The anemone family: full of good things for the garden

Press, 24 April 1986, Page 8

The anemone family: full of good things for the garden

Wardener’s ® DIARY

Derrick Rooney

To most gardeners, the name anemone means either the tall, so-called “Japanese anemones” (actually, they originated in China) which flower in late summer and autumn, or the brightly coloured, spring-flowering garden varieties which are usually sold as dried corms in autumn. The anemone family is much bigger than that, and it’s full of good things for the garden. One of these which is new to my garden is Anemone narcissiflora. A border plant which may grow 60cm tall, this has been in cultivation since the eighteenth century, but is still not common. It is closely related to the pretty Anemone rivularis, and is fairly similar to it in general appearance, but the latter may be distinguished by its blue anthers. Anemone narcissiflora has fibrous roots, which indicates that it probably enjoys a light, leafy soil. Its flowers are white, sometime flushed with mauve outside, and are held in a branching head well clear of the dark green leaves. If this makes it sound like an imitation of the Japanese anemone, then that’s just what it is — flowering a good two to three months earlier. "A plant of breeding,” says Graham Stuart

Thomas, former gardens adviser to the British National Trust.

In a low part of the rock garden, where the pre-Easter flood caused numerous casualties, I have planted a delightful little thing which goes under the tongue-twisting name Anemone obtusiloba forma patula. This Himalayan treasure flowers in early summer. From a conventionally anemone-like leaf rosette come radiating sprays of deep blue flowers. You won’t find this choice plant in garden centres very often, but specialist growers have it from time to time. Another pretty anemone, flowering in spring, is A. nemorosa "Robinsoniana,” which is seen in gardens less often than it ought to be. This woodlander has rounded, pale blue flowers, greyish blue on the outside. It thrives under deciduous trees or shrubs, and has been cultivated since the nineteenth century. The name commemorates William Robinson, of “English Flower Garden” fame. I have made clumps in several parts of the garden, but was prompted to think that I should have more when I read recently that the plant has won an award of garden merit in England, an award richly deserved after a century of

service. Robinson obtained the plant from the Cambridge Botanic Gardens, not an Irish woodland as sometimes reported. He wrote later that the curator of the time, Mr Baxter, told him that it had been sent to the garden by an Irish woman. Like the other forms of the woodland anemone, "Robinsoniana” has un-

derground rhizomes which look like little twigs. They will tolerate prolonged summer drought if left in the ground, but have a very short life if lifted and left out of the ground. Good nurseries will offer them as potted specimens in spring, when they are just coming into growth. Established clumps may be moved now, if you can find them, or in spring.

Small clumps in full flower move quite well! They may flop for a few days, but will pick up again. The woodland anemones like a semishady place, perhaps with morning sun only, but the spring-flowering “garden anemones” were bred from several heat-loving Mediterranean species, and like a sunny place. Popular strains of these plants, derived from crosses between A. pavonina, A. coronaria, and A. hortensis, are “de Caen,” “St Bavo,” and “St Brigid.” Many thousands of corms are raised for sale every year, and these plants are now so well domesticated that they can be expected to flower about 12 weeks after planting, unless the site is a very frosty one, in which case flowering may be delayed another month. Double and single forms are available; I prefer the single “de Caen” types, which come in a variety of colours from near-white to blue or red. Some of these strains have been bred to produce flowers of impressive size; but the trouble with these highly bred strains is that they tend not to be very perennial. Sometimes they do as well in the second season as in the first, but after that it’s usual for them to peter out. That’s why 1 prefer the older kinds, which don’t put you to the bother of replanting every year. Once I raised a few seedlings of “straight”

Anemone coronaria, or something close to it, and these have gone on about eight years now, not getting noticeably bigger but flowering consistently every year. Another reliably perennial kind is Anemone fulgens, which was raised by crossing A. pavonina with A. hortensis. The variety “Annulata Grandiflora” has vivid scarlet flowers with dark eyes. Always scarce, it tends to be rather more expensive than the others, but it is good, and it lives for years. More discriminating gardeners will look for this, and also for A. blanda, whose charms are more restrained. “White Splendor” is a free-flowering, largeflowered selection of the latter; it sometimes appears in garden centres as dried corms in autumn, but I would urge gardeners to give these a miss, for the same reason , that they should bypass dried rhizomes of the nemorosa types. Potted specimens cost more but give much better results. Closely related to A. blanda is A. apennina, which differs mainly in the degree of hairiness under the leaf. Both kinds differ in flower colour from white, through near-pink with lots of mauve in it, to near-blue. Flower size varies, too, and while this doesn’t matter for fill-in plantings around the garden, it’s best to stick to the named varieties or see the plants in flower before buying if you intend to make a feature of them. Right now, of course, the big news in anemones is ' the “Japanese anemone,” mentioned in the first paragraph. But this plant, in its various forms, is a different story, which I will get back to next week.