Journal

All members receive a biannual Journal. There are a few excerpts below, for full PDF copies click on the links below. If you would prefer a paper copy and you have not recived one in the post please contact us and we will be happy to send you one.

Excerpts from the Spring 2009 Journal.

READ HALL

MAVIS SMITH

Suffolk Plant Heritage has planned a visit to Read Hall, Mickfield, near Debenham on Saturday June 20th and I hope many of you will take the opportunity to see this lovely garden and admire what has been achieved in such a short time.

Andrea and Andy Stewart moved into Read Hall in November 2000. This was a career change for the Stewarts and they are determined to make their property very productive. The 15th century Hall House sits almost in the centre of a three acre garden and is partially moated. Andrea has used her artistic skills to redesign the garden whilst retaining the more permanent features such as the mature trees, the moats and orchards. The garden has everything - herbaceous borders, wonderful vegetables, orchards, woodland, wild flower garden and moats with water lilies and bog plants. As well as looking after her five year old son, Loui, and doing all the gardening, Andrea is studying for the RHS Diploma in Horticulture. She also plans to open an internet nursery specialising in Hemerocallis, Iris sibirica and black leaved Dahlias. There is plenty to see and something for everyone and, if that is not enough, Andrea promises delicious cakes!

THE GARDEN AT FULLERS MILL

NEIL BRADFIELD

The gardens at Fullers Mill in West Stow are a charming combination of beautiful situation with rich diversity of planting. Set on the banks of the River Lark, the garden is bounded by the King's Forest, which blends almost imperceptively into a dream-like grove of Betula 'Silver Grace' and enchanting collection of shrubs, perennials and lilies. It has a hidden, otherworldly quality of meandering paths and borders filled with beauty and tranquillity.

Of course, the realisation of this special place has been guided by sound judgement and insight. Bernard Tickner, the garden's creator, has been singularly successful in consulting the genius loci at Fullers Mill. His informal arrangement of plants sits between the pine forest and water with tremendous natural grace. He also understands the nuances of soil and conditions throughout the garden and makes full use of them to extend his range of plants and seasons. For example, he saw similarities in parts with Mediterranean hillsides and sought out their native plants. By carefully placing them he brings spring forward to autumn, just as it occurs in Crete, when the rain brings plants out of their summer dormancy. Thus Galanthus reginae olgae started to flower in late September and Iris unguicularis in October in 2008. Furthermore by incorporating humus in the free-draining soil with a mulch, it provides the ideal situation for lilies. Indeed, Fullers Mill is one of the few gardens in East Anglia to grow lilies in a serious way.

Bernard demonstrates great skill and originality in the juxtaposition of plants, believing colour to be of secondary importance. His eye has stronger appreciation for the sculptural qualities of a plant; its habit, texture, leaf form and so on. In this way he contrasts and echoes shapes and surface detailing, to build up communities of plants in a border. Nevertheless his use of colour is quite controlled, often repeating within a restricted range when combining plants.

When planting an area, he has a plantsman's passion for seeking out the rare and unusual, providing that it will work well in his conditions. Euphorbia thrives at Fullers Mill; E. stygiana attaining a height and spread of 7', while E. 'Red Wing' AGM actually arose in the garden. Among many other treasures are the stunning Amaryllis belladonna 'Hathor', Arum idaeum from high altitudes in Crete, magnificent Cardiocrinum giganteum yunnanense and minute Alchemilla faeroensis pumila.

In 2004 Bernard transferred the garden to a charitable trust to ensure its long term future. Yet this development also brings new challenges. Currently the garden has five open days per year, which may increase in future. However this garden was not designed for public visiting. Its paths are narrow and quality delicate. It is also vital that Bernard's style and vision are not lost. With this in mind, the immense job of cataloguing the collection has been started by the capable team of Ivan Dickings, Maggie Thorpe and Anne Tweddle, all members of Suffolk Plant Heritage. In addition, the trust has employed me as its first full-time, professionally trained gardener, to learn about this unique garden's intricacies. Other issues will doubtless arise but it is hoped that Bernard's taste and the genius loci will continue to steer the garden for many years to come.

Fullers Mill is open on the third Sunday of the month, May to September 2-5pm. We also particularly wish to encourage private visits from individuals or groups, who will be made most welcome at any time of year, by prior arrangement. Please telephone 01284 728248.

If you would like to join the small band of dedicated volunteers who work in the garden at Fullers Mill please call Bernard Tickner on 01284 728248. Neil Bradfield started as a volunteer in the garden at Fullers Mill, which is a charitable trust, and is now head gardener.

THE WOLLEMI PINE

STAN TURNER

'”How marvellous and exciting that we should have discovered this rare survivor from such an ancient past'' Sir David Attenborough. “The discovery of the Wollemi Pine is the equivalent of finding a small dinosaur still alive on Earth'' Professor Carrick Chambers, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney On September 10th 1994, a park ranger and avid bushwalker named David Noble was exploring canyons in the Wollemi National Park, a wilderness and World Heritage area just a few hours' drive from Sydney in Australia. The park is a vast expanse of over 500,000 hectares where a walker could hike for weeks without seeing another person and where vast galleries of prehistoric rock art are still being discovered today. Countless streams have carved out a framework of canyons in the landscape, some as deep as the Empire State Building is tall.This is a place many scientists dream about visiting, with an abundance of new species of plants and animals to discover.

Noble came upon an unusual conifer growing on moist ledges in a deep rainforest gorge. Having never seen one before he took away a small fallen branch to try and identify it. Experts identified it as a member of the Araucariaceae family, of a genus known only in fossil deposits, the oldest of which were some 90 million years old.

Only 100 adult trees have been discovered, the biggest being 131 feet and nearly four feet in girth. The tree is bizarre, it has leaves shaped like a Stegosaur's tail and bark that looks like bubbling chocolate. The growingtips are called polar caps because of their colour.The new leaves are yellow, but turn dark green later on in the year.

A comprehensive conservation and propagation programme has started to guarantee the future of the Wollemi pine, and the intention is to distribute it as widely as possible so that its survival is assured across a range of different countries and environments. It is a remarkably adaptable tree, growing in a wide range of temperatures and situations, and even doing well as a pot plant. The funds raised from a concerted marketing initiative will be reinvested in the conservation programme for the tree in the wild.

My wife and I visited The National Arboretum at Westonbirt in 2006 and saw the pine in the grounds. It was approximately eight feet tall. We were so taken aback by the information we gathered from the plant centre that we ordered one.

A two and a half foot tall tree was £300, and a one and a half foot tree was £97 plus carriage. We purchased the smaller of the trees, kept it in our garden room over the winter and planted it out in the spring of 2007

We were given a packet of Rootgrow, a friendly mycorrhizal fungi granule which produces a second root system evolved to enhance the plant. The Wollemi has already grown to nearly six feet tall - in a thousand years' time this could reach a hundred and thirty feet!

Much more information on this amazing tree can be found in the book The Wollemi Pine by James Woodford, published by Text Publishing and available from the website www.wollemipine.co.uk If any member would like to see this tree in our garden at Thurston they are more than welcome. Stan Turner can be contacted on 01359 271787.