Exciting news! Two of the
Buddleias that will be offered in our new
Spring Catalog have placed
first and second in the 2008 Buddleia Trials from the UK's Royal
Horticultural Society (RHS)! Miss Ruby and Lo &Behold Blue Chip, both Proven
Winners Colorchoice varieties, placed first and second,
respectively in the trials. They were up a few really strong
contenders this year, like the favorite Pink Delight. The general public was asked to vote on over 77 varieties and Miss Ruby came away with 17% of the votes and Blue Chip getting 8%.
The Royal Horticultural Society is the United Kingdom's leading gardening
charity dedicated to advancing horticulture and promoting good
gardening.
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I was browsing through our catalog, as I sometimes do when I can't think of anything else to write about. I just find a pretty plant and then talk about how pretty it is. I know it's boring, and I apologize, but they really are very pretty.
This time was different. It wasn't the picture that caught my attention, but the description. Epimedium Osigui was "named for Mikinori Ogisu, the famed Japanese plant hunter…In the native it is found among limestone deposits near waterfalls." It was discovered in the mountains of Sichuan, China.
Plant Hunter! Browsing the InterWebs, I found Mr. Mikinori was connected with the discoveries of many popular plants. One blogger called him the "most important man in Epimediums." He has trekked though thick forest, up high mountains, and deep into dense river gorges to find some of the rarest and most exciting new plant varieties. One of the most interesting articles was from the Historic Roses Group written by another famed botanist and plant hunter, Martyn Rix. He described Mr. Mikinori's discoveries of exotic Chinese Roses. He spent ten years combing the Chinese wilderness, and has provided us with cultivated varieties of plants that, before him, very few people had even seen.
I guess it was naive of me, but I just had never thought of botanists as adventurers. I guess somebody had to go out and discover all of these things. As gardeners, we often fill our gardens with exotic plants from all over the world, provided either by our local nursery or ordered from a catalog like Wayside Gardens. Rarely, if ever, do we think about how that plant came to be cultivated. Who took the first sample of seeds or the first cutting. Some of the species that Mikinori Ogisu discovered only grow natively at very high altitudes or in deep gorges where there are no trails. The man is a modern pioneer, forging paths for knowledge and future discovery.
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