RHS Journals
The Garden
July 2008
General news
RHS initiative: ‘Reduce VAT on plants and seeds’
At the Chelsea Flower Show the RHS launched a petition to have VAT on ornamental seeds and plants reduced to five percent, in line with other ‘green’ goods. The aim is to encourage more people to buy and grow plants, helping to safeguard the local environment.
After the first two weeks of the campaign, which will run until May 2009, more than 2,000 people had already signed up. Inga Grimsey, RHS Director General, said, ‘It seems obvious that any green policy should have plants and trees at its heart. However, nearly every piece of legislation in recent years has ignored the vital role that gardens can play in helping to create healthy, sustainable communities for people and wildlife.
‘This petition gives a voice to Britain’s gardeners and brings their contribution to the fore. Just imagine what could be achieved if every household was encouraged to grow more plants. I hope that as an RHS member you value gardening as much as we do and will help us to secure a greener outlook for Britain by signing our petition.’
Ian Cross, Retail Marketing Manager of seed and plant supplier Mr Fothergill’s, supports the campaign. ‘It is good to see positive action to encourage people to grow plants and keep their gardens green, against what seems like an endless run of increased taxes in the name of the environment,’ he said.
Teresa Sinclair of The English Cottage Garden Nursery, Kent, agrees. ‘Reducing VAT on plants and seeds is good because it will lower the price customers have to pay, therefore more people will buy and there will be a knock-on effect for the environment as well,’ she said.
Sliding scales
In the UK there are four scales of VAT: standard (17.5 percent); reduced rate (five percent); zero percent (applicable to foodstuffs, including vegetable plants and seeds); and exempt.
To encourage homeowners and builders to become ‘green’, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made a case for certain goods – such as energy-efficient light bulbs and insulation materials – to be sold at the reduced rate of five percent. Ornamental plants and seeds, however, have been excluded. This means that consumers can enjoy the tax break when buying and installing wind turbines and solar panels, but if they want to buy plants they pay 17.5 percent VAT.
This summer the European Council will discuss how VAT reductions can be used as a financial means to encourage consumers to buy energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly goods and services.
Click here to add your name to the petition
Goji plants illegally imported
Some stocks of goji berry ( Lycium barbarum ) have been illegally imported and should be destroyed, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
The plants can act as hosts for certain pests and diseases such as insect-transmitted viruses that can adversely affect commercial potato and tomato crops.
Nurseries and garden centres have withdrawn imported plants from sale to be re-exported or destroyed, although tests for diseases have proved negative so far and the risk of spread is described as relatively low.
With its berries hailed as a superfood, goji (also known as Duke of Argyll’s tea tree) is increasingly being planted in gardens. More than 86,000 plants have been imported to the UK (DEFRA estimates), mainly from China and the Far East, and sold between May 2007 and April 2008.
Lycium barbarum is a member of the potato and tomato ( Solanaceae ) family. Native to China, it was introduced to the UK more than 300 years ago. It now grows wild in hedgerows, particularly in coastal regions, and is invasive and can be difficult to eradicate.
All Solanaceae are banned from import to the EU from countries outside Europe and the Mediterranean area, but there are no restrictions on their berries and seeds.
A Government spokesman said there is no blanket ban on the importation of goji plants, as those grown within the EU with the correct certification are legal. It is trying to ascertain the scale of the illegal goji trade. It says that if the plants are not of EU origin they should be disposed of in household waste.
The RHS Members’ Advisory Service recommends that, unless suppliers can assure gardeners of a plant’s origin, it is best to grow the plants from seed.
Gardeners unsure of the origin of their plants can contact their local Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate office
Waterlily breeding breakthrough
For more than a century, breeders sought to create the ‘holy grail’ of waterlilies – a hardy, blue-flowered cultivar. Now an enthusiast in Thailand is claiming success with Nymphaea ‘Siam Blue Hardy’. It had been thought nigh impossible to cross a hardy Nymphaea with tropical, blue-flowered members of the subgenera Anecphya or Brachyceras , due to the chromosome difference between them but, after four years’ work, Pairat Songpanich has one plant of a hardy blue with cup-shaped leaves, red-flecked when young.
Festival of international design
Designers are being sought to build gardens for an international festival to take place next summer near St Albans, Hertfordshire, on part of the developing 10ha Butterfly World site.
Future Gardens (a reincarnation of The International Festival of the Garden, formerly held at Westonbirt Arboretum, Gloucestershire) will run from June to September 2009 at Chiswell Green, adjacent to the Royal National Rose Society’s Gardens of the Rose.
Organisers say the designs will ‘erode preconceptions’ and encourage visitors to interact with the gardens by exploring them, rather than seeing them from a distance. One of the themes will be sustainability and all 12 selected designs will demonstrate their suitability for today’s environment. The closing date for submissions is 14 July. Each designer will be given a £25,000 bursary to build the garden and just five weeks to construct it. A maintenance team will keep the gardens looking their best throughout the event.
Visit the Future Gardens website for more information
Plants mapped
The National Trust has embarked on what it believes to be the UK’s most comprehensive garden-plant survey. Taking three years, it will record 75 per cent of the plants in its gardens.
Staff and volunteers at Killerton House in Devon were the first, of more than 80 participating sites, to photograph and record global-positioning-system references for its plants and trees.
Fruit trees in the trust’s working kitchen gardens will also be recorded.
The information will be entered onto a central database. Plants identified as needing to be propagated to replenish existing collections throughout the gardens can then be grown at the trust’s new plant centre at Knightshayes Court, Devon.
Cornish Wollemi flowers
A Wollemi pine growing in Cornwall may be the first in the northern hemisphere to produce both male and female flowers, though others have produced flowers of one gender or the other.
Planted in Tregothnan Gardens, Truro, in 2005, the 10-year-old tree, thought to be the most mature specimen outside its native Australia, has now reached a height of 2.5m (8ft 4in).
Wollemi pine ( Wollemia nobilis ) was thought to be extinct, but the discovery in 1994 of just 100 trees in a rainforest gorge in Australia’s Blue Mountains prompted a major propagation and conservation programme. The Tregothnan tree is one of several sent to gardens around the world to ensure the survival of the species.
Garden Director Jonathon Jones said he was amazed to see around 100 separate male and female flowers (strobili) growing on the tree in April 2008. He describes the male flowers as ‘looking like sausages’ and the female ones as ‘round pompons’.
Pollen produced from the male flowers was saved and used to fertilise the female cones, which ripened in May. Jonathon is unsure if viable seeds will be produced, as there is little documented information of this happening elsewhere in cultivation – probably because the ripening times of the male flowers and female cones on the same tree do not naturally coincide. If successful, however, they will be the first Wollemi pine seeds to be set outside Australia.
Ingwersen sale ends an alpine era
The famous alpine nursery of the Ingwersen family in East Grinsted, West Sussex, is up for sale, marking the end of an important horticultural era.
Alpines have been grown at Birch Farm Nursery since 1927, when the business was set up by Walter Ingwersen on land leased to him by famous plantsman William Robinson of Gravetye Manor.
Paul Ingwersen and his late older brother Will helped to develop the business, which grows 650 different plant lines and has been a regular exhibitor at RHS and other flower shows. Now in his mid 70s, Paul wants to retire. As his family has decided not to take on the business, he has put the property up for sale. He hopes it will be bought by someone wishing to continue the business but is realistic that it might be bought as a country estate. ‘The nursery is established, has a well-known name and has good plants, so it’s a ready-made business,’ he said.
The estate, with its 16th-century house, 1.1ha nursery, gardens and 5ha of land is being sold by Quinton Edwards for £900,000.
Beetle settles in UK home
A woodboring beetle, found on a conifer in a Berkshire garden, is the latest insect introduction to have begun breeding in the UK.
Juniper and cedar are the main hosts of longhorn beetle ( Semanotus russicus ), but this recent find on a moribund Lawson’s cypress has prompted entomologists to recommend a wider search for other populations – and to suspect that it has spread to other parts of the UK.
The larvae of S. russicus feed under the bark and pupate in the heartwood during their second year. Adults emerge in March or April, growing up to 18mm (5/8in) long.
‘Although the damage caused by this beetle can hasten the demise of trees in poor health, the threat to healthy trees is small, and gardeners should not be unduly concerned about this non-native insect,’ said Andrew Salisbury, RHS Entomologist.
Howard Mendel and Max Barclay, entomologists at the Natural History Museum, London, believe the beetle is established in the Sunningdale area because the eggs were laid in the tree during 2005–06. The theory is strengthened by the fact that the garden lies close to several nurseries importing stock from those parts of Europe where S. russicus is normally found.
If you think you have found this beetle, specimens can be sent to: Max Barclay, Curator of Beetles, Department of Entomology, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD.
In brief
A new chairman is being sought for the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens (NCCPG). David Goodchild steps down in October after eight years. The NCCPG celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and, said David, ‘it’s a good time to take stock and look forward to our next 30 years’. Interested candidates should call the NCCPG on 01483 447540.
Trees for Life, a project to restore the Caledonian Forest, has purchased the 4,000ha Dundreggan Estate in Glen Moriston, Highland. However, funding to purchase Dundreggan Lodge to house volunteers was withdrawn at the last minute, and the charity was forced to launch an appeal. Visit the Trees for Life website
The restored Victorian glasshouse at Sydenham Garden, London is open. The four-year project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, is in a community garden that provides training, horticultural therapy and opportunities for arts and crafts. Visit the Sydenham Garden website
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