Guest Author: Roger Pierce of Sequim Rare Plants

Since my first order from his nursery (see my review), Roger and I have struck up a friendship based on mutual plant addiction, rock-love, and deep desire to crack each other up. My friend and yours, Roger Pierce, has sent a couple of excerpts from two of his favorite garden reads for our enjoyment. Today we’ll study with horticultural-royalty, Vita Sackville-West. Thanks so much, Roger, for an interesting piece that mirrors my sentiments exactly!

It Sometimes Pays to Treat Plants Rough, by Vita Sackville-West  

“After many long docile years of following all the advice given me by professional gardeners and by the authoritative authors of gardening books, I have turned insubordinate. I have discovered for myself that it sometimes pays to treat plants rough; to go against the rules and get a surprising reward. The odd thing is — and everything is odd in gardening, unless, I suppose, you do it with all the resources of horticultural science, and know all about chromosomes and hormones — the odd thing is that often sheer necessity teaches us the lesson.

“Thus, a self-sown broom came up in my garden. it grew vigorously, as self-sown seedlings will, but it had not put itself where I wanted it. It was smothering a peony which I particularly esteemed. Reluctant to uproot it altogether, as it had been giving a fine display in its wrong place, I took the shears to it and chopped recklessly, with the remark that if it survived so much the better for it, and if it died so much the worse. Far from dying it grows more vigorously than ever. I now have recourse to pruning shears about once a fortnight. Had it been a precious thing, cosseted and cherished, I should never have dared to mishandle it so unkindly. Only indifference to its fate lets me so wildly loose upon it.

“Do not imagine that I am advocating an experimental treatment for precious shrubs. One must try one’s experiments on the things one doesn’t much mind about, and ill-treat them as I now am ill-treating our English grammar. Chop the things you don’t want and you will find that they respond, even as my self-sown broom responded.

“Experiments sometimes pay high dividends. There was a revolutionary idea put forward in recent years that roses should be pruned during the dormant months of winter, instead of at the orthodox time in late March when the sap must be rising. This seemed a common-sensible contention; and so it seems to have been proved.

“I shall go on going against the rules. That is the only way one can learn.”

Quoted here from Vita Sackville-West’s  A Joy of Gardening,  Dolphin paperback edition published in 1958 by Harper & Brothers, New York.

Thanks, Roger, that was a lot of fun. I haven’t read Vita in years!

Although I don’t have energy enough to launch my usual tirade about broom (Genista spp., Cytisus spp., Spartium junceum), please note that if you live in California it would be wonderful if you would try this experiment on other shrubs, after first having removed every scrap of broom from your garden! Yes, there are some species and/or hybrids which are less invasive, but unless you are extremely horticulturally educated, the safe route is to avoid them all. I’ll do a whole piece about invasiveness at a later — much later — date.

In the meantime, be sure to visit Roger’s very informative online nursery Sequim Rare Plants for a really enjoyable tour of wonderful things not widely available. I learn something new every time I poke around there!  (You’ll notice that, as a responsible nursery owner in the Western USA, Roger doesn’t stock any brooms…)

While you’re there, be sure to check out Roger’s selection of old-fashioned large-flowering Dianthus! Not only stunningly gorgeous, but they smell amazing, too:

Dianthus ‘Chomley Farran’
Harking back to an old Flemish still-life, the fuchsia-red and violet-gray bi-colored flowers are large and fragrant. It is said to have appeared as a natural sport of a crimson border carnation in an Irish garden only a short few years ago. Each flower is about an inch and a half wide, fully double, on a stem of twelve inches. Hardy to USDA Zone 6. Needs full sun and well drained soil. The bluish-gray leaves are large and evergreen.

 Dianthus ‘Laced Hero’
A sweetly fragrant, semi-double flower of white and reddish maroon opens in late May into June on stems of eight to twelve inches. The leaves are glaucous blue and evergreen. The key to successfully overwintering it is excellent drainage. Grows well from USDA Zones 3 – 8.

 

 

Dianthus ‘Old Square Eyes’
This dates only from about 1980 when it was found as a chance seedling in a garden on the British Isles. The single flower is large at 1 to 1½ inches across, of white with a salmon-pink eye, and is sweetly scented, blooming in late spring. Each flower typically has five petals, with an eye that is a pentagon rather than square. Occasionally a flower with only four petals will open, having a eye that is precisely square. As a flower ages the salmon-pink covers more of the petals. The flower stems are just over a foot long, a good length for a vase. In the garden, supporting the flower stems with an underpinning of short, cut branches will help to elevate them for a better view.

Dianthus ‘Raspberry Swirl’
(PP# 14377) For us this dianthus flowers much longer than the others listed here, non-stop from early summer onto fall. In warmer places a plant may rest during the middle of summer and rebloom again in fall. Young flowers open with colors of light pink and deep maroon that change as they age, with the light pink turning to pure white. Each flower lasts a very long time before fading, and is exceptionally fragrant. The plant is low with leaves of gray-green. This is a new plant bred in England.

 

Dianthus ‘Sops in Wine’
Intensely frangrant flowers have a single row of petals, each petal colored in deep red and white. The foliage is a glaucous blue. Flowers May into June in size of eight inches wide by eight to ten inches in height. USDA Zones 4 – 8. If you have the two volume set of books, Perennials by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix, you will see that their photo of this plant does not match the photo shown here. In checking which plant is sold as ‘Sops in Wine’ in the United Kingdom, the plant offered by us is the one offered in the United Kingdom at most nurseries, for example, one being the Beth Chatto Gardens.

Dianthus ‘Sweetheart Abbey’
The ruins of Dulce Cor or Sweetheart Abbey can be found today in the town of New Abbey, five miles south of Dumfries in southwest Scotland. It dates from 1273 when Lady Dervorguilla founded it in memory of her husband John Balliol (not the King of Scots, but his father, founder of Balliol College, of the University of Oxford). The monks bestowed this name upon their abbey in her honor after her death, when she was laid to rest together with her husband’s embalmed heart. The fragrant flower has a full head of double petals, colored in crimson that lightens at the edges. The petals’ edges are fringed with a sawtooth pattern as if cut with pinking shears. Hardy to USDA Zone 6. Needs full sun and well drained soil.

Dianthus ‘Whatfield Ruby’
Compact plants of six to eight inches tall by eight inches wide carry numerous flowers of rich ruby red during the months of May and June. As you would expect, the flowers are sweetly scented. The evergreen leaves are a grayish green. USDA Zones 4 – 8.