Legend of the blue poppy

I’ve just seen my first blue poppies at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden!  Their color, a fluorescent blue, is so unusual that at first I thought that they were plastic.  The definition of simplicity, each flower just has 4 petals that frame a white pistil and a spray of golden anthers.

The Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden, located outside of Seattle in Federal Way, was founded in 1964 in order to preserve rhododendron from North America, Asia, Australia, and Europe, particularly important given the loss of natural habitat in many parts of the world.  In the US alone, over 20% of rhododendron species are facing extinction and this garden is the only botanical garden dedicated exclusively to preserving them.

Plant hunter Frank Kingdon-Ward

Arranged in a picturesque setting along curving paths, this garden showcases 700 out of the world’s 1,000 rhododendron species.  And to complement the “rhody’s,” the garden also features companion plants.  During my visit last week it was one of these, the blue poppy, that caught my attention.  

Native to the high altitude Himalaya’s, the blue poppy is extremely rare.  So few had seen one that for a time some questioned whether it existed.

It requires moist well-drained soil in a partially shaded spot protected from the wind. A poppy plant will often die after their first flowering so growers recommend sacrificing the first year’s flowers for hopes of some in subsequent years.  And slugs love them.

Then we come to their unique color.  For starters, less than 10% of flowering plants have blue flowers.  According to David Lee, author of Nature’s Palette: The Science of Plant Color, “There is no true blue pigment in plants, so plants don’t have a direct way of making a blue color.  Plants tweak… pigments to make blue flowers… through a variety of modifications involving pH shifts and mixing of pigments, molecules and ions.”

The flower’s history is tied to plant hunter Frank Kingdon-Ward, the first to export a viable seed. In 1913 he wrote In the Land of the Blue Poppies: Travels of a Naturalist in Eastern Tibet, “up here, at 17,000 feet, springing from amongst huge blocks of grey stone, I found the glorious Cambridge blue poppywort, one of the most beautiful flowers in existence…”  Through his many books he takes us along on adventures to some of the most remote parts of the planet.

Blue poppies bloom for about 3 weeks, so hurry out to the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden to catch them while you can.  And don’t miss Blue Poppy Day at the garden this Saturday.

 

In the Land of the Blue Poppy (1913)

Photo from book. "Waterfall at T'eng-yueh, West Yunnan"

Scandal in the garden

Cliveden estate and garden date back to the mid-1600’s.  The overall design consists of: a grand mansion on a platform, a terrace that gently slopes to a small cottage on the Thames River, and a series of pleasure gardens.  In 1849 John Fleming, head gardener and author of Spring and Winter Flowering Garden, created the formal parterre and geometric floral planting pictured above.   

John Fleming's book published in 1864.

At over six acres, this is not a small garden.  Sixteen formal beds are framed by 2.5 miles of hedges.  Eighteen topiary pyramids provide height and punctuation.  Each spring and summer a new display of 30,000 plants is put in place.  That’s 60,000 new plants each year!  Preparing for each season takes 12 full-time gardeners and 40 volunteers 2 weeks.  When originally created, it set a global standard combining formal elements with gardenesque ribbon planting.

Historic gardens are great places to celebrate plants and design; they also connect us back to important events.  In 1893, American William Waldorf Astor bought the property with his New York City real estate fortune.  An example of American’s using their gilded age wealth to buy great European houses (and titles).  The Astor family lived in the house for 3 generations.  They saw the depression and two World Wars; and lent part of the house to the Canadian Red Cross as a military hospital.  

In the early 1960’s the world was in the midst of the Cold War.  The US broke off relations with Cuba, the Berlin Wall was built, and the USSR detonated the hydrogen bomb.

With this political backdrop, Bill Astor invited friends over for one of his summer house parties in July 1961.  The guest list and ensuing events of a particular weekend kicked off what became known as the Profumo Affair.

The story begins when John Profumo, Secretary of State of War, and his wife join the Astors for a weekend at Cliveden.  One evening, Stephen Ward, the estate’s cottage resident, joined the Astor group along with his house guests: model Christine Keeler and Soviet naval attaché Yevgeny Ivanov.

That weekend, Keeler and Profumo started a short affair.  Things got out of hand when Profumo denied his relationship with Keeler and the press discovered that Keeler also had an affair with Ivanov.  The mix of British official, Soviet attaché, and a shared mistress during the Cold War posed a security risk too potent to contain.

The results ranged from the expected to the tragic.  Ward faced mounting allegations related to his involvement in facilitating the relationships and committed suicide.  Prime Minister MacMillan resigned to save his political party but the Conservatives lost the 1964 elections anyway.  Profumo was forced to resign but dedicated his life to philanthropy, eventually winning honors for his charitable work.  And while Keeler made some money from her story initially, she found it hard to find work again.

Today Cliveden is a National Trust property and a wonderful hotel.  Close to London’s Heathrow Airport, it is a great stop over.  And if the Cold War history is too much, there is always that beautiful 6-acre parterre to enjoy.

Headline: June 6, 1963  Source: mirror.co.uk

John Profumo 1960's. Photo: mirror.co.uk

Christine Keeler 1960's. Photo: AP

 

Happy birthday John Loudon

John Claudius Loudon. Royal Horticultural Society, Lindley Library.

Author Jane Webb. Source Birmingham City Council.

This month marks the 232nd birthday of John Claudius Loudon, born on April 8, 1783 in Scotland.  At 20, he moved to London to become a landscape designer, initially creating picturesque gardens that were popular then.  Later, he focused on the selection and display of trees and shrubs in a style that he called gardenesque.  John was a prolific garden writer and tailored his work to the growing middle class and the needs of smaller gardens.  Through books such as An Encyclopedia of Gardening, Landscape Gardening and Landscape Architecture, and his monthly Gardener’s Magazine, he reached a growing audience.  He worked on these with his wife, author Jane Webb.  Together, they were the HGTV of their time, demystifing design and providing advice on how to beautify the home.

The scope of their work is exemplified in the full title of The Suburban Gardener, and Villa Companion (1838) which reads, “The choice of a suburban or villa residence, or of a situation on which to form one; the arrangement and furnishing of the house; and the laying out, planting, and general management of the garden grounds; the whole adapted for grounds from one perch to fifty acres and upwards in extent; and intended for the instruction of those who know little of gardening and rural affairs, and more particularly for the use of ladies.”  The book was innovative on many levels:  it covers all aspects of design and gardening, from chimney styles to caring for soil; it leads with tips for the smaller house and property; and its target was clearly the middle class, especially novices and women. 

John’s gardenesque style started as an evolution from the picturesque, where naturalistic groupings were replaced with specimen trees and shrubs: “In order to produce gardenesque effect, the beauty of every individual tree and shrub, as a single object, is to be taken into consideration… in the gardenesque, the beauty of the tree consists in its own individual perfections, which are fully developed in consequence of the isolated manner in which it has been grown.”   Over time, the style grew to include geometric beds filled with specimen plants in colorful patterns, especially as exotic annuals became more affordable.  In both cases, the design intent is to allow the individual plant to shine.

John moved garden-making beyond the picturesque style where it was sometimes hard to tell if a landscape was a garden or just nature-produced pastoral scene, and educated gardeners to be more thoughtful about plant selection.

Today we see the gardenesque everywhere: from European villas to Disney theme parks.  And the specimen cherry tree in front of the suburban house that I grew up in is an example of a gardenesque feature.  Botanical gardens and arboretums are great places to see gardenesque style since they usually dedicate a fair bit of space to showing off the individual plant.   

For this post, we go to one of the great pleasure gardens in the world, Longwood Gardens.  Longwood is actually a series of large, distinct gardens that range from several monumental water features to a wild meadow to a topiary garden to a learning garden.  The Oak and Conifer Knoll above captures the spirit of the gardenesque where trees and shrubs are part of an overall composition, yet are placed so that they can reach their full potential and beauty. 

Happy birthday John Claudius Loudon and thanks for reminding us of the power of the plant.  See more gardenesque examples here.