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Introducing Myself

This is my first message so perhaps I should introduce myself. I
garden on the northwest coast of England, fifty yards from the sea
behind tall sandstone walls, so little frost (most years) but lots of
rain and (despite the walls) lots of salt-laden gales. 'Mediterranean'
gardening's hardly a sensible thing to be trying under those
conditions, perhaps - but isn't 'a sensible gardener' a contradiction
in terms, anyway? All my gardening is done in raised beds, with
sandstone walls 18-48 inches high: my naturally acid and
moisture-retentive soil is first removed and then modified by as much
bottom-of-teh-bed drainage material as I can get hold of and then by
as much gravel as I can bring myself to add to it (=not as much as I
know I should). The garden is mostly a shrub garden, with as much
underplanting of bulbs and small herbaceous stuff as can be squeezed
in. I'm not a 'Mediterranean' gardener in any strict sense: I just
enjoy pushing the limits of hardiness (in UK terms) as far as I can (
but I'm thinking of 'hardiness' mostly in terms of winter minima - &
trying hard to ignore the fact that many of the plants I try to grow
would in the wild have much hotter and drier summers than I can give
them) so I grow plants from S. America, India and China as wella s
from more obviously 'Mediterranean' regions. I gather (I hope I'm
right!) that medit-plants' members aren't too 'picky' about what they
class as 'Mediterranean' - so I'm hoping I can sneak in questions
about some plants from those mild-but-hardly-mediterranean parts of
the world as well.

A while ago Sean raised the notion of a gardening society on the web
and the question of how that might interract with gardening societies
'in the real world' while avoiding stepping on their toes by seeming
to 'poach' members and so the subscriptions on which they depend. I
was interested in the whole idea since until recently I was Chairman
(and editor of the journal, Borderlines) of the Half Hardy Group of
the UK Hardy Plant Society and I get The Mediterranean Gardener, the
journal of the Mediterranean Garden Society, which was where I first
saw medit-plants mentioned. At the very least, I'd have thought some
sort of friendly swapping of information could be arranged: articles
in Borderlines or The Mediterranean Gardener which might be of
interest to medit-plants members could be posted here; items which
appear here which might be of interest to HHG or MGS members could be
re-used in their journals. There are other societies which might be
involved in the same way. In the UK, these immediately come to mind:
the Australasian Plant Society (its 'big brother' in Oz, too, of
course), the European Palm Society, the Cactus & Succulent Society,
perhaps the Hebe Society (all of which isue
journals/magazines/newsletters). Are there other societies in suitable
parts of the world which might also be willing to try the idea? What
about S. Africa, for instance? If medit-plants members thought the
notion of such an exchange might be useful/fun, the 'real' societies
would perhaps just have to make certain that someone at medit-plants
(sean?) got a copy of each issue of their journals a decent interval
after it had been available to subscription-paying members and he (or
whoever) could then decide what might be relevant here and post it up.
Might that work? Are there any other co-operations/collaborations
which could be tried? What about seed-swapping? 

Finally, two groups of plants I asked some questions about in the
latest issue of Borderlines.  I wonder if anyone can provide any
answers. Grateful for any help anyone can offer. The first bunch of
plants are shrubs mentioned by the Edwardian British gardener, Eden
Phillpotts, in his book MY SHRUBS (not one for jazzy titles, old
Eden). I find that reading through Victorian and Edwardian books is
often a good way to find at least the names of interesting, barely
hardy, no longer grown plants, since many suitable natural habitats
were more open to plant-hunters then than they've often been since -
and UK gardeners then had a lot more spare time/money (and had bigger
gardens)! E.P. grew all sorts of rare and difficult plants in his
(sadly long since destroyed) garden in Torquay, one of the mildest
spots in the UK. None of the plants I was particularly interested in
are any longer offered commercially in the UK. Diane Whitehead  has
already kindly filled in SOME gaps for me. She found info. on Inga,
Manettia, Pavia, Grabowskia and Peumus. Others of EP's plants I'd be
interested to discover more about include: Bowkeria gerardiana and B.
citrina, from S. Africa; Bouvardia triphylla, from Mexico; Elaeocarpus
reticulatus, from Australia (is this something that's really quite
familiar but disguised under an old name? EP says it is 'a handsome
evergreen, with lovely corymbs of fimbriated flowers that rise out of
the axils of the leaves'); Hermannia spp, which apparently come both
from Australia and S. Africa (EP grew H. incana from Australia and H.
lavendulifolia from the Cape; I know that there's also H. pinnata; are
there more species still?); Entelea arborescens, from NZ; Luculia
gratissima from the Himalayas, a winter-flowerer with 'bright pink and
splendidly fragrant flowers' and L. pincanca from the mountains of
Khasia (I don't even know where they are: can anyone help?), with
white flowers which are even more fragrant than those of L.
gratissima; Rhabdothamnus solandri from NZ; and Lepechina spp (they
were Sphacele in Phillpotts' day) from Chile. Does anyone grow - has
anyone even tried to grow - any of these? Do they have info. about
habitats/hardiness/soil and situation preferences, etc? Does anyone
(even: I should be so lucky) know of sources for seed of any of them?

Finally: I've recently been trying to grow some S. African Hesperantha
spp. I've experimented so far with H. baurii, H. cucullata (I killed
it by over-watering, not knowing it was summer-dormant: one of those
occasions when ignorance definitely isn't bliss), H. huttonii and H.
vaginata. I know there are other spp. around. Does anyone have any
info. on what's available and most attractive/feasible?

Tim Longville
MAMIHLAPINATAPAI
Which, in the language of the natives of Tierra del Fuego, means:
'Looking at each other hoping that either will offer to do something
that both parties desire but are not willing to do.'
Celia Eddy
celia@eddy.u-net.com
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