South West AGS Show-Exeter-Saturday 29 March 2014

[fermi de Sousa]

The Grevillia you showed is stunning.  I first saw this plant at the Nottingham Meeting and thought it beautiful.

hi Anne,
I have a couple of forms of Grevillea lanigera in the garden - in fact one has self seeded in a couple of places and I was too much of a chicken to try to move them! The Mt Tamboritha Form is excellent - much tighter compact foliage. It takes the 40^oC heat and -7^oC winters without a problem at our place,
cheers
fermi

[ChrisB]

A similar plant took my eye at our Hexham Show yesterday too Fermi.  It's a real sweetheart of a plant!  Well done Mr N for your report nice to see what's going on at t'other end of this island...

[johnw]

David  - Thanks for the posts.  Superb Cassiope from Barry Starling and some wonderful Primulas there.  No Ericaceous entries?

johnw - +1c, iffy rain.

[David Nicholson]

David  - Thanks for the posts.  Superb Cassiope from Barry Starling and some wonderful Primulas there.  No Ericaceous entries?

johnw - +1c, iffy rain.

There were John but I didn't get them. Jon Evans will probably have pics on the AGS site shortly. Barry's plant was absolutely beautiful.

[David Nicholson]

A similar plant took my eye at our Hexham Show yesterday too Fermi.  It's a real sweetheart of a plant!  Well done Mr N for your report nice to see what's going on at t'other end of this island...

Thanks Chris.

[Maggi Young]

Previously when talking about the nurseries attending the Exeter Show mention was made of Choice Landscapes -  though their website still talks of Michael and Jill Agg as the proprietors, it is my sad duty to tell forumists that Michael passed away late last year. Jill is continuing to run the nursery and attend shows herself.
It must be difficult for Mrs Agg to be facing so much and still manage to be working so hard and I am sure we all wish her well in this and send our condolences on the loss of her husband.

[tonyg]

Well, it was a good Show but some of the "giants" of the showing world were conspicuous by their absence and the "senior growers" classes seemed to me a bit thin in quantity. I did wonder if perhaps this was because the trip down to Exeter, near the last precipice of the known World, was a step to far but they have always managed it before. Someone suggested to me that it because there was no Joint Rock. This I found difficult to understand since I share the same problem as 99.99% of the nation by not knowing what that is, does, and why it's necessary. Whatever, an awful lot of work done by a small and ever decreasing number of people goes into mounting shows and maybe it's reached the stage where consideration needs to be given to circumstances that are important to the first class growers as well as attractive to their first step towards the benches.

Do you always share a date with another show?  Here in E Anglia we used to to have same date as E Cheshire show and felt we were the poor relations, being so far from .... well anywhere really.  (Closer to Holland than Birmingham)  Now we have a date to ourselves the benches are heaving with plants, a much improved show.  Still fighting the problem of an aging workforce though 

[Jon Evans]

Hi
I have added a few pictures from the show to the AGS website here:

http://www.alpinegardensociety.net/discussion/atshows/AGS+South+West+Show+Exeter+th+March+/18502/

I hope they do the plants justice.

I don't think that the shortage of exhibitors was down to the clash of dates with other shows; it was more of a 'perfect storm' where several major exhibitors had prior commitments of various sorts, and a long list of them couldn't make it.  This is normally a strong and flourishing show, and the double-date hasn't affected it before.

[Tim Ingram]

I certainly hope we might get to Exeter next year - I always remember it as a most enjoyable show and it shares with E. Anglia a sort of far flung appeal! (Perhaps also Kent too).

There are some stunning plants there and I have been trying to choose which I might pick out to award as a Farrer medal to the photographer! For me its a choice between Scilla peruviana 'Paul Voelcker', Epimedium wushanense Spiny leaved form, and Petrocosmea iodioides. Something to do with form and symmetry. Two plants I would love to grow in the garden are Hepatica 'Millstream Merlin' and Primula marginata 'Gordon' (lovely deep coloured flowers). I remember the former at the small Essex Group Show last year, and as well as being a stunning colour it holds that link with two very great American gardeners and their garden.

It strikes me that the pictures of plants in the novice section have equal aesthetic appeal as those of many plants in the more advanced sections - the difference being the great character and history of many of the latter (viz: that wonderful Cassiope and Peter Erskine's Fritillaria - and that comes across so nicely in Jon's descriptions and photographs. Is this the reason why so many more people discuss the Shows here on the SRGC site than they do on the AGS one? I think that last line in Katie Price's article in the March AGS Journal where she comments on Valerie Finnis and 'plants' and 'people' sums this up well. The medals promote excellence but how much do they actually teach to new gardeners visiting the Shows? And how many new gardeners visiting the Shows would be thoroughly captivated if they actually were to discover them in the first place? The Shows should be advertised and written up in the 'Times' like they were in a past age! (They are so good).

[astragalus]

hi Anne,
I have a couple of forms of Grevillea lanigera in the garden - in fact one has self seeded in a couple of places and I was too much of a chicken to try to move them! The Mt Tamboritha Form is excellent - much tighter compact foliage. It takes the 40^oC heat and -7^oC winters without a problem at our place,
cheers
fermi


Lucky you!  I don't know how they would cope with -20 F or less here.  How wonderful to have them self-seed.