accumulator everywhere know what it is like to have a pursuit — an ongoing hunt for the one little porcelain box seat or wheat penny or 1950 ’s lunchbox that will make it all worthwhile . A good part of the joy of collecting in the search for the missing pieces that will fill up in the ingathering . For some people the hunt is everything , and there are even those gatherer who will deal off a completed collection because the thrill of the Salmon Portland Chase is over .
As a gardener I am also a collector , to the extent that space and financial resources tolerate . From time to time I bestow to my solicitation of intercrossed musk roses . I am finical about my hybrid musks , select only those breed in the first third of the twentieth century by the Rev. Joseph Pemberton , an English man of the cloth . The one elision to this rule is ‘ Buff Beauty ’ , an exquisite cultivar bred after Pemberton ’s death by Anne Bentall , the wife of the cleric ’s nurseryman .
I am just starting to collect lungworts ( Pulmonaria ) , which I love for their spotted parting and adorable blue or pink blossoms . Lungworts are ideal collector ’s plant because they are pocket-size , thus allow even multitude with minuscule plots to cumulate many unlike species and cultivar . If I had space and a endowment for rob banks I would also acquire Chinese Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree peony , which have huge silky blossoms in a kitchen stove of beguiling spook . just take care at one make you require to babble superlatives in Mandarin .
But for me the Holy Grail of works collecting is Geranium renardii . This smallish anthesis plant is one of many hardy geraniums that are useful in an array of gardening situations . I first saw this paragon of horticultural virtue in an English garden magazine , and I was straight off smitten . It was spotlight as a “ notable ” plant , and photographed in a peculiarly entrancing way , with a unmarried efflorescence backlit like Barbra Striesand in one of her more recent movies .
Geranium renardii is a low - mature plant life , reaching 1 - foundation marvellous at the most , and spreading 1 - 3 - feet . It has the same incise farewell as other cranesbills , but its leaf are silvery - green . One of the works source sources maintains that “ leaf , rather than flush , is the master attraction with this repeated Geranium . ” I beg to differ . The flowers are minuscule , but endearing , emollient to ivory in color , with an almost opalescent timber . Each petal is vein in purpleness , and , from sure angle , the prime seem almost pansy - like .
Having get sexual love at first mickle when I glimpse Geranium renardii , I place about attempt to incur one . Hardy Geraniums have grown increasingly popular in recent year , so there are mickle of them in the catalogue . I found lots of Geranium striate body , Geranium catabridgiense and one of my favorites , Geranium macrorrhizum ; but not a single renardii . In desperation I turn to the celebrated Heronswood nursery . One of Heronswood ’s founders is a fabled plant hunter , and I fancy if Hersonswood did not have Geranium renardii , no one would .
Heronswood had some 74 cranesbill mintage and cultivars , but no Geranium renardii . In despair I browse the web , and chance that a few other gardeners were obviously engaged in the same pursuit . At long last I found the physical object of my desire , on the website for a nursery in Sharon , Connecticut . I grabbed feverishly for my credit card , ready to make an instant commitment . suppose my revulsion when I found out that I could not order Geranium renardii online , over the telephone set , or even through the mail . The only way to get this much - desired item is to move around to Sharon , Connecticut and pick one ( or two or three ) from a nursery palette .
Some multitude may consider driving all the room to Connecticut to prevail a single crane’s bill squanderer in terms of both sentence and money . Still , this is one urge that I must satisfy . In a calendar week or so , when the weather in Connecticut becomes more temperate , I will go to the glasshouse in Sharon . Neither rain nor snow nor the Highway Patrol ( of New Jersey or Connecticut ) will stop me . I will get my cranesbill . When the rush of the chase is over , and I have it back in my rest home garden , I will spoil it , look out it uneasily , and , hopefully , look up to it when it bursts into flush . With any fortune it will be like other hardy geranium and increase over time , so I can give divisions to my horticulture friends . As with all undecomposed things , Geranium renardii should be spread around .
Once I have lots of Geranium renardii , I think it would be marvelous to interplant them throughout my collection of pulmonaria , and mass them at the understructure of my hybrid musk rose . After all , collections are meant to be displayed.by E. Ginsburg
