Exbury revives plant hunting
15 November 2010
An expedition to a remote and rarely-visited part of India has braved monsoon storms and high altitude to collect seed from hundreds of different plant species in a journey reminiscent of those undertaken by the great Victorian plant hunters.
John Anderson, head gardener at Exbury Gardens in Hampshire, had to get special permission to explore in Arunachal Pradesh, north-east India, a politically-sensitive area with no paths and at an altitude of thousands of metres.
'We're always looking for something exotic or unusual,' he said. 'Lionel de Rothschild, who created Exbury, would have sponsored Victorian plant hunter Kingdon Ward to go and find him plants he could grow in the garden: this was a very similar arrangement.'
The party brought back 200 different species of plant, from trees such as maples and oaks to herbaceous podophyllums and lilies collected in alpine areas. Particularly prized discoveries were Decaisnea insignis, a borderline-hardy shrub with yellow fruits, and Tetracentron sinense, a spreading tree with heart-shaped leaves (pictured left).
'We were looking for shrubs that would grow in our gardens, but I also got to see things growing in the wild and understand them better,' said John.
The seeds are now being germinated and grown on for planting at Exbury: seeds and plant material from the collection will also be distributed among other gardens, such as Wakehurst Place in Sussex and Trelissick in Cornwall, to try their performance in different climates and growing conditions.