French Gardening history
David Fenwick (Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:35:51 PST)

It was a passionate late night response and I'm now sitting typing with two
cups of coffee LOL !

This interests me for I know the breeders son who's now quite elderly
himself. He visited me quite a few years ago now and he brought a painting
by E.A. Bowles of His Majesty' with him to show me. Given paintings ususally
fade with age, the hybrid 'His Majesty' would appear to be much deeper than
is currently reflected by trade sales. The hybrid is of course one of the
most well know of the Earlham Giant Montbretia Strain, selling for £2 per
corm when initially released, and that's at a time when beer was probably a
penny a pint and there were 240 pennies to the pound; a lot of money.
Because of the expense a few nurseries sold seedling strains of the Earlham
Hybrids and these somewhat muddy the water, as well as hybrids grown from
them by amateur enthusiasts.

One thing I forgot to add last night was the importance of 'fashion'.
Crocosmia are now very fashionable but heirlooms developed prior to 1939
were greatly affected by both WWI and WWII. Because of the latter very few
Crocosmia were brought into cultivation prior to 1966 and the breeding of
Crocosmia 'Lucifier'; so we have a gap of about 30 years until their garden
virtues were discovered oncemore. 30 years is a very long time to fall out
of fashion.

I was once asked to provide vouchers (pressed flowering material) of the
Earlham Hybrids I had to the RHS Herbarium but I felt I had to decline to do
this due to the lack of provenance for any of those I had in my collection,
and I wouldn't want the RHS Herbarium to be full of hopefulls. That said,
many, as you're well aware, are very beautiful garden worthy plants so it
shouldn't put anyone off growing them, it's just that there's a need never
to assume with some of the older ones. In my mind I personally feel that
where older heirloom varieties / hybrids cannot be absolutely proven true to
type they should be marked appropriately when offered and to potentially
improve trading standards if nothing else. However, I fear all that will do
is show what a huge gap in knowledge we actually have and not just with a
single genus. Many old hybrids were equally affected by WWI, WWII and the
depression of the 1920's across Europe.

I've actually never been able to find out where the current 'His Majesty' in
the trade originally came from, you are right when you say there can be
deformity and there are potentially a couple reasons for this; one is
Gladiolus or Flower Thrip and two, virus. Sadly when we look at heirloom
varieties / older hybrids, and here we must include trees and shrubs as well
as bulbs and corms the older a plant gets the more likely it is to pick
something up. A similar thing happened to the Russel Lupins, and these
somewhat shortened over the years until they were cleaned up.

I must add that one of the best Crocosmia growers I've come across was Alan
Lewis at Forde Abbey Gardens in Somerset; he wasn't a friend and I didn't
find him especially easy to get on with but his plants were always
particularly good, sadly he's not at Forde Abbey anymore and I've not had
dealings with Forde Abbey lately since having to give up physical gardening
five years ago. Sadly I'm not able to currently recommend any suppliers to
you.

I would be interested in seeing a scan sometime of your slide if you were
able to do this, I should be able to confirm if it's like the original E.A.
Bowles painting or what has been offered in recent years.

Best Wishes,
Dave (Penzance, Cornwall, UK)