AGS Loughborough Spring Show Report 2025

Despite a schedule which does not favour Ranunculaceae, Hepaticas took centre stage at the Show this year, with Chris Lilley’s Hepatica japonica ‘Anstonian’ (a name given after a previous appearance at the Joint Rock Committee) winning another deserved Farrer medal.

Chris keeps this plant outside for most of the year, only bringing it into a greenhouse as the flower buds form, but keeping it cool and shaded to ensure that it maintains a low profile and intense blue colour (Chris lamented in the afternoon how it had etiolated during the show).  Chris’s exhibits also included two other large hepaticas, each one a deep red: H. nobilis and H. japonica, entered in the Europe and Asia geographical classes respectively.

My own hepatica exhibit was somewhat more modest and easily overlooked, but it contained a fully double, two-tone H. japonica grown from Diane Clements’ seed from H. japonica ‘Meiko’.  This parent plant has produced a plethora of different forms over the years, demonstrating what can be achieved from seed, as well as the importance of contributions to our own seed exchange, which often included damp-packed hepatica seed to ensure that it maintains its viability.

The H. japonica ex Tessin that Don Peace exhibited in his winning six pan exhibit, ultimately derived from a damp packed seed exchange donation, had larger, slightly paler flowers than many that I have seen, further emphasising the variety of forms from seed.

The genus also featured strongly in the intermediate section, where Christine Jarvis exhibited a six-pan consisting of a rich variety of immaculate hepaticas.

Christine did not have it all her own way in a highly competitive section, however, as was emphasised by the three pan saxifrage entries of Graham Anderson and Alex O’Sullivan.  This class was won by Graham, but it was Alex who took the overall Intermediate aggregate.

Graham Anderson also featured in an encouragingly competitive Novice Section, taking the aggregate.  His Saxifraga ‘Vercerni Hvezda’ was a star plant, but he was pushed closely by Sue Miles and Lou Nicholls; Sue’s white flowered also Cyclamen coum also standing out.

And then there were bulbs.  It was good to see the striking colours of Tecophilaea making an appearance at our shows again, and the three large pans of different forms shown by Bob and Rannveig Wallis certainly made an impact.

These and many other excellent bulbous plants, including the six pan monocotyledon class enabled them to take the Open Section aggregate for the fourth consecutive show.

Also, two exceptional dwarf Narcissi were selected for awards and, as one would expect, their exhibits included several interesting fritillarias.

However, it was other people’s frits which particularly attracted the judges.  Ian Robertson demonstrated his talent at growing bulbous plants, in addition to cyclamen, with a large pan of the Chinese Fritillaria davidii.  Requiring special treatment, this is a plant that many people find difficult to grow.

But, it was John Dixon, at his local show, who won the best bulb and best 19cm plant with a beautiful Fritillaria aurea; a plant of small stature but with large deep yellow, tessellated flowers – the egg plant as John terms it. Understood to be a Paul Furse collection, it was given to John by Robert Rolfe some 35 years ago and it is clearly a good clone.

John has learnt that it best kept cool throughout the year and that it should not be allowed to dry out too quickly.  He keeps it in a damp sand plunge in a well-ventilated greenhouse throughout the summer giving it an occasional watering during winter, with much more regular watering and low nitrogen fertiliser whilst in growth.  The compost is a 50/50 mix of JI and sharp grit with a little sand and composted bark.  It is propagated from rice grains and also comes relatively true from seed.  This all seems to work well.

I shouldn’t forget shrubs so I’ll finish where I started with a Chesterfield Group member.  The “seedling” of the early flowering Rhododendron praecox exhibited by John Savage gave us a taste of future shows.  John keeps his rhodos outside all year round, but has a talent to get them in great flowering shape for the shows.

Reporter: Bob Worsley
Photographer: Jon Evans