the early blooming plants from the Primulaceae
and the vivid and varied Lewisia; to name but a few.
A visit to the alpine house in the R.B.G. Edinburgh, the R.H.S. Gardens
at Wisley and Kew can inspire and be rewarding, as can a visit to the
many A.G.S. Shows around the country. |
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The
Plant Hunters. |
Gardens
and gardeners, plant lovers and plant collectors from all over the world
owe an enormous dept of gratitude to the plant hunters of the past and
the present, for it is they who have bought plants, flowers, trees and
vegetables of every kind to our gardens. The glorious rhododendrons,
azaleas and camellias from remote wild placed such as the Himalayan
Mountains - from Nepal and Sikkim, to Yunnan and Sichuan in China. The
enormous number of bulbous species; crocus, cyclamen, galanthus, iris,
lilies, narcissus and tulip – to name but a few, are predominately
found in countries where the winter is cold and wet and the summer is
hot and dry. This habitat encompasses the Mediterranean areas of Europe,
North Africa and Asia, and into desert areas like the Mojave in California,
the Karoo in South Africa and the Atacama in Chile. Then there is the
exotic and huge family of orchids, whose main distribution is in the
tropics of America, Africa and Asia, but which also boasts terrestrial
species in temperate regions in Asia, North America, Europe, Australasia
etc, growing in meadows and woodland.
These and many other plants, including alpines and thousands of other
floral wonders; and the tropical fruits, berries, vegetables, seeds
and roots that are now an every day part of our culinary taste have
come from all corners of the globe. From new found cultures in remote
and beautiful lands the Plant Hunters have collected plants that have
shaped the style and richness of western garden design for the past
200 years.
They often encountered great danger and hardship, travailing in foreign
lands, often where no other European had been before; cutting a path
through thickets and shrubs, climbing steep hills and cliffs, wading
rivers and streams, encountering hostile tribes, bandits, wild beasts,
hunger and disease; all this, and the constant search and look-out for
a new undiscovered plant to send back to civilisation.
There
is only space to mention but a handful of these many intrepid adventures
– for adventures they certainly were – they were the “Indian
Jones’s” of the plant world, and obtaining some of the many
books that are now available about these Plant Hunters, makes fascinating
and interesting reading. |
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Meriwether
Lewis (1774 – 1809), and William Clark (1770 – 1838) |
In
1803 the U.S. purchased not only New Orleans but the whole of Louisiana
Territory from France, (The Louisiana Purchase) for fifteen
million dollars; an area of over 800,000 square miles. Much of this
vast new territory was unexplored and what little knowledge there was;
was more myth than fact – legends of woolly mammoths, erupting
volcanoes, fierce giants that killed all intruders and mountains of
pure salt.
In 1804 U.S. President Thomas Jefferson selected Captain Meriwether
Lewis to lead an expedition across this unexplored area of western North
America. The objective was to seek a possible water route to the Pacific
Ocean, to study and cultivate a friendship with the native Indian tribes
encountered, to record, observe and collect all that was noteworthy
concerning the indigenous flora and fauna, the minerals, rocks and climates.
They were also instructed to map the sources and courses of rivers and
important landmarks by means of the stars to determining exact latitudes
and longitudes. Almost immediately after his appointment by President
Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis wrote a letter to his long-time friend,
32-year-old
William Clark; recruited him to be the expedition's co-leader. Clark
was four years older than Lewis and a seasoned frontiersman.
The expedition consisted of a force of over 40 men – soldiers,
navigators, boatmen, hunters; and others skilled and accustomed in various
frontier ways. There were also two horses and Lewis’ Newfoundland
dog “Seaman”. The journey of about 8,000 miles through very
difficult and dangerous conditions took over two years to complete but
was considered a great success, with over 300 new plant and animal species
unknown to science, nearly 50 Indian tribes, and a charted passage to
the west coast, this great endeavour was the beginning of the American
westward movement. Pioneers, immigrants, gold seekers began to settle
the Rocky Mountains, Great Plains and the Pacific coast. The stress
and hardship of the journey took a toll on Lewis. He never wrote the
formal report of his experiences that he had promised President Jefferson,
and sadly he died three years later in 1809, aged 35. Clark fared much
better, and lived a productive life until his death in 1838, aged 68.
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David
Douglas (1799 - 1834) |
Douglas,
the son of a stonemason, was born in Scotland in the village of Scone
north-east of Perth. After leaving school at the age of 11 he found
work as an apprentice gardener on the estate of the 3rd Earl of Mansfield
at Scone Palace. He spent seven years at Scone and then for a while,
went to college in Perth where he learnt
more about the scientific and mathematical aspects of plant culture.
After a spell working in Fife (where he had access to a library of
books on zoology and botany) he moved to the Botanical Gardens in
Glasgow, where he attended many botany lectures at Glasgow University
His talent as a young naturalist was further developed through work
with Professor William Hooker, and in 1823 on the recommendation
of the Professor, he moved to the Horticultural Society of London.
It was from this recommendation that lead to Douglas undertaking his
first plant collecting expedition to the eastern part of North America.
Over the course of Douglas’s eleven years as an exploring botanist
and plant collector, he introduced more than 250 new species of plants
to Britain. Initially he travelled with parties of trappers, but as
he grew more confident he travelled only with an Indian guide. His
main collecting area was the wild unexplored Indian territories of
the Pacific Coast, from California to British Columbia and inland
to the Rocky Mountains; far from civilisation. Between 1825 and 1827
he covered over 10,000 miles.
At the age of only 35, David Douglas meet a tragic and untimely death
in Hawaii on July 13, 1834; where he was trampled to death after falling
into a bull-pit in which a bullock had already fallen. He was buried
at Kawiaihoa Church at Honolulu, where a plaque stands to commemorate
his achievements; and a second fitting memorial to him stands in the
grounds of the old church at Scone. It has been asserted by one authority
that: "No other plant collector has reaped such a harvest in
America or associated his name with so many plants".
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George
Forrest (1873 - 1932) |
George
Forrest who was born in Falkirk, Scotland, started his working life
as an apprentice chemist in Kilmarnock. Lifn a chemists shop was not
for Forrest and when he inherited a small amount of money at the age
of 18, he set out in 1891 to travel to Australia to visit relatives,
where he tried his hand at gold prospecting and working on a sheep
station before returning to Scotland in 1902.On his returned to Britain
he was befriended by Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour as a clerk in the Herbarium
at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. Sir Isaac, his employer, was
impressed by his character and recommended him to A.K. Bulley, who
was sponsoring an expedition to Western China in search of exotic
plants.
In 1904 Forrest made his first expedition to the Western Chinese province
of Yunnan, botanically China's richest province, alongside 17 other
plant collectors. This first adventure was both exciting and horrifying,
as for political reasons the local Tibetan monks killed 60 foreigners.
Forrest narrowly escaped with his life, and spent three weeks trekking
to safety with only the cloths he stood up in. This horrific incident
did not deter him from returning to Yunnan and pursuing an extremely
successful career as one of the greatest plant collectors of his time.
Forest made five expeditions to China and didn't restrict his collection
activities to plants but also collected birds and butterflies. He
was well respected by the Chinese and used the medicinal skills he
learned as a chemist to treat the local Chinese for a variety of illnesses.
Forrest himself succumbed to illness and died in Yunnan in the upper
Mekong River in 1932. He was buried in Yunnan, the land where he made
so many great discoveries.
The photo above was taken around 1914 in the North West province of
Yunnan. (Photograph from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, George
Forrest photographic archive.) From amongst over 31,000 plant specimens,
several hundred are still in cultivation today. The specific epithet,
forrestii, occurs in more than thirty genera and thousands of hybrids
have been bred from Forrest stock.
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Ernest
Henry Wilson 1876 - 1930est Henry Wilson (1876
- 1930) |
Ernest Henry
'Chinese' Wilson; better known as E. H. Wilson, was born in the Cotswolds
and became an apprentice at Hewitt's nursery in Solihull, prior
to moving to the Birmingham Botanic Garden at the age of 16. In 1897
he began work at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, when W.T. Thiselton-Dyer,
then Director, put him forward to go to China in an expedition for
the famouse nursery firm of James Veitch & Sons, who were eager
above all to retrieve the dove tree, Davidia involucrata. "Stick
to the one thing you are after," advised Harry Veitch, who had
more than a dozen plant hunters on payroll, "and don't spend
time and money wandering about. Probably every worthwhile plant in
China has now been introduced into Europe." Showing incredible
determination and ability to plan and lead the expedition, he finally
found many specimens of the handkerchief tree, alongside new species
of Acer, Betula, Viburnum, Clematis, Buddleia, Rhododendron, Magnolia
and Camellia, his collection totalling seeds of over 300 species,
and 35 Wardian cases of living bulbs and roots. In 1914, Wilson explored
Japan, focusing his attention on conifers, azaleas, and Japanese cherries.
Beginning in 1917, he undertook a systematic exploration of Korea,
Japan, and Formosa (Taiwan), returning to Boston in 1919 with seeds,
living plants, 30,000 herbarium specimens, and 700 photographs. His
last expedition, a tour of the gardens of the world, took place from
1920 to 1922. Wilson’s third and fourth China expeditions were
sponsored by Charles S. Sargent, the director of the Arnold Arboretum.
For three years beginning in 1907, Wilson explored western Hubei and
western Sichuan, returning to Boston in 1909. Wilson’s second
Arboretum expedition, which began in 1910, was to collect cones and
conifer seeds in the central and southwestern parts of China.
Wilson was a
popular lecturer on the topics of his travels and horticulture. After
Sargent’s death in 1927, he became “Keeper” of the
Arnold Arboretum. Three years later his career was cut short when
he and his wife were killed in an automobile accident. They are buried
in the Mont-Royal Cemetery in Montreal, Canada.
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Reginald
Farrer (1880 - 1920) |
Reginald
Farrer was born at Clapham, North Yorkshire into a rather affluent family.
Due to a speech defect – he had a hare lip - he was educated at
his home, Ingleborough House. By the age of 10 he was a well-qualified
field botanist with a "fair knowledge of plant anatomy." At
14 years of age he made his first rock garden in an abandoned quarry,
and also at that time he made his first of many published contributions
to botanical literature. He entered Oxford University at 17 years of
age and graduated in 1902, and in that same year he set out for Japan
where he lived for eight months and began a long and popular writing
career with 'The Garden of Asia', published in 1904. In 1907 he published
his first real gardening book, My Rock Garden, which became a very popular
and influential book which was kept continuously in print for over 40
years.
Known by many of his contemporaries to be an eccentric, and at times,
‘difficult’ character, one incident in particular illustrates
this very well. In an effort to replicate the local flora he had encountered
during an expedition to Ceylon, Farrer decided to create a cliff garden
on a gorge near Clapham. Farrer independently rowed a small boat into
the middle of a lake, loaded a shotgun filled with seeds, and fired
it into the rock face. His experiment turned out to be a success as
the plants flourished at the time and were acknowledged to be 'the only
true natural rock garden in the country'. Sadly, the display no longer
exists. However, the lake at Ingleborough reflects on its far bank the
cliff face where the display had once thrived
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