Davidia involucrata
October is one of the most important months of the year for planting trees and shrubs. Shrubs are usually bought in one of two ways: by mail order from a reputable nursery firm or from a retail outlet such as a local nursery or garden centre. And they will be offered for sale as container-grown specimens (in which case they can be bought and planted at any time of the year) or as bare-rooted or balled specimens, which are normally only available during the orthodox planting season of October to March. These last two types are plants which have been dug up from a nursery field where they have been growing quite happily for a year or two (or maybe three) and their roots either cleared of soil (bare-rooted) or the soil and roots bound up in sacking or something of that ilk (balled). Both of these should be planted as soon as possible. Bare-rooted plants should have their roots soaked in a bucket of water, especially if they are dry. Balled plants can be left for a while if necessary. The plants should be planted in holes twice as big than they actually need, with compost mixed into the soil at the bottom of the hole, at the same depth as they were when growing in the field.
We are indeed lucky that when we want a new plant we just nip along to the nearest nursery or garden centre (or, if we are really lazy, order from a catalogue). But it was not always thus. In 1898 a certain Mr. Veitch, the managing director of Veitch Nurseries, decided he would like a Handkerchief tree, Davidia involucrata, which had been discovered by the missionary and naturalist Père David. Unfortunately, the nearest known specimen was somewhere in China - and nobody really knew exactly where in China it was. Mr. Veitch asked the Director of Kew Gardens if he could find a young man to go and look for one. The man he suggested was Ernest Henry Wilson, aged 21, who had joined the staff at Kew in 1897 and was just about to become a lecturer. He was willing to go, and so, in 1899, he set off to find this tree which was only known in the west from drawings and dried samples. Once in China, where they happened to be having the anti-European Boxer Rebellion at the time, he set off over inhospitable territory to where he was told the tree would be. Before long he was arrested for spying and locked up. Somehow he managed to convince his captors of his innocence and was set free, but after that he was careful to avoid the natives like the plague. Unfortunately he didn't avoid the plague like the natives - most of his party died of fever. So he decided to continue by boat. Once again his luck was out. The boatman happened to be over-fond of opium, and during a drug induced trance crashed the boat on to the rocks while trying to negotiate rapids. Eventually, after all these adventures, Wilson arrived at the site of the Handkerchief tree, only to find that the locals had chopped it down and turned it into building material for one of their houses. This gave Wilson a feeling of mild frustration, so he went back to his base at Ichang. And, believe it or not, just a short walk away from where he was living, he found several of the very tree he had risked his life to find elsewhere. And before his trip ended in 1902 he found many other plants then unknown in the west - plants like the Primrose jasmine, the Paperbark maple and the Chinese Hill Cherry. In fact on this his very first expedition he found over 400 new plants.
In 1903 Wilson was off again, this time in search of the Yellow poppy, Meconopsis integrifolia. He found it and many other plants which had never been seen in the west before. New rhododendrons, new roses, new primulas, new poppies. The reputation of Ernest Wilson was now firmly established, and he soon became known as 'Chinese' Wilson.
It was about this time that Wilson decided to part company with the Veitch Nurseries and move to the United States under the patronage of Professor John Sargent, the Director of the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Mass. This great tree collection was in need of new specimens, so he was off again on his travels - Japan, Korea, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, India and, of course, China. Although he found many new trees he also found the Regal Lily, Lilium regale, probably his most famous discovery. He found it growing in a remote valley on the borders of Tibet in 1910. The location of this species of lily was almost impossible to reach. To get to it, Wilson had to cross a narrow gorge. Unfortunately for him, a falling rock smashed his leg. As he lay motionless each of the 50 mules in his train walked over him, each one stepping gingerly over his shattered leg without touching it. Fortunately for him a missionary doctor managed to save his leg; though if he had had the equipment he might have felt it better to amputate it. In the end Wilson sent back over 7000 bulbs of this easy to grow lily which quickly became a favourite flower in the English garden.
In 1927 Professor Sargent died and Wilson was selected to be his successor. His travelling days were over. For him, no more battling with brigands and running away from revolutionaries, surviving bad accidents and running risks of all kinds. For him there was only the tranquil life of a married man in Boston, Mass. In 1930, his car skidded on a wet road and both he and his wife were killed.
But it is thanks to him and other men of his ilk, like the Tradescants, Reginald Farrer, William Purdom and George Forrest, that we today can pop round the corner and get almost any plant that we want. Yet seldom do we ever bother about where it originally came from and the dangers that men went through in order that we can do so. As I have said before, there is more to gardening than sticking a plant in the ground and watching it grow.
Happy Gardening.
written by Bill Hutchings
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page last updated 5 OCTOBER 1997