This month’s RHS London
Flower Show has migrated east, from the shelter of the Horticultural
Halls in Westminster to the wide, open spaces of the three-acre
gardens at Inner Temple. In fact, it is a return to the
show’s roots, as these gardens were the venue for
what was then called the Great Spring Show for 14 years,
until 1911, when it transferred to the ground of the Royal
Chelsea Hospital to become the celebrated Chelsea Flower
Show.
The last time the show was held at Inner Temple the plants
were exhibited in two long marquees, visitors arrived by
carriage and top hats and parasols were much in evidence.
Today there is just one marquee with several smaller pavilions
and trade stands dotted around the grounds, and the exuberant
planting in the 230ft long borders — tapestries of
brightly coloured dahlias, rudbeckias, heleniums, cosmos
and asters on the upper terrace of the — gardens sets
the season firmly as end of summer.
A report on the show in Amateur Gardening in June 1908 talks
of “a brilliant display of flowering and foliage plants
as well as fruit trees and vegetables”. It continues:
“It hardly seems credible that such results could
have been achieved in a spring which has undoubtedly been
one of the most unfavourable within recollection.”
This year’s band of exhibitors have had to contend
with similarly appalling weather, and it is remarkable that
they have managed to present a wide range of late summer/early
autumn blooms — from eucomis, gaura and clerodendrons
to crocosmias, asters and Japanese anemones — in such
excellent condition.
Several of the exhibitors have made historic links. Pennard
Plants’ display includes heritage potatoes such as
Salad Blue (whose skin is the colour of an aubergine) and
Arran Victory (which has a pale-purple skin) and wonderful
accoutrements such as a swan-necked onion hoe, a cucumber
straightener (a transparent glass tube in which the fruit
was grown) and a grape storage bottle (a flat-sided bottle
filled with water and charcoal with a curved neck into which
the stems of the grapes were inserted to keep them fresh).
Ascott Park, a former home of the Rothschilds and now in
the hands of the National Trust, displays myrtles, scented
geraniums and a conference pear tree as reminders of the
medals won by Leopold Rothschild when he exhibited at the
show from 1897-1904.
Rothschild was one of several of the gentry who exhibited
alongside the professional growers. Even the RHS president
of the time, Sir Trevor Lawrence, managed to slip some of
his own orchids into the first Inner Temple show, and one
of the 200 or so historic clematis varieties exhibited by
the Guernsey grower Raymond Evison includes the red-flowered
Clematis texensis “Sir Trevor Lawrence”, raised
in 1890 that was named after the president.
This is one of the few 100-year-old varieties in Evison’s
national collection that is still available to gardeners
today. According to Evison, who grows a quarter of the world’s
young clematis plants, we modern gardeners require our clematis
to be both generously floriferous and long lasting, while
most of the ones raised in this country in the 19th and
early 20th centuries have fewer flowers and bloom for several
weeks rather than months.
An exception, which takes centre stage in Evison’s
display, is C. “Jackmanii” which is smothered
in large, velvety-purple blooms. It was bred by the Woking
nursery Jackmans 150 years ago and flowers from early July
until September.
“This was a tremendous breakthrough,” Evison
says. “It was the second hybrid to be bred in Europe
and it is still hugely popular today. It is such a great
plant for growing with roses.”
Although they may not give such long performances, many
of these older varieties have a special charm and delicacy
such as the rarely seen C. “John Gould Veitch”,
which has pale-lilac double blooms. This was named after
a member of the famous family nursery which collected in
the Far East and the Antipodes and sent back the not-so-delicate
New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) as well as several striking
palms. The next time this fascinating collection of clematis
will be on view to the public is May 2009, in Guernsey.
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