Epimedium - various threads gathered together here

[annew]

Thank you , Mark, I already grow the first two, but will watch out for the other one. Never had any seedlings from any of my varieties, by the way.

[Rodger Whitlock]

...it is sufficient to name the plant and to PUBLISH THE NAME, with all relevant information and identifyiong illustrations, in a reputable horticultural publication. For Epimedium that would most likely be perhaps "The Garden" of the RHS, the journal of the Hardy Plant Society or the AGS Bulletin, the SRGC Journal. So little, if any cost involved.

Unless they've changed the rules while I wasn't looking, even publication in a nursery catalog will suffice as long as it's dated. I'm pretty sure there also has to be some kind of description, but I think even a photograph will suffice.

Even easier for someone running a nursery!

I don't know how the movement to online catalogs affects this.

PS: Incidentally, this is a good reason for nurserymen to routinely send copies of their catalog to the major horticultural libraries. In the UK, that would be the Lindley Library at the RHS; I don't know what institution(s) would be appropriate in the US or other countries. The difficulty lurking behind the curtain is that such catalogs are true ephemera and unless a nurseryman takes the initiative, it would be very easy for his catalog(s) not to be archived anywhere in the world.

[Paul T]

E. pinnatum ssp colchicum is not only quite drought hardy it is EXTREMELY sun hardy.  My main clump of it is out in full sun....Yes, you read that right... FULL sun in my garden.  I had to rip 75% of the clump out this year as it was about 1.2m wide and still going.  I cut the leaves down each winter as the buds just start to emerge, get lots of flowers and lovely new foliage.  You sometimes get some sun damage on the leaves in the 40^oC times, but otherwise it thrives.  There is watering to that area of course (not much survives here without some watering unless they are very drought hardy) but not as much as many areas of the garden.  I think it would take a lot more drought than it is getting as well.

Just thought I'd mention the extreme sun hardiness, as I don't think it is something traditionally associated with Epimedium. 

I wish I would get some seedlings from my Epis, but I've not been aware of them ever setting seed.

[Lesley Cox]

When I was doing a twice yearly catalogue, the Dunedin Public Library asked me to send them a copy of each issue. I later found they had been archived in the Hocken Library, also in Dunedin, one of the country's two main archival libraries, along with the Alexander Turnbull Library, both very August institutions. For two minutes I had the illusion (delusion) that I was quite important.

[Paul T]

Well rest assured you're important to us, Lesley.

[TheOnionMan]

Interesting discussion on the naming/registering of plant names.  For those plant genera that do not have any sort of official registry of names, I've heard the same thing, just get the name into print. So I too wonder if online printing of a name now qualifies, as the world moves to electronic conveyance of news and media.

I once got burned on the naming of a plant.  Back in the 1980s I was working with shrubby Penstemon species and cultivars.  There is an official registry of Penstemon cultivar names, although it was in a state of such disuse, that many dozens, perhaps hundreds of hybrids had become well established in horticultural circles without the use of the registry.  I had named one of my seedlings 'Sour Grapes', a robust shrubby "dasanthera" penstemon with two-toned purple-lavender flowers.  Unbeknownst to me, on the other side of the pond, someone named one of those tall and tender herbaceous Penstemon hybrids with the same name; 'Sour Grapes' (still a popular item in the UK I believe).  Rather than be sour grapes about the situation, I changed the name of my hybrid to be 'Grape Tart', and that was the name used by Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery when they sold my hybrid.

Darrell Probst has spent many years correcting the nomenclature muddle on Epimedium cultivars, as such it is fortunately well represented in his catalog, however with various growers/hybridizers around the world, the chance of cultivar name duplication and confusion still exists.

[TheOnionMan]

E. pinnatum ssp colchicum is not only quite drought hardy it is EXTREMELY sun hardy.  My main clump of it is out in full sun....Yes, you read that right... FULL sun in my garden.  I had to rip 75% of the clump out this year as it was about 1.2m wide and still going.  I cut the leaves down each winter as the buds just start to emerge, get lots of flowers and lovely new foliage.  You sometimes get some sun damage on the leaves in the 40^oC times, but otherwise it thrives.  There is watering to that area of course (not much survives here without some watering unless they are very drought hardy) but not as much as many areas of the garden.  I think it would take a lot more drought than it is getting as well.

Just thought I'd mention the extreme sun hardiness, as I don't think it is something traditionally associated with Epimedium. 

Paul, you brought up a topic I was planning on highlighting, and you're absolutely correct, no one thinks of Epimediums as suitable for sunny locations, but they can be superb in the sun as well.  Perhaps part of the issue, there are much fewer number of plants willing to grow in dry shade where Epimedium excels, who needs yet another plant willing to grow in the sun.  I want to explore this more in the next few years because some species and cultivars have richly colored foliage that would otherwise just show up as green when grown in shade.  I've never had seedlings appear in the drier sunny locations, only in more moist sahded locales.

My favorite example is with E. x warleyense, which not only excels unfazed in a full sun position, it grows happily in full sun (although spreading somewhat aggressively), and shows a long season on a rich red to orangish leaf coloring and venation lasting well into the summer.  When this eppie is grown in shade, apart from the short season of orange flowers, the foliage is green and unremarkable.

Here are some photos:

[TheOnionMan]

Regarding naming hybrids, I hope not to do this:
http://www.plantsnouveau.com/2009/05/18/epimedium-purple-pixie/
(scroll down to the overall plant view)

...that is, introduce a plant as something special and unique, when in fact it looks like many other grandiflorums that already exist.  To my eyes, this 'Purple Pixie' doesn't look very different than the type form of E. grandiflorum (first photo I uploaded) or "var. violaceum" (second photo) which has showy brownish-reddish-purple spring foliage.  I'm sure 'Purple Pixie' is a nice enough plant (almost all eppies are), but how many more very similar cultivars do we need, when there is potential for so much more.

[annew]

E. pinnatum ssp colchicum is also good (and rampant) in full sun here, I need to chop it back every year to curb its expansion. 'Orangekonigin' (presumably a x warleyense?) is just as good, but not so fast spreading.

[Lesley Cox]

Your penstemon naming experience interets me Mark because there has been a penstemon available in NZ for a number of years, as 'Sour Grapes' but about 10 or more years ago, an English visitor to my place said it should be called 'Midnight' and was registered as such. I wasn't able to argue one way or the other. It is a deep, bluish purple, slightly greenish towards the base of the flowers.

[TheOnionMan]

Your penstemon naming experience interets me Mark because there has been a penstemon available in NZ for a number of years, as 'Sour Grapes' but about 10 or more years ago, an English visitor to my place said it should be called 'Midnight' and was registered as such. I wasn't able to argue one way or the other. It is a deep, bluish purple, slightly greenish towards the base of the flowers.

Interesting.  Just did a google search on Penstemon 'Sour Grapes' and it certainly seems mixed up out there, but then again it has been +-30 years since it was named.  I include some links.  This is one of many so-called "English Penstemons", largely grown and hybridized in the UK, from Mexican penstemon species, possible with P. campanulatus in the blood line.  Most all of these are tender here in USDA Zone 5 and I gave up trying to grow them decades ago.  Here's a few links with flower color that looks closest to what I remember this one being described as... mind you, I never saw the English 'Sour Grapes' in person. In the google search I saw as many as 6 different species attributed to 'Sour Grapes', haha. 

Regarding NZ, I have no idea

http://www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/penstemon-sour-grapes/classid.3385/?affiliate=gardenersworld

http://www.bobna.com/plantlist/pnstemonsourgrapes.asp

http://www.findmeplants.co.uk/plant-penstemon--2173.aspx

http://www.paghat.com/penstemon.html

[Stephen Vella]

In regards to Purple Pixie inst that allways the way. I wonder if they had just marketed the variety violaceum and just given it a catchy cultivar name. But isnt it allways the way, there is allways a better cultivar/hybrid out there in the pipeline especially with something new like epimedium breeding. Like Heucheras for example there are so many releases and they are starting to look all the same especially all thoses purple leafed cv's.

In regards to register, I mentioned this as to have cultivars/hybrids/forms etc reconised be it journals, catalogues but I thought there might have been a registra.

If a cultivar is exceptional and is marketed with plant breeders rights, I guess it would be more reconised as there is more plants in the pipe line and it would make it in Hoticultural journals.  

Be great to see Epimediums enter ther RHS plant trails, see them all growing in one location side by side and giving awards of garden merits. Use to see great articles in The Garden where they featured such trails, havnt seen any for a while. I hear its something hard to have a collection put together as plants come from enthusiats,horticultuists,collectors,breeders,nurserymen etc from around the country.

[Maggi Young]

When a plant is submitted to any RHS committee for an award, as, say, to a Joint Rock Plant committee meeting at an SRGC or AGS show, it is a condition of an award being made that the exhibitor consents to material being taken for a herbarium specimen and, I think, that plant material will be submitted for trial if requested.

[TheOnionMan]

Be great to see Epimediums... (snip)...see them all growing in one location side by side...

There is such a place, it is Darrell Probst's and Karen Perkin's Garden Vision Epimediums nursery in Hubbardston, Massachusetts, USA.

I uploaded some photos taken there in 2002 & 2003.  I used a borrowed low-end digital camera back then, so did not get many good shots, but you'll get the idea.  I visit the nursery every May for "open nursery days" held on two consecutive weekends.  The first thing that strikes the visitor, is that epimediums are grown on long linear mounds of soil up to a meter tall, with steep slopes, the eppies seem to love it.  There is also lots of direct sunlight too.  The last few years I haven't taken photos, just visited in awe as usual.

[annew]

  What a wonderful sight/site!