Plant Sale and Propagation

BY ROBERT SHEPPERSON, PROPAGATION OFFICER

This year saw our first Spring Plant Sale at Helmingham on 31 May. After deciding last autumn that a change in venue from Euston would be desirable in order to maintain the popularity of our plant sales, Suffolk Group committee were unanimous in opting for Helmingham as an alternative venue.

We have enjoyed excellent autumn sales there and moving to the spring allows visitors to purchase a different range of plants and to see Lady Tollemache’s superb walled gardens at a different time of year. During my very brief perusal I saw peonies, oriental poppies and herbaceous Clematis Hendersonii as notable stars amongst a wealth of beautifully maintained perennials. I would add much more detail but my period of admiration for these impressive borders was sharply truncated by the same rain which all day had threatened to ruin the sale.

We set up under brooding skies, only too well aware of the ghastly weather forecast for the day. As things transpired we narrowly avoided the very worst of the rain, nevertheless it was a grey and chill morning followed by an increasingly wet afternoon. Despite this we attracted a good sized crowd of over one thousand and
enjoyed surprisingly good sales taking £840 at the Suffolk Group plant stall. This figure was particularly gratifying given the woeful lack of flowers on our sales plants; a disturbing repeat of the situation of last autumn. Then I was forced to admit that the fault was mine, but this time I was relieved to be able to blame the
weather.

Exceptional warmth and sunshine throughout March and April followed by an unusually dull and wet May played havoc with flowering times. The bearded iris in particular were either too early, too late or failed to flower at all. Fortunately one precious specimen each of ‘Boxford Empress’ and ‘Carnival Time’ were in flower providing display plants good enough to sell the many others which failed to deliver.

Plenty of good plants came to our stall from members. Of particular note were a supurb crop of Dactylorhiza Orchids from Rosemary Wilson, and I was personally especially pleased to raise and sell several Cytisus ‘Luna’: An excellent variety which is unaccountably rare in cultivation. In contrast, why didn’t my Papaver ‘Pink Coral’ flower? I might try threatening them with the compost heap if they don’t produce next year - as with almost a thousand pots lined up on the plot we have no room for passengers.

Our spring propagation session on 21 March was the best attended for some time. So much work was accomplished in one afternoon that I was left with but a few hours extra work to do before enough stock was produced. This year, of course, was also notable for being the first in which we avoided any water shortage crisis, thanks to
the timely installation of new water tanks supplied by Suffolk Group. I was also able to reinstall the split tank from last year by setting it upright into a pit deep enough to allow the container to fit under the shed guttering.
Restoration of the shed roof to its former glory so substantially increased run-off into these mighty receptacles that all 1,100 gallons of capacity were filled by the end of January.

“Hah!” said I triumphantly as I gleefully removed the downpipe from the last brimful container, “Now I laugh in the face of drought!”

Hmmm, I wonder if I will ever get to enjoy that particular laugh?