Sweden & Scotland

After a fantastic week in Sweden, I flew over to Scotland where I met up with Carly Epping, also a Diana Aitchison fund student, around 2pm on Friday. We traveled by train up to Perth where we met Julia Corden who was busy setting up for Saturday's SRGC alpine show. Julia drove us to her home in idyllic Scottish town called Pitlochry. The double rainbow and snow dusted mountains in the morning looked like a water color painting. We spent all day Saturday in Perth for the SRGC show where I had the privilege of guest judging with Ian Christie and Ron Mcbeth. It was a lot of fun to talk plants and reconnect with many familiar faces from my trip 2 years ago. Plant shows are unfortunately uncommon in the US. I find them very valuable for networking, community, and spreading knowledge and passion for growing new or rare plants. I hope the tradition continues for years to come and maybe makes its way to the states. The judges and Julia Carly stewarding at her first show eve...

Johan, Jonathan and I arrived to a surreal country side scene about 2 hours north of Gothenburg on a cold and cloudy morning. The vast open landscape was comforting after being in the city for many days. I noticed the soil turn red as the tiles on the houses themselves. We had arrived at Henrik Zutterlund's home in Kinnekulle. Henrik is a key figure in the world of Alpines and bulbs. He has been on many trips around the world collecting rare and unusual plants and has brought many of them back to Goteburg Botaniks where they are a staple of the collections. Henrik admiring his  Corylus fargesii - rare and maybe the only one in Sweden We jumped out of the car eager to stretch our legs and immediately stepped on some flowering bulbs. I quickly realized there were thousands of Muscari, Chionodoxa and Narcissus growing among the lawn and drive way. There was no way to not step on them and later we laughed about it. probably stepped on these at some point Henrik...

Day 2 was another busy day. Johan showed me the cold frames and propagation beds where most of the plants grown for the collections are started. We discussed the ways in certain seed should be sown including soaking, stratifying and scarring. Some bulbous plants take many years to grow from seed where as other alpines can take a a few weeks before they are potted.  Cold frames where seed is started outside Johan then pulled a few pots from the alpine house that needed to be re-potted. I learned that some plants such as Draba or Dionysia can be easily damaged and killed due to their roots clinging to the pots. To avoid this, the clay pot is broken with a hammer on the side where one can then peel the clay carefully from the roots. After that, a larger pot is slightly filled and then the plant is placed carefully in the center and filled around the edges making sure the plant is sitting slightly above the rim of the pot. Small grit or gravel is then sprinkled around and ...