back again
- To: Multiple recipients of list <i*@rt66.com>
- Subject: back again
- From: B* S* <b*@tiger.hsc.edu>
- Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 12:59:23 -0600 (MDT)
Hello everyone,
Back again, this time for good (until next summer). My trip to Scotland
was wonderful, especially my third visit to the Royal Botanical Garden in
Edinburgh. This is a must if you are ever in Britain. Though not nearly
as large as Kew, I find it to be far better kept and with many extremely
interesting plantings, including an enormous rock garden with wonderful
alpines from all over the world. There is also an unusual glasshouse with
plants from the temperate tropics, including many unusual gesneriads
planted in a "wall" of peat blocks. Unfortunately I missed the Nomocharis
and Meconopsis collections in bloom; these are Edinburgh specialities. A
visit to the garden of Kelly Castle was also very pleasant, but no irises
in evidence there.
In the iris line, Japanese irises, including I. ensata, were still blooming
in Scotland in late July, and there were a few blooms on I. delavayi. In
one of the rock gardens, a small clump of I. variegata was reblooming.
Driving around I saw the bulbous English Iris in bloom in a number of
gardens (hybrids derived from I. latifolia). Some of these were in huge
clumps that had been in the ground for many years, obviously. In southern
Scotland near Moffatt a roadside cottage garden displayed some that lacked
the seemingly ever-present virus and must have been seedlings. The tall
stems (over 30") and very large flowers (in the range of modern TB hybirds)
were striking. Maybe I'll try them again, but our climate and Scotland's
are quite different!
After Scotland, which was really a business trip, we took a family vacation
to Silver Lake, New Hampshire. I had expected to possibly see some more
Japanese Irises there, but they had passed. New England was hard-hit by
drought and in the Boston area we saw several forest fires burning. Our
return to Virginia has been marked by daily deluges each afternoon for the
last three days, but this afternoon seems to be clear and will give me the
chance to work in a much-neglected garden that suffered under heat and
drought and now has been pounded by rain and hail. Photography Roger Foley
is due next week to take pictures of transplanting irises; October 15th is
the book deadline--and classes begin on the 21st...
Great to be back and on Iris-l once more.
Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<bills@tiger.hsc.edu>
