A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(July 2024) |
The Hardy Plant Society is a British charity [1] that promotes the cultivation of hardy herbaceous plants. The society was founded in 1957 [2] by a group of gardeners and nurserymen. It has approximately 7,500 members [3] and provides information about familiar and less well known perennials, how to grow them and where they may be obtained. The society also works towards ensuring that garden-worthy perennial plants remain in cultivation and have the widest distribution. Its president is Roy Lancaster.
The society aims to inform and encourage the novice gardener, stimulate and enlighten the more knowledgeable, and entertain and enthuse all gardeners bonded by a love for, and an interest in, hardy perennial plants. Throughout the year there is a wide range of events hosted by local group members, from plant study days to residential weekends to garden visits. The society exhibits at local and national shows throughout the country to stimulate interest in hardy plants. Visitors can see hardy plants in bloom and leaf in their natural season and find out more about the work of the society. An extensive library of digital images covering a wide range of plants and garden scenes is available to members and members of the public. Images have been donated by photographers in the society.
The Hardy Plant Society is concerned about the conservation of garden plants. Countless fine plants have totally disappeared from cultivation and remain but a memory. The society is working towards ensuring that older, rarer and lesser-known perennial plants are conserved and made available to gardeners generally. Members suggest plants which they believe are garden-worthy but hard to source and they are grown in members' gardens so their hardiness and tolerance to different growing conditions can be compared across the country – information that is collected in a database and reflected on the society's webpages as a resource for HPS members and the public. http://www.hardy-plant.org.uk/about-plants/conservation
Every member can join in the annual Seed Distribution Scheme by obtaining or donating hardy perennial seed. The Seed List offers over 2,000 varieties of rare, unusual and familiar seeds and is sent to every member in December.
National membership of the society gives members the opportunity to join a local group and take part in a range of activities. There are around 40 local groups across the UK and national members are invited to join the group nearest to them. Each group offers a range of gardening activities including lectures from gardening speakers, garden visits, plant sales and educational and social events throughout the year. Most groups produce their own newsletters.
Within the society there are groups for members with a special interest in particular groups of plants or those which require particular growing conditions. There are special interest groups covering Galanthus, Half Hardy Plants, Hardy Geraniums, Peonies, Pulmonarias, Ranunculaceae, Shade and Woodland Plants and Variegated Plants. They produce their own newsletters and organise meetings and events for fellow enthusiasts. The Correspondents Group enables members who are unable to attend meetings to remain in touch with one another and exchange gardening ideas and information.
The Hardy Plant Society produces a twice-yearly journal, The Hardy Plant, with contributions from leading UK and international plant enthusiasts. It contains articles on hardy perennials and gardens as well as contributions from members. A newsletter is circulated three times a year that provides information on all the society's events, activities, interests and group contacts.
The society publishes a series of booklets on a range of hardy plants including Geraniums, Peonies and Hostas. These can be ordered via the website. http://www.hardy-plant.org.uk/publications/booklets
The Hardy Plant Society offers a number of small bursaries, for students and for people who are employed in horticulture, to enable them to develop their knowledge and understanding. Grants are usually made to support travel and subsistence costs for project work or study modules on topics broadly related to the society's aims and objectives. The bursaries are made available as a result of a generous legacy to the society from the estate of Kenneth Black.
Geranium is a genus of 422 species of annual, biennial, and perennial plants that are commonly known as geraniums or cranesbills. They are found throughout the temperate regions of the world and the mountains of the tropics, with the greatest diversity in the eastern part of the Mediterranean region.
Geranium cinereum, the ashy cranesbill, is a species of flowering plant in the family Geraniaceae, native to the Pyrenees. Growing to 50 cm (20 in) tall and wide, it is a small, deciduous or semi-evergreen perennial usually grown for low ground cover, rockeries or underplanting larger subjects like roses. Leaves are deeply divided and grey-green – whence the Latin specific epithet cinereum "ash-grey". It flowers in summer, with striking black-eyed flowers with black stamens. The plant grows in full sunlight, and is hardy down to −15 °C (5 °F).
Geranium × magnificum, the purple cranesbill, is a species of hardy flowering herbaceous perennial plant in the genus Geranium, family Geraniaceae. The multiplication symbol × indicates that it is the result of hybridisation, in this case between Geranium platypetalum and Geranium ibericum. Growing into a clump 70 cm (28 in) high and broad, it has the decorative, deeply-lobed leaves typical of the genus Geranium. Violet-blue flowers with darker veins are borne relatively briefly in early summer. Extremely hardy, to below −20 °C (−4 °F), it is suitable for cultivation throughout all temperate regions. This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
The peony or paeony is any flowering plant in the genus Paeonia, the only genus in the family Paeoniaceae. Peonies are native to Asia, Europe, and Western North America. Scientists differ on the number of species that can be distinguished, ranging from 25 to 40, although the current consensus describes 33 known species. The relationships between the species need to be further clarified.
Alstroemeria, commonly called the Peruvian lily or lily of the Incas, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Alstroemeriaceae. They are all native to South America, although some have become naturalized in the United States, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Madeira and the Canary Islands. Almost all of the species are restricted to one of two distinct centers of diversity; one in central Chile, the other in eastern Brazil. Species of Alstroemeria from Chile are winter-growing plants, while those of Brazil are summer growing. All are long-lived perennials except A. graminea, a diminutive annual from the Atacama Desert of Chile.
Graham Stuart Thomas was an English horticulturist, who is likely best known for his work with garden roses, his restoration and stewardship of over 100 National Trust gardens and for writing 19 books on gardening, many of which remain classics today. However, as he states in the Preface to his outstanding book, The Rock Garden and its Plants: From Grotto to Alpine House, "My earliest enthusiasms in gardening were for....alpines." p8
Hibiscus moscheutos, the rose mallow, swamp rose-mallow, crimsoneyed rosemallow, or eastern rosemallow, is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae. It is a cold-hardy perennial wetland plant that can grow in large colonies. The hirsute leaves are of variable morphology, but are commonly deltoidal in shape with up to three lobes. It is found in wetlands and along the riverine systems of the eastern United States from Texas to the Atlantic states, its territory extending northward to southern Ontario.
Geranium maculatum, the wild geranium, spotted geranium, or wood geranium, is a perennial plant native to woodland in eastern North America, from southern Manitoba and southwestern Quebec south to Alabama and Georgia and west to Oklahoma and South Dakota.
The Sir Harold Hillier Gardens is an arboretum comprising 72 hectares accommodating over 42,000 trees and shrubs in about 12,000 taxa, notably a collection of oaks, camellia, magnolia and rhododendron.
Geranium sylvaticum, the wood cranesbill or woodland geranium, is a species of hardy flowering plant in the family Geraniaceae, native to Europe and northern Turkey.
The Ornamental Gardens are an agricultural facility that emphasizes research, education, and beauty as part of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Central Experimental Farm. As the name indicates, the gardens are centrally located in and now surrounded by the city of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The 8-acre garden is a National Historic Site and Cultural Heritage Landscape.
Musa basjoo, known variously as Japanese banana, Japanese fibre banana or hardy banana, is a species of flowering plant belonging to the banana family Musaceae. It was previously thought to have originated in the Ryukyu islands of southern Japan, from where it was first described in cultivation, but is now known to have originated in subtropical southern China, where it is also widely cultivated, with wild populations found in Sichuan province. Its specific name is derived from its Japanese common name, bashō (芭蕉).
The Hebe Society promotes the cultivation and conservation of hebes and other New Zealand native plants.
The Wildflower Society of Western Australia (Inc.) (WSWA) is a member of the Australian Native Plants Society (Australia). In each of the other states of Australia, there is a region of the ANPS(A) and they share many of the aims of the WSWA.
Paeonia sterniana is a perennial, herbaceous peony of approximately 45 cm high in cultivation, with white or sometimes pinkish flowers. It grows in the wild in southeastern Tibet. This peony is very rare in cultivation. It produces blue seeds in autumn. Its common name in Chinese is 白花芍药, which means "white peony".
Paeonia tenuifolia is a herbaceous species of peony that is called the steppe peony or the fern leaf peony. It is native to the Caucasus Mountains, with large fields found in Vashlivani National Park in Georgia and the Black Sea coast of Ukraine, spreading westward into Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia and eastward to northwestern Kazakhstan. It was described by Linnaeus in 1759. The leaves are finely divided into almost thread-like segments and grow close together on the stems. This peony can reach 30–60 cm (12–24 in) in height. The scented red flowers have numerous yellow stamens in the centre.
The Alpine Garden Society headquarters are at Pershore, Worcestershire. It is an "International Society for the cultivation, conservation and exploration of alpine and rock garden plants, small hardy herbaceous plants, hardy and half-hardy bulbs, hardy ferns and small shrubs".
Geranium renardii is a species of hardy flowering herbaceous perennial plant in the genus Geranium, in the family Geraniaceae. It is native to the Caucasus region between Europe and Asia. Growing to 30 cm (12 in) tall and broad, it has palmate leaves and pale pink flowers striped violet. This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. It grows well in sunny positions or shade both and well drained soils.
The North American Native Plant Society (NANPS) is a volunteer-operated, registered charitable organization concerned with conserving native plants in wild areas and restoring indigenous flora to developed areas. It is noted for its work in educating business and the public about the benefits of using native plants, and its work in promoting native species through plant sales and seed exchanges has been credited with the resurgence of some species. It also maintains a list of local native plant societies across the United States and Canada.
Iris hoogiana is a plant species in the genus Iris, it is also in the subgenus Iris and in the section Regelia. It is a rhizomatous perennial, from the grassy mountainsides of Turkestan. It has long green leaves, which are slightly purple at the base, and a long slender flowering stem. The flowers are blue, ranging from sky-blue to lavender blue and blue purple. It has orange or yellow beards. It is cultivated as an ornamental plant in temperate regions.