Notes from the Cruickshank Botanic Garden

[johnw]

Roma  - I'm always at a loss when it comes to describing colour.   It's quite unique in the dwarf lepidotes.  Especially so in the colour range of that 'Oban' and I wonder what you would call it?

johnw

[David Nicholson]

I know very little about Rhododendrons but would like to learn more is there an "idiot's " guide anyone could recommend to me to read please? Are the lepidotes usually available in the UK nursery trade and are they lime haters or could they cope with a fairly neutral soil?

PS: Sorry for littering the Cruickshank thread.

[Maggi Young]

David, there are many lepidote rhodos available  - and many will be content with  a neutral soil.
Wonderful plants!!!
 Cox'  "Dwarf Smaller Rhododendrons" is a good starting place. I'll find details and send  to you.

[Maggi Young]

I've just discovered that the CGB is involved in trials for the RBGE "really wild vegetables" project - not sure if they are wild or just furious!!
 Read more here http://stories.rbge.org.uk/archives/11417

[ashley]

Cox'  "Dwarf Rhododdendrons" is a good starting place.

The various categories offered by Glendoick are listed here David, including dwarf/lepidotes. 
Mouthwatering to say the least.

[johnw]

Maggi - I think you meant the more up-to-date version The Smaller Rhododendrons though Dwarf Rhododendrons is a particular favourite despite the old nomenclature.  In the latter, back in the 70's we had to envision so much from the line drawing...visions of sugar plums eh.  Also don't forget good old The Peat Garden & Its Plants, responsible for my fall into this vortex of madness.  And David the lepidote guru is just up the hill in Drewsteignton, though on a bigger hill nr. Burma at the moment.

johnw

[Maggi Young]

You're right, John, thanks. 

[Cruickshank Friend]

      Cruickshank Garden Notes, Summer 2014

 
What a wonderful display of flowering trees and shrubs has graced us this spring and early summer. Rhododendrons have been smothered in flower, lilacs covered in richly scented blooms and the whitebeams, a favoured street tree in much of Aberdeen are magnificent, their greyish white spring foliage setting off the ample heads of white flowers. The buds on roses and clematis suggest that this abundant display will be carried forward into full summer.
 
 All this is, I guess, the result of the unusually warm summer last year to ripen wood and initiate buds, followed by a very mild winter and no serious late frosts, though on the downside, pests have had a similarly easy time, and I have noticed a lot more greenfly and earlier in the season than usual - and an outbreak of lily beetle in my garden for the first time, hmm.So to the Cruickshank which is also robustly floriferous - a delightful place for a sunny stroll- where, breaking the habit of many years, 
I started my tour in the rock garden, looking charming on a sunny day (the rock garden not me that is). At the top the large shrubby Japanese crab apple Malus sargentii, forms a mound of white blossom, elsewhere the two closely Daphnes  D. retusa and D. tangutica are both scenting the air with myriad rose-purple flowers. Both evergreen and both excellent garden plants for sun or light shade, the former is more slow-growing, more compact with shorter leaves forming pleasing domes of dark green foliage.  Note also, the South American shrub Azara lanceolata, bearing multitudes of small mustard-yellow flowers.  Azara is a small genus of evergreen shrubs or small trees from Chile and Argentina, attractive in sheltered gardens - too tender at Craigievar - the hardiest of which A. microphylla bears lots of tiny yellow vanilla-scented flowers in early spring.

In the south east corner of the rock garden, the hardiest of the large-leaved rhododenrons, R rex is thriving despite quite deep shade, its large leathery leaves framing trusses of bell-shaped rose coloured flowers with an attractive basal crimson blotch, while nearby in the bed under the dawn redwoods, the primula relative, Dodecatheon pulchellum with  bright pink reflexed flowers like a cyclamen and Dicentra spectabilis, ‘Bleeding heart’ thrive amid the bulb foliage.

The trees at the eastern end of the rock garden are also worth a closer look; the magnificent multi-stemmed southern beech, Nothofagus ( I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the species), an elegant monkey puzzle Araucaria araucana, an ‘Ohio Buckeye’ Aesculus glabra - a horse chestnut relative, with yellow-green flower spikes and in the border next to the kitchen garden the elegant Koelreuteria paniculata - aka ‘Pride of India’ or ‘Golden Rain Tree’, with splendid pinnate leaves, though according to Hilliers only flowering after hot dry summers (fingers crossed?).

The shrubs against the warm south-facing wall are also responding to the benign conditions last year and this.  Piptanthus nepalensis, ‘Evergreen laburnum’ is very pleasing with its large yellow pea flowers, an excellent shrub, reasonably hardy even inland given some shelter.  I have never seen so many buds on the Wisteria sinensis here and by now it should be fully in flower and magnificent.  Next to it the Californian currant, Ribes speciosum, with red fuchsia-like flowers is lovely, while the Chilean Fire Bush, Embothrium coccineum, though in flower is looking rather unhappy. 
Enjoy also the sumptuous flowers on the tree paeony, P. rockii, enjoying more light in the corner of the terrace now some branches have been removed from the pine above it.  Kerria japonica in its rarer – and more pleasing single flowered form is also thriving here. On the other side of the herbaceous border, itself about to get into its stride and well-staked in anticipation, beyond the newly extended and colourful azalea bed Acer griseum, the ‘Paperbark Maple’ stands out, its peeling coppery bark easier to enjoy now that there is more light. 

Note one more tree, on the other side of the path from the peat beds, the interesting and unusual graft hybrid +Laburnocytisus adamii.  Some branches bear yellow laburnum flowers, whilst others have dense congested clusters of purple-flowered broom, while many other branches produce flowers of an intermediate coppery-pink shade.  If you missed it this year, just look at the magnificent photograph illustrating May in the Friends’ calendar.

TThere remain many more unmentioned delights so do go and enjoy a hopefully sunny walk and let’s hope this summer is as warm as last.


David Atkinson

Edit by CF : apologies for the odd changes of font - something happening beyond my ken.
 

[Cruickshank Friend]

Cruickshank Notes - Autumn 2014

So it is officially Autumn, and certainly feels that way as wind and rain shake the first of the Autumn leaves from the trees, berries abound, the temperature drops and days shorten. Autumn tints become more prevalent, Victoria plums are ripe and delicious and heavy crops of sweet blackberries can be grazed.
The early Spring , no serious late frosts and in general adequate rainfall have suited many plants; roses have bloomed well, agapanthus have been glorious, and hydrangeas are flowering well even in shade. A fine 20 year old specimen of Davidia involucrata, the 'Pocket Handkerchief Tree', in a garden I visit regularly, flowered magnificently for only the second time in its life; its white papery bracts fluttering for a good three weeks before falling, to be followed by a good crop of fruits which will hopefully prove to be fertile. Our freezer is full of currants, red, white and black awaiting processing.

The mists of Autumn were certainly in evidence the day I visited the Cruickshank Garden, leaving the sunshine of Craigievar for the murk of Aberdeen, and the subdued pleasures of a garden on a grey, overcast day. Whilst there is obviously still much to enjoy, the earliness of  Spring and the relative warmth of much of Summer means that there is less actual flower power than is usual for late August. The angel's fishing rods, Dierama pendulum, in the rock garden in full flower this time last year, are now just waving brown seed heads in the breeze whilst Cyclamen hederifolium nearby are luxuriant compared to last year.

Presiding over the newly planted grass bed by the Chanonry entrance, the elegant small rowan Sorbus forrestii, both introduced by and named in honour of George Forrest the plant hunter, holds a fine crop of small, glistening, white berries, whilst further on in the courtyard a much larger multi-stemmed Sorbus cashmeriana is adorned with clusters of much larger white berries. The dark leaved phormium in the central 'notice board' bed has clearly flowered well as are the white agapanthus beneath it. The Parrotia persica and Acer tartaricum, on either side of the path through to the old order beds are turning reddish and orangey-yellow respectively, the latter carrying a fine crop of winged seed.

The clearing of the shrub border leading down to St. Machar Drive, means the splendid specimen of the Japanese umbrella pine, Sciadopitys verticillata, can be better appreciated. This is a very hardy slow-growing conical conifer, thriving even in shade, a pleasing architectural plant, well worth considering. Next to it, a pleasant specimen of the North-American hawthorn, Crataegus succulenta, is carrying a heavy crop of large red haws, though I tried one, and dry and bitter would be a better description than succulent! Its neighbour a mature crab apple, Malus 'John Downie' is managing to support an equally large crop of fruit despite having lost much of its foliage - to apple scab, I guess.

Further along this same border a fine specimen of Eucryphia x nymansensis 'Nymansay' is blooming beautifully with large white many-stamened flowers. This is a fine evergreen hybrid between two South American species, needing shelter and sun and though it does well in Aberdeen, it is not reliably hardy further inland. To the left next to the boundary large orange autumnal leaves were gently falling from an Oregon Maple, Acer macrophyllum, a handsome tree with leaves a good 30cm. long. Nearby a sad looking specimen of Sorbus sargentiana clings to life; potentially a handsome small tree with large pinnate foliage and characteristic sticky buds, it seems not to enjoy life in our area.  I have two similarly poor creatures at home.
There are little groups of the autumn bulb colchicum in various beds and borders in the garden, but they probably look at their best when their slender stems are supported by the grass in the bulb lawn in the sunken garden - as they would be in nature. In a bed by the lawn the striking poisonous fruits of Podophyllum hexandrum, like large, bright red plums, are very pleasing, as is nearby the willow gentian, Gentiana asclepiadea.  A plant largely of open woodland in the wild, it is surprisingly versatile in the garden in a reasonably moist soil, even succeeding with me in meadow conditions.
 
The bladder senna, Colutea x media, near the summer house, is as usual blooming well with charming coppery pea flowers, whilst the ailing Embothrium coccineum, behind it has been cut back severely but will hopefully spring back to its former glory.  Close by on the terrace, the not entirely hardy South African shrub, Melianthus major, is magnificent with luxurious large grey pinnate peanut-scented foliage. Further along Crinum powellii has a fine spike of large pure white flowers, whilst the Paeonia rockii, nearby, such a delight in Spring, is looking rather unhappy - fingers crossed for its survival!

Embryonic catkins can already be seen on the grey-leaved Garrya elliptica, by the gate through to the rock garden, only 2-3cm. long now, but they can grow to nearly 30cm. in length as winter draws on. A plant of the western seaboard of America, Garrya can do well even in some shade, though is not hardy enough for life inland.

In the rock garden area groups of Cyclamen hederifolium, and Colchicum cvs, are thriving, Astilbe chinensis is still throwing up short spikes of clustered purple flowers and self-seeding purple loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria, a British native, fringe the bottom pond. The ageing Abies koreana, at the western end of the Metasequoia bed is still managing to carry a fair crop of dark blue cones. Finally, for the future, a young tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera has been planted; a relative of magnolias, this tree has remarkable shaped leaves, and is delightful in flower, though trees can take twenty years to flower and we are rather at the northern edge of where it can survive.
Now it's time to enjoy the blowsiness of Autumn and the illusion of control that Winter brings, and make comforting resolutions for the coming year.                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                            David Atkinson


Next FCBG meetings :

October 9th Alastair Griffiths -Ornamental plants with benefits

October 25th (Saturday) Plant Sale in the Garden 10.30 am to 12noon

November 13th  John Mattingley - Cluny Gardens- gardening with nature December 11th David Pirie - Herbs in humoral medicine

[Cruickshank Friend]

A short film on the Cruickshank Botanic Garden with commentary from Curator, Mark Paterson, from Feb.2014. Loaded to Youtube by Richard Hamilton



 "The Friends of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden travel to Kirriemuir on their annual trip in 2012. Here we see glimpses of the day at: Christie's Alpine Nursery in Westmuir and Cortachy Castle Gardens. What a delightful day out."
Film from Colette Jones


 

[Cruickshank Friend]

More Cruickshank Friends' films from Collette  Jones
Friends in the Garden April 2013


Friends of Cruickshank Botanic Garden visit Donside gardens May 2013




Cruickshank Botanic Garden Plant Sale Spring 2013




30th Anniversary: Friends of Cruickshank Botanic Garden

[Cruickshank Friend]

I have been remiss not to introduce the  member of the Garden Team at the Cruickshank Botanic Gardens - Skilled Horticulturalist, BEN CLANSEY - this charming young man is enjoying life in Aberdeen and his work at the Criuickshank. He has some Forum connection already - he was a fellow student of Forum Star, Susan Sleep - this photo, (shared by Maggi Y.) is of Ben and Susan hard at work during their studies:

[Cruickshank Friend]

On Saturday 25th October there is a Friends of the Cruickshank B.G.  plant sale

[Maggi Young]

Edible Gardening Project 
Really Wild Veg – Cruickshank Botanic Garden October 


http://stories.rbge.org.uk/archives/13056?utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter   


Josh and Mark at CBG - photo from RBGE stories

See other reports here : http://stories.rbge.org.uk/archives/12744

[Cruickshank Friend]

 
Cruickshank notes, late December 2014

Another year has flown by and as I write these notes in a brief languid interval in the hectic schedule of Christmas and New Year celebrations, days are already lengthening and signs of resurgent growth can be seen. In my garden a witchhazel, Hamamelis mollis ‘Pallida’ has just opened its first flowers, a Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ has been flowering since mid-October and shoots of many different bulbs - iris, snowdrops, narcissus and even some trilliums - are clearly visible.  Catkins are well advanced on alder, hazel and birch and it is all too easy to imagine on a mild day that Spring is on the way, though as we know there is still a long way to go.  Personally I would vote for a short, sharp winter to help reduce the pest populations - we had significantly more aphids this summer after the mild winter, then followed by the next three seasons in the right order!

Having sneaked into the Cruickshank Garden from a neighbouring garden I was working in, I will start my tour in the rock garden, where the absence of leaves on the deciduous trees gives a curiously light and airy feel despite the lowness of the sun. The overall mildness this autumn has encouraged some plants to continue flowering and others to produce an unseasonal flurry of bloom. There are groups of pink Schizostylus coccinea, a South African iris relative and much hardier than normally claimed, a Daphne retusa – normally spring flowering - is covered in fragrant flowers, a group of yellow primulae clearly think it is Spring and the evergreen shrub Viburnum tinus is covered with clusters of small pinky-white blooms.  The area in the northwest corner of the rock garden has been largely cleared providing a fine opportunity for replanting and I look to the delights that will hopefully flourish there.

The three dawn redwoods, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, in the bed at the south east corner of the rock garden are showing off their pleasing twisted trunks and general elegance, whilst beneath them the marbled leaves of Cyclamen hederifolium merit attention.  Next year’s fat flower buds are clearly visible on the rhododendrons in the shady southern border, promising a fine show in late Spring.
The catkins on the Californian evergreen Garrya elliptica, just to the right of the gateway through the wall at the bottom of the rock garden, are a good 15cm. long , whilst against the wall on the other side of the gate Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ has already finished flowering, leaving long spikes of developing seeds. Further along this wall, the Killarney strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo - a native of the Mediterranean and south west Ireland - is covered with small white bells to be followed by (not very) strawberry-like red fruits.

So mild had the Autumn been when I visited the garden, that the spectacular South African shrub, Melianthus major, with its large  silver-grey pinnate leaves has actually produced spikes of dark crimson flower buds, though whether they will open fully is doubtful.  The formerly splendid Chilean Fire Bush, Embothrium coccineum, near the summer house still looks mysteriously ill - fingers crossed for its recovery!  This is a magnificent sight when covered with its profuse scarlet flowers and can flourish as far inland as Kildrummy garden but not, unfortunately, despite a fair few attempts, at Craigievar.

In the bed at the east end of sunken garden the splendid winter-flowering and very fragrant Daphne bholua, is already scenting the air.  This is a lovely, evergreen shrub flourishing in town in a reasonably sheltered and sunny spot.  Specimens I planted at Craigievar have twice succumbed in severe winters, but there is a deciduous and reputedly very hardy form, D. bholua var. glacialis ‘Gurkha’ which offers me hope.
The hedges round the rose garden look straight out of a textbook, beautifully trim and shapely, tapering gently from base to apex whilst he charms of the species rich ‘ancient’ hedgerow, which runs from the weeping elm to the pond, are altogether more rugged, if no less effective.

All in all, it is a time to enjoy the shapes, structures and architecture of gardens as much as the individual plants and to plan exciting innovations for the coming year, while enjoying the illusion of control that the close season brings.                                                                                                  David Atkinson