I wrote this a year ago and have only actually decided to publish it just now. If you are interested in starting a National Collection, here’s how I started:
Today was a big day – I took a big step on the journey towards having a National Collection of plants. For a while, I have been compiling a list of cultivars and species of Armeria; today I contacted Plant Heritage who co-ordinate the scheme to take it to the next level.
Here’s my journey so far:
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Firstly I had to get at least a vague idea of what it involves and the challenges I may face. A bit of googling helped here!
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Then I decided what I wanted to focus on. I decided upon Armeria cultivars because I live on top of a cliff and have a small, windy garden. These plants would do well here and they look pretty all year round too.
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I then started making a long list in Excel of plants that I have (accessions) and plants that exist and I will need to try to get. Old Plant Finders (plus the RHS’s online version) and catalogues are a great resource along with World Flora Online. I’ve classified them into – green (plants I have), yellow (plants that will be easy to get), orange (plants that I should be able to get but might be a bit more difficult to track down) and red (plants that will be very difficult to get hold of). This should give me a nice idea of the scope of the collection and some things to aim for.
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Then today, I contacted a Collections assistant for advice.
The next major step will be submitting a proposal for a collection assuming that Plant Heritage are happy with everything to proceed.
Currently, my list is approaching 280 species and cultivars of Armeria. Cutting out all but a few species which have horticultural interest and duplicated/synonyms to leave cultivars takes the list down to about 150. Quite a lot seem to be American forms so with an import license should be easier to get hold of, but as it stands at the moment would be very hard – these I marked in red. Their status may therefore change over time. I strongly suspect some too have different names applied but are the same plant. For example, could A. maritima ‘Laucheana,’ A. maritima ‘Leucheana’ and A. maritima var. laucheana all be the same thing? Then there is A. maritima ‘Leucheana Six Hill’ which is potentially A. maritima ‘Six Hills.’ Then there are the ‘Roschens’, ‘Roses,’ ‘Pinks,’ ‘Roseas,’ and the ‘Rubras,’ ‘Reds’ and ‘Rossis.’ Are these just like A. maritima ‘Dusseldorfer Stolz’ and A. maritima ‘Dusseldorf Pride’ and actually relate to the same plant, just in a different language? Then there are the name changes. A. juniperifolia used to be A. caespitosa, but accounding to World Flora Online, A caespitosa is an accepted species along with A. juniperifolia.. So you can begin to get an idea of the challenge that lies ahead! But I wouldn’t be doing a PhD and doing this project alongside it if I didn’t like a challenge!
Update: My application is in and I should hear the outcome shortly after the 1st December – fingers crossed!
Second update: My application got approved and I’m now building the collection.
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