IT has become the mantra of many progressive nurserymen and garden designers that only by looking at plants in the wild can we understand how to use them in our gardens and to grow them well. Given the diverse origins of plants we grow in Britain, research at this level would need a lifetime of travel, but a good place to start might be South Africa, home to an astonishing 10% of the world's plants. Among the area's endemic treasures are tulbaghia, bulbs producing clusters of delicate flowers on wiry stems that resemble miniature agapanthus.
The genus has none of the diversity or exuberance of agapanthus, a near relative, but its dainty flowers, often in muted colours, coupled with an ability to flower for several months, make it an irresistible garden plant. On a visit to its native country, I saw the flowers everywhere: in supermarket car parks, private gardens, public parks, and municipal planting schemes. Yet it wasn't until I came across a meadow filled with hundreds of the plants that I began to see their true beauty. A pale-mauve haze hung over the ground and the air was gently perfumed with the scent of sweet onion. This was not something that could be replicated in a British garden, but the sight did make me want to grow more tulbaghia.
The genus is named after Ryk Tulbagh, an 18th-century governor of what was then the Dutch Cape Colony. He seems to have been an austere character, who legislated against all kinds of extravagance and frippery, including banning women from lining dresses with velvet or silk. He was, however, an intellectual and fascinated by the natural world.
Aware that the flora of southern Africa was far more diverse than Europe, he corresponded with several botanists and sent hundreds At night, the flowers of specimens to Carl Linnaeus. It was Linnaeus who named Tulbaghia, presumably unaware that he was honouring such a severe character with such a delicate flower.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
