WHF SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2024

News and events about White House Farm, Maurice Foster’s garden and arboretum in Kent, England

Welcome to the fifth White House Farm biennial newsletter, for Friends of White House Farm. This comes to you as an email twice yearly if you enter your email address here.

NEWS:

Maurice’s book ‘The Hydrangea: a Reappraisal’ was favourably reviewed by Everard Daniel in the RCM Yearbook, Francois Gordon in the Kent Gardens Trust Newsletter, Robert Mallet in the Shamrock Newsletter, and John Grimshaw in Hortus. The book has sold out (eg on Amazon, where it still has 5 stars) so has just gone into a second print run. We continue to sell copies to visitors and friends at its RRP, which raises modest funds for the Foundation. To order a signed copy for £30 plus £3.45 p&p (within the UK), email us at whitehousefarmarb@mail.com.

An IDS Study Day on Camellias was held on March 31st. The horticultural potential of some of our 42 species camellia (such as tunganica, trichocarpa, cheikiangoleosa, transnokoensis) was brought out by comparison to the 136 cultivars we grow here, which were nonetheless also admired – especially older varieties less often seen in recent years.

Many of the species camellias typically offer brightly-coloured spring growth, resistance to petal blight, and the habit of dropping flowers before browning – in addition to, for example, the freedom of flower given by forming flowering shoots at every leaf axil already visible in varieties like ‘Olé’ and ‘Buttons and Bows’ (pitardii hybrids); or scent in ‘Cinnamon Cindy’ (transnokoensis hybrid) or continuity of flower in cuspidata hybrids like the small-flowered ‘Cornish Spring’, ‘Cornish Snow’, ‘Winton’ and the amazing late ‘Spring Festival’, one of the great garden plants, neat, of upright habit, and wonderfully free-flowering – originally found as a volunteer seedling, we think in New Zealand.

In May we reviewed our collections of Deutzia and Rhododendrons, both numbering in the several hundred, and are now in the process of field labelling and logging those plants, with renewed interest in some of Maurice’s early azalea hybrids, his first breeding experiments from the 1960s and 70s. We also continued our review of our collection (accumulated since the 1980s) of c. 40 Japanese hydrangea serrata, which we’ve shared in its entirety with RHS Wisley, where they are busily being planted.

In August we were very happy to welcome our summer intern, Eileen Gahan, just graduated with her Hort. BSc from the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, where she worked with Seamus O’Brien, Head Gardener at Kilmacurragh. Eileen came to us for a month, courtesy of a Bursary from the Kent Gardens Trust, and fresh from a two month summer stint at the R. C. Raulston Arboretum in N. Carolina. During her time at WHF she helped research and prepare our Hydrangea asperae collection, did extensive tree and shrub pruning and maintenance, made an inventory of recently propagated plants and those awaiting planting in the greenhouses, and compiled and researched extensive notes from discussions with Maurice and other Trustees about various individual plants of interest throughout the garden, wood and arboretum. We christened a new area in the arboretum ‘Eileen’s Glade’ to commemorate her stay, where she planted magnolias, rhododendrons, and a Rosa murielae, among other things.

Eileen spent a day at WHF Trustee Chris Lane’s Witch Hazel Nursery learning how to graft species Viburnums and Magnolias alongside Jack Aldridge. Trips were taken to Bedgebury, with a tour by Curator Dan Luscombe, and to Peter Shotter’s private Rhododendron species collection, with more to follow. Eileen will be spending the next year completing the Professional Work Placement in Woodland Ornamentals at RHS Wisley, so we look forward to having her back soon.

Lastly, our IDS Study Day on Hydrangea Asperae (aspera and involucrata) on August 21st was well attended and much enjoyed. The asperae tend to be undervalued group of late summer flowering shrubs, but at WHF collecting and breeding over 20 years has produced some vividly coloured forms of year-round character (for purple or bronze foliage) and reliability of flower colour, such as H. aspera ‘Hot Chocolate’ and H. aspera ‘Rosemary Foster’ (which was voted Plant of the Day). The much argued-over taxonomy of H. asperae – the most variable of the Hydrangea subsections -was discussed and examined in the field, using a range of WHF collections, seedlings and hybrids as examples.

It is a puzzle to us why H. involucrata isn’t more widely known and planted, as its various forms are perfectly hardy here, and essential for late summer colour and form. All involucratas are great free-flowering shade-bearers, carrying flowers on every shoot even in near total shade.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Bookings for visits in 2025 are underway, both for Spring (eg Magnolias, Camellias and Rhododendrons) and summer (Philadelphus, Deutzias and Hydrangeas etc). Please get in touch if you would like to visit – either with your own group, or if individuals or smaller numbers, with a range of dates (Wednesdays through Saturdays) when you could come.

October 24^th Afternoon Garden Masterclass – Autumn at White House Farm: Flowers, Foliage and Fruit

It’s worth mentioning that 2024 has been an outstanding year for fruit – especially on Viburnum, Sorbus, and roses. So the last of our series of collaborative events this year with Garden Masterclass, about autumn colour, should be interesting (1-4.30pm Oct 24th). Expect to see and discuss the late colour merits of plants such as Acer, Liquidamber, Nyssa, Euonymus, Viburnum, Sorbus, Prunus and other less well-known shrubs.

WHF were delighted to give a Thursday Garden Masterclass chat on Youtube for the wonderful Annie Guilefoyle and Noel Kingsbury, founders and organisers of Garden Masterclass, in which we introduce White House Farm and its history (since 1971). You can watch it here; tickets for the Garden Masterclass at WHF on October 24th can be purchased here.

October 26-27th Les Botaniques de Varangeville

Maurice will be a speaker, along with Abraham Rammaloo, Director of Kalmthout Arboretum near Antwerp, at this year’s Varangeville Plant Conference and Rare Plant Fair. Varangeville-sur-mer, seen by some as a key centre for French gardens and horticulture, is 15 minute drive from Dieppe, and both Maurice and plants from White House Farm have many decades-long relationships with some of its well-known plantspeople and gardens (eg Vasterival, Jardin Shamrock, Le Bois des Moutiers, plus several significant private gardens).

As always, If you’d like to request to visit, propose any other type of event at WHF, or find out more about our Volunteers and their weekly Afternoon Gardening Teas, get in touch!