Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life

[Lesley Cox]

Thank you Ashley, and I hope the New Year is a good one too, for you and your family. I think each time that this one will be better than the last but in the finish, overall, they're all much of a muchness. Good parts, bad parts, some things funny, some tragic, some homely, some world shattering. One way or another we come through.

I thought for a short while that the R. nobile seedlings were looking exactly like those of alexandrae but they have changed a little, or rather the latter have, having the typical very smooth and unlined surface. I've still not potted any and feel I'll really have to within days as they're growing so quickly.

I had a wonderfully quiet NY eve, at home alone with Marley, listening to a couple of Mikhail Pletnev's discs from Carnegie Hall. I really adore the Busoni transcription of Bach's Chaconne from the second violin partita and kept going back to it. Today from 8am to 8pm, our dedicated classical station has "Settling the Score" which in effect is a listeners' request programme, but not for any particular person. From November we can nominate 3 favourite pieces and on the day, those with the most votes are played though the day, 65 today but many just a movement is played, which can be a bit frustrating. Still, nice stuff to pack linen and china to.

[Lesley Cox]

Blog 661 – January 11th 2013

Where does the time go and why does it go so quickly? Quite frightening really when I look at what is still to be done. We are in packing-up-the-house mode with a vengeance and making trips south daily in Roger’s case and every couple of days for me. This means I have less time to do the garden/nursery stuff which is urgent from my point of view. The weather is not helpful, either teaming with rain or very hot, drying winds gusting to 140kms an hour and really difficult to work in. I tell myself I’ll work outside in the day and pack house in the evening but I am so tired now that this morning I foolishly went back to bed after a shower and didn’t wake up until mid-day!

Many of the plants I have ready to travel are suffering from the winds so I’ve relocated some into the tunnel where they are sheltered and moist but in just a couple of days are starting to become drawn so I have to find a happy medium between too much sun and wind and too much shaded moisture. Not an easy equation to work out

 At 661 Roger has sprayed with Roundup, a grass area where my nursery will be, or the sales part of it anyway. This is visible as driveway from the main road and if necessary, can be kept separate from the garden proper. I hope people will want to look at the garden though. Roger has taken down his large tubs with Black Krim tomatoes and the wigwam stakes supporting them. These had to be detached for transport but re-erected easily enough. Today he also took down a trailer-load of semi-rotted pea straw and tomorrow after the market I’ll dig some of this into what will be my herb garden, then plant fennel, (the bronze form), lovage, tarragon, sage, thyme, oregano and two artichoke plants. The smaller herbs, parsley, chives, sweet marjoram et al will come later once we’ve moved.

In my nursery area there is a magnolia called ‘Ian’s Red’ and Ian Taylor, our seller, is sad not to be able to take it with him. Justly so as I see on the Internet it is a NZ hybrid between Magnolia soulangeana ‘Burgundy’ and .M. ‘Vulcan.’ The images suggest it is almost double, a big, richly coloured flower which is said to hold its colour well and is hardy. I count myself very lucky to have this. There is evidence on the small tree, (less than 2 metres so far) that it has already flowered freely.

Another beautiful smallish tree in flower now at 661 is Hoheria glabrata, our native mountain lacebark with creamy flowers in good bunches. It looks as if it should be fragrant but doesn’t seem to be. I took my camera yesterday to photograph this but had “no memory card” come up when I turned it on. I’ll try again tomorrow. I also found what I think is a variegated leaved, white flowered form of the native climbing rata, Metrosideros carminea. This must be a rarity. Yellow ratas are not unheard of in the wild but I’ve not come across this little white before. There were masses of flowers on it so presumably it’s hardy enough for south Otago.

In the meantime I have also sorted the plants I want to take to Lincoln University in Canterbury, for the NZAGS Study Weekend, due to start just 3 weeks today. There are some jolly good things including some crocuses and narcissus and Fritillaria recurva, just a couple of these. I’ll never have enough to list so the Study Weekend and shows and the like are the ideal opportunities to offer such species in tiny quantities. Most are not in bloom so I have photographs to help. Photos to follow this episode when I get them sorted.

[Lesley Cox]

Blog 661 – January 17th 2013

Trips south are almost a daily thing now and a great deal of small, loose and generally un-needed stuff has been taken down the road. The flat’s back/bed room is filled almost to capacity and books have found a temporary home in the front or living room/kitchen. My new kitchen is quite small so a large collection of cookbooks and magazine series such as the Cordon Bleu course will probably live permanently in the flat. Cookbooks, as garden/plant books have always proved irresistible to me!

Not surprisingly, a few cracks in the perfection are showing up. Two are pictured below, one, a patch about a metre square, of Sisyrinchium graminifolium about to burst into flower. This is near the front door and seems to be used as a ground cover. I’m hugely tempted to pull it now before the flowers are too obvious, let alone the seed but while the Taylors have been so helpful in many ways, there’s a limit to what I feel comfortable with.

Another fly in the ointment, so to speak and also below, is a goodly quantity in the lawn in one area, of the viciously creeping Pratia pedunculata. Nothing insidious about this little Australian native, it gallops along at a great rate to colonise. It’s only because Ian has the lawn trimmed to within an inch of its lift that it’s not a real problem so far. I can imagine easily that we may have to use Roundup a couple or three times and then re-sow the grass.

I’m having second thoughts about the large garden in front of the house and turning it into a rock garden. Because of its position, I’m thinking something strictly formal would be appropriate and pencil and graph paper are at my chair side each evening. I also have my sandstone statue (Bill) and a sandstone carved tub to place appropriately so a formal front bed could be the right place for these. The area is about 19 metres by 9 metres and egg-shaped for some reason (an egg on its side) but I want to change this and make it square or rectangular and perhaps with the longer side of a rectangle towards the house. Not sure yet. The smaller rose bed will certainly go to rock garden and there are numerous other smaller areas which can do likewise.

I mentioned last episode, a small tree which I thought was Hoheria glabrata. It is indeed and very pretty, nicely shaped and the flowers are lovely. A bumble bee was installed in one bloom apparently in a world of his own as stroking him with my finger didn’t move him at all. I thought he was dead until he was accidentally knocked off whereupon he fell to the ground but then recovered to fly away.

The possible variegated, white flowered rata though, must be something else. I’ve found another, much larger to about 1.5 metres and a metre across. I don’t know it and perhaps someone would name it for me please. Again, a picture below along with our native Brachyglottis (syn Senecio) greyii. It would be hard to fit more blooms onto this big specimen.

[Lesley Cox]

And

[Brian Ellis]

Another fly in the ointment, so to speak and also below, is a goodly quantity in the lawn in one area, of the viciously creeping Pratia pedunculata. Nothing insidious about this little Australian native, it gallops along at a great rate to colonise. I can imagine easily that we may have to use Roundup a couple or three times and then re-sow the grass.

The problem is not confined to the South, we have it in the lawn too, I had hoped there would be a less drastic way to get rid of it

[Maggi Young]

The problem is not confined to the South, we have it in the lawn too, I had hoped there would be a less drastic way to get rid of it

With minus 13 degrees in your area at the moment, Brian, you may find the problem solved, eh?

[annew]

It might be Myrtus communis 'Variegata'. It's very nice anyway.

[Brian Ellis]

With minus 13 degrees in your area at the moment, Brian, you may find the problem solved, eh?

I didn't think of that Maggi, too worried about the other white stuff

[Lesley Cox]

Thank you Anne, you are probably right. It is very nice indeed and will go well in little posies in bedrooms (my sister is coming to stay the day after we move! She thought we were moving on 22nd of this month, not next). I did wonder about Myrtus luma but then decided not. Lophomyrtus has similar flowers but the leaves were the wrong shape. So many plants I've not grown before, are proving to be a salutary lesson for me.

[zvone]

Wau!  Beautiful!

Best Regards!  zvone

[Lesley Cox]

Blog 661 – January 27th 2013

It has been a week and a half – or so it seems. Starting much as usual with digging, potting, Roger finally making a move to clean out and sort the contents of his shed and both of us packing from kitchen cupboards and washing them down inside, in the evenings, by Tuesday, we were able to borrow Roger’s brother’s tip truck and arrange for his mate John McC and John’s son Tyler – both large lads – to come up from Invercargill for a day or two and once they arrived, it was all hands to the task of dislodging troughs, loading limestone slabs which I’d always intended as paving but which were never used, concrete and limestone blocks, my sandstone tub and statue (a memorial to my late mother, bought at an auction of imported stoneware, the day after she died) onto the truck and taking them south to 661. This was accomplished in 9 separate trips so that by now there is a large collection of the above in the area which will be my nursery.  I didn’t previously imagine how many cups of tea could be consumed by so small a group of workmen but will believe any number now. We are all exhausted!

There are six limestone troughs, all emptied and their contents of bulbs and perennial alpines potted into quite large pots. This gave me the opportunity to collect up a few things like Crocus minimus Bavella Form, Fritillaria recurva and some others, for taking to the Study Weekend (starting just next Friday, 1st Feb) at Lincoln University. One trough had never been planted but is well weathered, about 20 years old as they all are. A seventh, and the biggest, had split corner to corner when we left our previous garden in 1997 and was at that time repaired with a heavy wire around it, strained and tightened into place. We decided, with reluctance on my part, that it would have to be abandoned as its major occupant, a metre-wide Erinacea anthyllis had rooted into the ground and on top, covered almost the whole surface of the trough, a prickly mass impossible to handle even with leather gloves. Two hypertufa troughs are also abandoned simply because of their size. They would take heavy lifting equipment and the quality of the hypertufa wasn’t up to that, let alone the cost. My second huge plant of the erinacea is in one of these so both those plants are gone from my sight but I have some small plants as well as having tweezered off  a quantity of ripe seed just a week ago. The limestone troughs were sitting on top of the ground in my nursery so were quite easy to move once emptied and were then shoved up a board ramp onto the truck.

The six Hokonui troughs, made by Peter Salmond of Hokonui Alpines and my Christmas present to me, a couple of years ago, were a different proposition, being larger, heavier and well lodged into the garden on a slope, in effect built into their positions with rock and soil. As well, I insisted on their retaining their contents which included among other things, Daphne petraea ‘Persabee’ (bought at the last Study Weekend and about 18cms across now) and a number of equally precious things for which I feared if they were to be lifted at this (at last) very hot part of summer. (Mosgiel registered 37degC on Wednesday, not that the TV weather or anyone else acknowledged the fact in a public way and the day temps have been in the low 30s all this week.) In the event, five could be moved as they were but the largest had to be emptied. It was just too heavy. This one of course had the daphne and also my best Gentiana depressa, Salix x Boydii et al. Urgent break for potting!

Then there were numerous hypertufa troughs of my own making in 1993. I had decided that I needed to take maybe thirty but in fact eighteen were selected as still sufficiently undamaged by intervening time and weather and these have gone south. One contains a corm of Cyclamen cilicium, a dark coloured form which is at least twenty five years old and flowers for at least four months every year but has never set a seed. It was a present from my friend the late Bob Barnett of Timaru and Bob said it was collected in Iran. The trough is relatively small, contains only the Cyclamen whose leaves and flowers cover the whole trough each year. I suspect that if the trough were to break, the corm would be found to be rectangular in shape.

From the remaining hypertufas, maybe forty or so, I have still to lift some plants and bulbs and will have to dig right to the bottom to retrieve Tropaeolum polyphyllum and T. incisum. One trough has a broken end so was to be abandoned and is so, except that the Iris ruthenica ‘Nana’ growing nearby has died in the garden but has sent its thin rhizomes over the break in the trough wall and established there, very well and vigorously. Another iris thought to be lost but found again in fortuitous circumstances.

End of part one.

[Lesley Cox]

I should have mentioned that Roger is the one with the facial fur.

The picture of Bill and Tyler had to be taken into the sun so is very poor. Tyler, though just 14 and back to school after the weekend, is massively strong and had three helpings of every meal offered to him. His size already is worrying.

[Lesley Cox]

Part two – January 28th 2013

There followed and are already in place at 661, 17 concrete troughs of average size, originally calf drinking troughs bought in the 60s by my mother and me. They have come with me every move I’ve made (6 if I remember rightly) since they were purchased and when Mother died in 1989, hers were added to mine. In recent years these have contained 90mm and 100mm seed pots over gravel for excellent drainage and they’ll be used for the same purpose at 661.

One of the main plants to be moved and quite irreplaceable so far as age and size are concerned, is a specimen of Cryptomeria japonica ‘Tensan,’ some 25 years old or more, I think, originally bought from the “Alouette” nursery of Jim and Jean LeComte, near Ashburton. They introduced to NZ alpine gardeners many fine plants over the years, Jim importing regularly from the 70s until his death some time in the late 80s or 90s. I haven’t been able on the Internet to find a date and in fact very little at all except about Jim’s work with the genus Aciphylla.

The cryptomeria is the sole occupant of a large trough, square on top but taller than wide. From the covering cushion I originally hoped for, it has grown further to overlap the sides and is beginning to grow downward toward the ground with new growths reaching 5cms in length. Bright green now in summer, the winter colour is a fine reddish bronze. It is intensely prickly to touch. I knew it would be a job to move it because after sitting for more than 15 years in the same spot (I had intended to turn it annually but that never happened) the central root had, not surprisingly gone through the drainage hole and was very well embedded in the ground. Roger had to spade through the root to separate it from the ground underneath and the root was measured at 3 cms in diameter. Of course the spade didn’t do a very neat job and sharp secateurs were used to clean up and tidy the root, after the trough was tipped and on a sack barrow ready for removal. (See pictures below.) I have taken 50 cuttings and tomorrow will courier some more down to Louise Salmond in hope we can get some young plants going. Louise already has a few plants of her own and I have rooted cuttings previously so I’m hopeful. I’m less optimistic that the whole plant will survive the massacre of its main root but I have to try. Ideally I’d soak the whole thing in water for a day but can’t manage that. When I water it, usually the water simply runs off and down the sides of the trough, only prolonged light rain really penetrating through the ball to the compost and through to the root system. I could leave the hose on it all night on a very light, slight drip but I’ve already had one disaster with the watering and hose system recently so won’t take that risk again. I can just hope that it’s so well at home in its hypertufa home that the severe root damage will be absorbed and I’ll be forgiven. In the meantime I’ll have to put into a large pot a very wide Microcachrys tetragona, whose trough broke badly in the shifting. The roots fill the whole trough and will need severe root pruning. Whether it will cope I don’t know but if the worst happens, I have some young ones from cuttings almost two years old now.

From among its roots I also need to retrieve various crocuses; C sieberi ‘Bowles’ White,’ C. veluchensis and C. cvijicii. It is from this last that I’ve had hybrid seed with C. veluchensis, some of the seedlings being beautifully bronzed or orangey with magenta tips to the petals.

[Maggi Young]

Quoting, for fair use:  E.J. Godley, Research Associate, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, PO Box 69, Lincoln , from this document  http://www.nzbotanicalsociety.org.nz/newsletter/NZBotSoc-1997-47.pdf


• Biographical Notes (25): James Ronald Le Comte (1927 - 1987)
Jim Le Comte was born at Little Akaloa, Banks Peninsula, on 10 July, 1927, and attended Addington Primary
School and Christchurch West High School. He then worked as a farmhand in North Canterbury at Cust
and on the Mt. Pember Station, where he became familiar with the Puketeraki Range, and was a keen
deer-stalker. While visiting friends in Dannevirke he met Jean Luscombe and they were married there in
1953 (1,2,3).
After living at Sherwood (north of Ashburton) and then Methven, the Le Comtes bought five acres between
Winchmore and Lauriston in 1957, where Jim continued to work on fencing and farm buildings. In 1962,
he became interested in alpine plants and their cultivation. Some of these he had seen in the garden of
Mrs Cotterill of Mount Hutt. She lent him books and he bought some plants from her. Those of Gentiana
sino-ornata he multiplied in the paddock (2). His first advertisement in the "New Zealand Gardener"
appeared in August, 1966, and announced: "Glorious Blue Gentiana. Sino-ornata. Beautiful vivid blue
trumpets in late summer and autumn. Ideal for front border and rock garden. Hardy. Vigorous plants, 4
for 10/-, 10 for 20/-. Cash with order. Alouette Nurseries, 2 RD, Ashburton". Plants were also supplied to
Woolworths as well as packets of resting "buds", (2).
From these beginnings evolved the mail-order business of "James R. and Jean A. Le Comte, Specialists
in Choice Alpine Plants, Dwarf Rhodos, Conifers and Miniature Shrubs". Their first catalogue appeared
about 1972 (2). Gordon Collier (4) recalled: "The name Alouette has become synonymous with quality,
excellence, and rarity. Their twice-yearly catalogues have offered a quite extraordinary range of choice
plant material over the years, much of it extremely rare even by world standards. The arrival at our house
of parcels from Alouette has always been a red-letter day. The plants invariably arrived in immaculate
condition and were unpacked in a state of excitement. Alouette was never open to the public. Jim and
Jean were fully extended maintaining their extensive garden and propagating and potting their nursery
stock. Thus it was a rare honour and special treat to get inside the garden gate and see the full extent of
their horticultural treasure trove."
On 18 December, 1966, Jim took Ian Tweedy (a fellow member of the Canterbury Alpine Garden Society),
Lucy Moore and Jean Clarke (Botany Division, DSIR) to the Puketeraki Range (Mt. Pember) where they
collected some 40 species of sub-alpine and alpine plants. Ian described this trip in the Canterbury Alpine
Garden Society's Bulletin and Jim arranged its re-publication in the American Rock Garden Society Bulletin
of January, 1970. On 8 December, 1968, Jim and Ian returned to the same area but were forced off the
mountain by a violent westerly storm. Jim's interest in this particular area and one of the reasons for these
visits was that he had memories from when he worked there (and before he became interested in gardening
and botany) of seeing an alpine plant with bright blue flowers. He never found it (3).
In June, 1970, according to the Ashburton Guardian, (5) "Mr Le Comte called a meeting of people interested
in furthering their knowledge of New Zealand and exotic alpine plants. The result was the formation of the
Ashburton Alpine Garden Society which now [1987] has a restricted membership of 50." Jim's major
interest among the native alpines was in the genus Aciphylla (Apiaceae), the spear-grasses, and by
mid-1972 he had searched for them on the Puketeraki and Old Man Range, the Hunter Mountains and was
growing them in his garden and propagating them from cuttings. As well as being in touch with Dr Lucy
Moore and Mr Ian Tweedy, he was consulting Dr David Given and Dr John Hair of Botany Division, DSIR,
and Mr Lawrie Metcalfe (Christchurch Botanic Gardens) (6). Then, on 27 July, 1972, he wrote as follows
to Dr J.W. Dawson of the Botany Department, Victoria University, Wellington, who had been studying
Aciphylla for some years.
"Dear Dr Dawson,
I have been advised to write to you by Dr David Given who gave me your address.
I am very interested in the genus Aciphylla and intend doing a lot of work on the subject this next summer
and the next. Meantime I am trying to acquaint myself with some of the lesser known species and would
be most appreciative of copies of reprints of any papers you have put out on the genus. I intend to
photograph, record and collect from as many stations as possible and all will be available to yourself and
Botany Div., Lincoln.
Hoping that you can help.
Yours faithfully
James R. Le Comte"
Thus began a correspondence spanning 14 years during which Jim wrote at least 96 letters to John
Dawson, mainly about Aciphylla and distributed as follows: 1972 (4); 1973 (14); 1974 (13); 1975 (16); 1976
(; 1977 (13); 1978 (16); 1979 (4); 1980 (4); 1981 (2); 1982 (0); 1983 (1); 1984 (0; 1985 (1). The originals
of these letters have been generously presented by Dr Dawson to the library, Landcare Research, Lincoln,
and copies returned to him. They contain graphic descriptions of Jim's expeditions into the mountains
and useful comments on variation and species status based on observations in the field and comparative
plantings in the Alouette nursery.
To reach remote peaks Jim needed helicopters, and this problem was resolved during an encounter in
March, 1974, which he described to John Dawson as follows: "Two days later we hired a chopper to take
us to Mount Stevenson which is an outlying peak of the Paparoas but about the same height. Reason was
that this area was closer to Reefton (only about 11/2 days hike) than the main range, just in case they
couldn't get back to get us. On the top at 6am with the prospect of 12 hours of botanising but 2 hours or
so later it was raining heavily and we had to pitch our tent and climb into our bags (we were cold and wet)
and just wait. It didn't clear and we expected to spend the night there as it was very foggy etc. But at the
appointed time we were really thrilled to hear the beat of the chopper blades and I still can't work out how
he found us, or how he got us down to Reefton, but we had a hot meal that night that we had not thought
we'd be having, and a long session in the hostelry until 1am." Thus began Jim's friendship with Alpine
Enterprises, whose pilot (Phil Meltzer) and shooter/co-owner (Ivan Wilson) became his good companions,
interested in his work and always ready to move him about in the mountains while they shot or captured
deer in their allotted block.
The following itinerary of Jim's movements is compiled from his letters to Dr Dawson, his articles in the
American Rock Garden Society Bulletin (7), and information from Dr Dawson.
1973 Jan. with an American friend, Paul Palomino: Mt. Cook (Hugh Wilson), Fiordland (Hector Mts; Borland
Pass), then Woodside Gorge (Kekerengu), Blackbirch Ra., Mt. Augustus, Mt. Alexander (helicopter),
Craigieburn Ra. Feb. (late) with Greg Hooker: Old Man Ra., Fiordland: Hector Mts; Jane Peak, Eyre
Mts(lan Spence); Mt. Burns, Hunter Mts. May with family: Takaka, Lake Sylvester.
1974 Jan.(late) with J.W. Dawson: Dansey's Pass, Kyeburn, Mt. St. Bathans, Old Man Ra.; Feb. (early)
with American friends and Jean: Arthur's Pass, Otira Valley, Mt. Hutt. Mar. (early) with Greg Hooker:
Wairau Valley (Mt. Fishtail, Richmond Ra.), Reefton (helicopter to Mt. Stevenson). May with friend:
Fiordland (Borland Pass Rd; Hummock Peak, Eyre Mts.) Dec. with Greg Hooker: Mt. Richmond
(Richmond Ra.), Mt. Ajax, near Lake Sumner (helicopter).
1975 Jan. 3 with American friends Dick and Herb Redfield: Kirkliston Ra., South Canterbury. Feb. with
Ian Tweedy: Mt. Hutt (3). Feb. (mid) 2 days with Alpine Enterprises: Nardoo Mts., between Glenroy
and Matakitaki Rivers. Mar. 22 Mt. Potts. Oct. talked to the Canterbury Botanical Society ("Some
notes on the genus Aciphylla")
1976 New Year holidays Banks Peninsula. Feb. (mid), 3 days with Alpine Enterprises: Mt. Mueller, Mt.
Cann, head of Glenroy River. Mar. - April with J W Dawson: Pisa Ra. Hakatarameas, Richmond Ra.,
Grampians, Old Man Ra., Nevis Valley, Coronet Peak, Eyre Mts., Mt. Hutt. June 30-Aug. 15, USA and
British Columbia, where he gave an invited talk to the Fifth International Rock Garden Conference at
Seattle on "American Plants in Cultivation in New Zealand" and spoke to the Northwest Ornamental
Horticultural Society (Seattle), and other groups, on New Zealand plants.
1977 May with family: Te Anau. Nov. visit from Hugh Wilson and Colin Webb.
1978 Jan. 11 with Alpine Enterprises: Rocky Tor (Lyell Ra.). Feb 2 - 6 with Alpine Enterprises: The
Haystack (Matori Ra.), Mt. Newton (Newton Ra.) Rocky Tor (Lyell Ra.), Glasgow Ra. Mar. (early) with
J W Dawson: Mavora Lakes, Eglinton-Milford, Hector Mts, Treble Cone (Harris Mts.), Crown Ra. In
this year Dawson and Le Comte published a progress report in Tuatara on their work on Aciphylla.
This commentary marks an important advance on the previous monograph by W R B Oliver (TRSNZ
84, 1956) and includes a division of the New Zealand mainland plants into large and small species with
6 groups in the latter.
1979 Jan. 4 "Have not been into the mountains and looks like I'll be too busy to do so until Feb. Feb with
Alpine Enterprises: brief trip to Brunner Ra. May - June two months in the USA including one month
in the eastern states and attending a conference in Vancouver and judging Rhododendrons at the
Portland (Oregon) Show. In this year Dawson described Aciphylla lecomtei choosing type specimens
from material collected by him and Le Comte on the Hector Mts. in March, 1978; and Le Comte
described his rediscovery of Aciphylla trifoliolata on Rocky Tor (Lyell Mts.) in 1978, the first gathering
since its discovery in 1906 (NZJB 17, 1979).
1980 April 20 "apart from having no spare time, the weather has been so lousy this summer that I did not
get into the mountains at all and lost quite a few of my garden grown specimens too."
1981 March 13 "just couldn't get away this season." Mar. 20 - May 22 in UK and Europe where he spoke
to the Alpines '81 Conference at Nottingham on New Zealand alpine plants and visited Switzerland and
Austria, before spending 6 days as a guest of the Czechoslovakia Alpine Garden Society. In this year
Le Comte and Webb showed that Aciphylla townsonii was based on a juvenile or sheltered habitat form
of A. hookeri. This resulted from Jim's field work on Mt. Stevenson (1974), Lyell and Glasgow Ranges
(1978) and the Brunner Ra. (1979) as well as garden observations.
1982 No information.
1983 March 4 with Alpine Enterprises: "had a quick trip to Reefton recently and had 21/2 hours on a spur
that connects the Victoria Ra. with the Brunner Ra."
1984 In this year Jim had a massive heart attack with no chance of recovery. He spent his last 3 years on
medication with frequent spells in hospitals (2).
1985 July 11 "Always too busy to get away to the Mts but must make the effort because I really want to
pick up where I left off".
Jim Le Comte died at Princess Margaret Hospital, Christchurch, on 11 September, 1987, at age 60, after
a short illness. His wife, Jean, continued to run the nursery until 1991 when she chose to sell it and retire
to Ashburton.
I met Jim Le Comte only once, and then briefly. Characteristics often mentioned are his forthright
approach, enthusiasm and energy. He once wrote to John Dawson: "When I travel to the mountains I like
to move fast from place to place - sometimes at night so as not to waste the days". His talent for descriptive
writing is shown in his excellent series "In search of Aciphylla" which also gives interesting information
about other alpines, particularly celmisia.
Gordon Collier remembered that "an evening with Jim was one to be savoured; plant talk a-plenty, books
and slides, and more slides until the early hours of the morning. On such occasions Jim revealed his warm
nature and the full extent of his horticultural knowledge. He was a real enthusiast. As well as being one
of the most accomplished nurserymen in the country, Jim Le Comte was an authority on New Zealand
alpine plants and in particular the genus Aciphylla. Aciphylla lecomtei perpetuates this interest and his
memory. Jim was also a keen philatelist, and above all a family man. He will be greatly missed by all his
customers and by all who knew him. His passing leaves a tremendous gap in gardening ranks" (4). And
- we could add - in the ranks of botanists as well.


Acknowledgments
I am particularly indebted to Mrs Jean Le Comte (Ashburton) and Dr J.W. Dawson (Victoria University,
Wellington) for help with this note, as well as to Mr Ian Tweedy (Christchurch), and Mr Charlie Challenger
(Banks Peninsula).
References
(1) Death Certificate; (2) Jean Le Comte pers. comm.; (3) Ian Tweedy pers. comm.; (4) Gordon Collier:
Jim Le Comte N Z Gardener Nov. 1987; (with portrait of Jim and Jean in the garden at Alouette, 1984);
(5) Anon. Obituary - James Ronald Le Comte. Ashburton Guardian 5 October, 1987; (6) Letter to J.W.
Dawson; (7) James R. Le Comte: In search of Aciphylla American Rock Garden Society Bull. 1973; ditto
1974 ARGS Bull. 1974; ditto 1974-75 ARGS Bull. 1975; ditto 1975-76 ARGS Bull. 1976; ditto 1977-78 ARGS
Bull. 1978.
by:
E.J. Godley, Research Associate, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, PO Box 69, Lincoln

[Brian Ellis]

some of the seedlings being beautifully bronzed or orangey with magenta tips to the petals.

Very pretty they are too, hope things don't take umbrage and grow well at 661