Jim Archibald: through the eyes of others
This section will present comments large and small, about Jim and his work.
We begin with Jim’s obituary from the British newspaper, the Telegraph, to whom we are grateful for the use of this article.
James Cartledge Archibald - Telegraph Obituary - click here
12th July 2015
John Gosden writes "I was very pleased to discover this archive for Jim Archibald. I first met Jim when he was still partnered with Eric Smith as 'The Plantsmen' in Devon, and he became a good friend though sometimes overpoweringly scented with tobacco! He often stayed with us on his visits to Scotland to see family, and generously repaid our hospitality with gifts of his plants".
Added April 1st 2015
"Four individuals that have vastly inspired my career are Jim Archibald, Edgar T. Wherry, Mary Gibson Henry, and my friend Dr. Warren Stoutamire. I will never forget the first Archibald seed list I ever received. It was a revelation. Although I had been earlier influenced by Dan Hinkley’s collecting forays into southeast Asia, Jim Archibald’s work was concentrated primarily in eastern Turkey and Iran. Collecting in those regions had never crossed my mind and the seed lists opened up the flora of an entire region to me. Traveling to and collecting in Iran is still one of my life goals."
Added September 2013 : David Glenn of Lambley Nursery in Victoria, Australia has recently penned this little article on his garden notes blog about the Archibalds with reference to some of their collections of successful perennials: Jim and Jenny Archibald
Thanks to Marcus Harvey for providing this information.
You will find other tributes to Jim in the Forum from the SRGC, including messages from the sites other organisations.
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The Garden of Jim and Jenny Archibald
English gardener and nurseryman, Dr. Tim Ingram, from Kent, is a passionate believer in the importance of gardens, particularly in the context of organisations such as the SRGC and its sisters. He has written of his impresssions of Bryn Collen, the garden of Jim and Jenny in Wales.This article has been published in the September 2012 issue of International Rock Gardener
"Bryn Collen" by Tim Ingram
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From the other side of the world came this message from Lesley Cox in Dunedin, New Zealand, along with this poem, written for Jim by Marcus Harvey, Tasmanian nurseryman and plant hunter:
September 27, 2010 from Lesley Cox
Yesterday I received a packet of seeds from Marcus Harvey of Hillview Rare Plants in Tasmania, and he also sent, by email, the following poem, his personal tribute to Jim Archibald and inspired by Jim's preamble to his March 2001 seedlist, and entitled "Gateway to Paradise." It refers to the last subsection of the list, subtitled "Seller of Dreams".
Harvest
A summer’s harvest
Lies scattered before me
This spill of tiny dreams
Like unopened messages
Ripe with possibilities
Now my bespangled thrall
Grit, grain, seed, burr and thistledown
State of the art packaging
Forged in the elemental
Germed with new beginnings
This is God’s Holy Dust
Each bears its marks of kin
Jostling with inheritance
Some leafed in emerald
Some earthed in cinnabar
Primped in rock and light
Sphere, parachute, wing and arrow
the geometry of survival
Prodigious instruction distilled within
Root tap, stem sap, shoot
The whole miracle set to spring
What great hopes for such small packages
Not windblown nor water-washed
But transplanted by desire
Unwitting emissaries sprouting
Love letters arriving with the sun.
Marcus Harvey on Jim A :
................ my absolute first choice is the recently departed Scottish plant hunter Jim Archibald.
For the last 20 years Jim and his wife, Jenny sent out to every corner of the world their seed catalogue. It always came unadorned, on A4, double-sided, plain white paper. No pictures, no drawings, just word descriptions, collection numbers, people and place names. It was The Bible to plant collectors, a compendium of a lifetime of plant hunting journeys and a cornucopia of dream plants. Jim could write the horticultural equivalent of the "20 second grab". But it was his preambles I looked forward to the most. He wrote on many subjects. His observations were pithy and irreverent but never boring, and often insightful. In 2001 in a piece entitled, Seller of Dreams, he wrote, "We are the sellers of dreams. We sell dreams to ourselves and hope to pay for their reality by work and knowledge. We sell dreams to you. What are seeds but dreams in packets?"
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Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery, Juniper Level, North Carolina
“In sad news, the horticulture world lost a huge stalwart on August 9, with the untimely passing of the UK’s Jim Archibald, age 68. Jim is survived by his wife, Jenny, a son, and daughter. Jim and Jenny ran Archibald Seed, making available seed from their wild collections from around the world. For several years, Jim had been receiving treatments for skin cancer, but his condition had recently deteriorated. For those unfamiliar with Archibald Seed, this was the list to acquire the newest and rarest perennials, bulbs, and rock garden plants. There are few top-level gardeners worldwide who don’t grow plants from Archibald Seed. We were fortunate to have Jim and Jenny visit the nursery in 2006. The Archibald’s were also featured in Bobby Ward’s book The Plant Hunter's Garden: The New Explorers and Their Discoveries.”
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Why is any plant hunter important?
From the Foreword by Brian Mathew MBE, VMH to "The Plant Hunter's Garden: the New Explorers and Their Discoveries":
“Many gardeners are vaguely aware of the "greats" of plant exploration, such as E. H. Wilson, George Forrest, or John Tradescant. Fewer may know the names of today's plant explorers or recognize the makings of a new golden age of plant discovery. Nonetheless, a quick visit to almost any nursery will reveal the bounty of these intrepid plant collectors, whose handiwork enriches gardens everywhere. The Plant Hunter's Garden profiles 32 of today's more prolific plant hunters. From the Czech Republic to the Rocky Mountains, Bobby Ward has sought out those explorers in the private sphere who are collecting plants specifically for horticultural introduction. While providing interesting details on the lives and careers of these new explorers, the real focus of the book is on the plants themselves. Ward asked each of the hunters to choose the very best treasures from their years of collecting, and has sumptuously illustrated these jewels in stunning photos. Many plants in these pages became bestsellers quickly after introduction from the wild, but hundreds more underappreciated gems are sure to entice and surprise any reader of this book. From the comfort of the armchair or the potting-shed table, readers of The Plant Hunter's Garden can embark on their own voyages of discovery in these delightful pages.” Brian Mathew
Thus we learn from the botanist, horticulturalist and author, Brian Mathew, one of the greatest and most respected plantsmen and bulb experts, of the significance of plant hunters to us.
Bobby Ward has been kind enough to allow the publishing here of his chapter on Jim and Jenny Archibald from his acclaimed book "The Plant Hunter's Garden: the New Explorers and Their Discoveries" (Timber Press 2004) as well as his article on Modern Plant Hunters from “The Rock Garden” (#114 from 2005)
Bobby J. Ward, who lives Raleigh, North Carolina, is a retired environmental scientist, garden writer, and book author and international speaker with an undergraduate degree in biology and masters and doctorate degrees in botany and plant physiology. He is a past president of the North American Rock Garden Society and continues his involvement a local and national level.
Click for: Archibald chapter from ‘The Plant Hunter’s Garden’ by Bobby Ward
Click for: ‘Plants without Borders’ from The Rock Garden by Bobby Ward
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There are further tributes to Jim in these two issues of the International Rock Gardener: # 8 August 2010 and #9 September 2010, including an article by Plant Hunter , John Watson.
John Kitt -from Hobart, Tasmania, writing in the SRGC Forum on September 24, 2010
I have just read for the second time Issue 9 of The International Rock Gardener and the tributes to Jim Archibald. As some one who has not been part of this community long enough to have anything but the most fleeting awareness of the name Jim Archibald, I have to say how impressed I am by these articles. The major contribution is obviously testament to the man written in an engaging, informative, sensitive and polished style that makes me feel I am the poorer for not knowing more about Jim.
I was fascinated by the anecdotes on the earlier "plant hunters" and the tirade against some academics! It causes me to reflect on the generosity and humility of all the gardeners I have met and know. It re-enforces for me the value of this forum. There are, I know, highly qualified academics who are members of this forum, who meet with me regularly in the spirit of sharing in a common community and for which I am enormously grateful.
To those others, our advice should be - JOIN A GARDEN CLUB and change your life.
Malcolm McGregor, Driffield, UK. Editor of the NARGS quarterly, former Editor 'The Rock Garden', August 10, 2010:
Losing a great plant collector is always one of those moments when you remember just how much pleasure they've brought to so many people because they spent their lives doing just what it was they wanted to do. Jim will be very much missed - one of the great plantsmen.
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Noel Kingsbury,who lives in Hay-on-Wye in the England/Wales border area, is well known as a garden writer and is a great admirer of Jim Archibald. He has written warmly of Jim in his online diary, Noel's Garden Blogspot. Thanks to Noel for his enthusiastic support of this project and his permission to print his article on Jim here:
Noel’s Garden Blogspot : Sunday, August 22, 2010
Jim Archibald, who died last week, was one of the 'last of the great plant hunters'. This is what I wrote about him for an obituary to be published in The Daily Telegraph.
For those of us in the gardening world who enjoy the challenge of growing unusual and rare plants, the annual arrival of a seedlist from Jim and Jenny Archibald was keenly awaited. Unillustrated, and consisting of A4 sheets stapled together, it would inevitably list scores of intriguing plants, mostly offered as seed collected in the wild. Some would be new forms of familiar species, some species of groups we know and are familiar with, but many would be completely unknown. However it was the introduction that many of us would read most keenly. Who would be Jim Archibald’s target this year: a botanist whose opinions on plant naming he disagreed with, the Royal Horticultural Society, Kew Gardens, or someone being holier-than-thou about the ethics of collecting seed in the wild? The introduction was always erudite, well-informed, witty and often very hard-hitting; in the world of gardening, where there is little openly-expressed disagreement they were a true tonic.
Archibald’s career as a freelance plant hunter and seedsman extraordinaire began, appropriately, with another plant catalogue. That of Jack Drake, a famous grower of perennials and alpines in Aviemore. As a teenager Archibald was a keen gardener, and it was the listing of some plants grown from an expedition to Nepal in 1954 which fired his enthusiasm. His holidays were spent working at Drake’s nursery, and even at university (Edinburgh), where he read English Language and Literature, he continued to grow, and even sell, unusual plants. Early trips to look at plants growing wild and collect seed followed, to Corsica and Morocco.
Travelling, often in out of the way places, looking for plants was soon established as a lifestyle. He would make light of the process, I remember him telling me once that “seed collecting in the past might have involved intrepid hikes or perilous adventures on donkeys but these days the road system makes it a lot easier, we rarely need to go anywhere more than a few hours from at least a track”. But soon he would talking casually about collecting alpine plants from the “mountains of the Iran/Iraq border region”. Then there is the story, legendary amongst alpine plant enthusiasts, of ‘the van to Van’, when he and Jenny towed a caravan to eastern Turkey, to use as a base for seed collecting.
The only period Archibald was not spending at least part of the year travelling, it was running a nursery – The Plantsman, near Sherborne in Dorset, from 1967 to 1983. Working in conjunction with Eric Smith, it was the forerunner of the great many small specialist nurseries which make the British gardening scene so vibrant. The Plantsman was famous for its hellebores and hostas, many varieties bred by Smith. Unable to make a success of the nursery as a business, Jim turned to his first love, of travelling.
Usually accompanied by Jenny, who he had met in the early 1970s, Archibald established an annual cycle of summer and autumn seed collecting, selling the seed in the winter and spring. With a clear focus on alpines and small bulbs, JJA Seeds sold primarily to enthusiastic amateurs, but also to botanic gardens (at least until the restrictions of the Convention on Bio-Diversity made this difficult) and nurseries. Some of his bulb introductions were used by Dutch breeders to produce new varieties for the general public, but it was commercial growers of alpine and rock plants who relied on him for a constant supply of interesting plants; it is reckoned that almost anyone growing such plants today will have some which originated as JJA seed.
Famed for his memory, Archibald seemed to have an almost photographic memory for the plants he collected, even able to take fellow travellers back to the exact rock where he found a particular plant, many years after he first visited the spot. His favourite hunting grounds for the plants he loved were the mountains of Iran and Turkey; occasional run-ins with military check-points or secret police did little to dent his enthusiasm. In later years he spent more time in the mountains of the western USA, often working alongside the growing number of local botanist-gardeners who were passionate about both seeing their native flora in the wild and growing it.
Archibald was resolutely not commercial. Many times I tried to persuade him to pay more attention to collecting seed from larger herbaceous plants – apart from anything else they could have been more remunerative, but he stuck to what he loved.
Many of us also wished that Archibald had taken up journalism. Those seedlist introductions were always worth re-reading – barbs flung (but always politely) at the pomposity of botanists who concealed data (supposedly in the name of conservation), at the effects of political-correctness on horticulture, at the dogmatic application of ill-thought out quasi-legal concepts like the Convention on Bio-diversity or Plant Breeders Rights.
Archibald’s knowledge and ability to communicate it was recognised by the Alpine Garden Society, who in 2003 gave him their highest award – the Lyttel Trophy, given annually in recognition of a lifetime of achievement in contributions to the growing of alpine plants, their culture and botany. His incredibly wide circle of friends and colleagues in the garden and botanical worlds will remember a man of great intellectual integrity, enormous and infectious enthusiasm, who combined real erudition and learning with an ability to communicate it, and great personal warmth. Eloquent too, one seedlist introduction ended - “we sell dreams to ourselves and hope to pay for their reality by work and knowledge…what are seeds but dreams in packets?”
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Harvey Wrightman - Canadian Nurseryman, in his blog Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
"When I built our house in SW Ontario, we finally had the opportunity to act on the inspiration. Using the few stones available, the first rock garden took shape and I began looking for the plants. There were so few commercial sources in North America and though it’s hard to imagine, there was no internet search, so growing from seed was the best choice. At that time, “shares” in a seed collecting expedition was the norm; but, this always gave the impression that distribution was based on a fraternal basis, with those deemed as superior growers, receiving preferential treatment.
Jim Archibald and the Czech seed collectors democratized the process to a simple commercial exchange, which suited me better. The best aspect about rock gardening is that it is an egalitarian experience. Money and class status mean nothing, and the Czechs, who suffered through 40 years of totalitarian suppression, have provided us with the most advances in both plant material and cultural methods. I wonder where the next generation of seed collectors will come from. I can’t say with certainty, but I can speculate it will be China. The recent Czech collections from there comprise a whole section of their own; they may become the largest section. China is still controlled with a heavy hand. It is illegal for citizens there to collect seed for commerce. Having escaped the last great glaciation, the diversity of the alpine flora is huge. A growing number of locals with expertise are interested in this flora. One wonders what ideas they will offer. This will all develop, heavy hand or not. All it takes is the inspiration of a vision."
Harvey Wrightman on Fissures and Eritrichium:
"20 years ago I was enthralled with offering of Eritrichium howardii seed in Jim & Jenny Archibald’s North American collections list, “…Dead Indian Pass NW of Cody. 2800m. Limestone gravel patches and rock fissures…this is certainly not impossible to cultivate well….of course it needs superb drainage and protection from winter wet….Silver rosettes packed into dense cushions, to 10 cm. across, covered with the purest blue flowers on 5 cm. stems. (10 seeds @ $7) Taking that sitting down, one packet was enough, and I don’t recall any success. 10 years on I was able to germinate and plant to a tufa piece a seedling that was very vigorous and gradable, e. howardii ‘blue sky’. More have followed and the plants raised from cuttings are far easier to handle. In Jim’s notes there is valuable information:
1. The preference for rich, limestone-derived soil ( mineral rich) and growing in narrow crevices ( keeping the crown dry and provides a cool root run).
2. The location near Dead Indian Pas, though relatively high at 2800 m., is very hot in summer. This is to the good, as many eritrichium sp. are not so heat tolerant.
The notes about culture in Europe are not so useful. We can grow it outside without protection. This point was recently brought home to me when John Mitchell, the supervisor for the alpine section of RBG, Edinburgh commented on the range of plants we grow outside that they cannot, and so must grow as specimens in pots. Winter wet is the main problem. One coping strategy for such conditions is to plant directly in/on tufa, and indeed, the RBG had just bought a load for that purpose. You can still fail with tufa if you don’t adjust, “radicalize”, your methods. Humans are creatures of habit and we dislike challenges to our approved practices. But Jim’s notes say it simply and best, “…Limestone gravel patches and rock fissures”. He also noted that they had collected seed from plants they had grown – a sign of hope for those of us with no experience.
In the same list was Eritrichium nanum var. aretioides from both Colorado and Wyoming. Most interesting are the different soil conditions. On Pike’s Peak, soils are a “granite grit” vs. those of the Big Horn Mts., “…exposed, stony ridges on hard limestone”. My recollection is masses of e. nanum growing on fertile, rocky pastures on Hunt Mt. in the Big Horn’s. The soil was actually a heavy, silt/loam and would grow an excellent vegetable garden. The two collections are not so different as the soil data would suggest. I have plants of both and they grow equally well. As Jim notes, “…While more difficult than E. howardii, the N. American races seem easier than those from the Alps... the classic arctic-alpine of the N. hemisphere. Purest blue flowers on silver-haired cushions.” I have only been growing them for ~ 3 years, but in a narrow, elevated clay crevice, the plants have grown much better than I expected, with 3 of the 7 seedlings surviving both summer and winter. Though E. nanum is more sensitive, I think that we will find a hardier plant among all the seedlings we grow much as what happened with E. howardii ‘blue sky’. The sight of masses of e. nanum growing with dodecatheon conjugens, douglasia montana and aquilegia jonesii , essentially in what is used as pasture for sheep, is much different idea than we might imagine, but so it is. At least here, one can see the plant’s need for a richer soils and its acceptance of some competition – it may be that there are co-operative benefits involved too. Often, I think, we treat plants as solitary specimens/individuals when they more likely need the benefit of association. Currently, I grow eritrichium using 2 methods. With freshly rooted cuttings, a compact “brush” of roots radiates from the lower stem. In this case, it is easy to drill a small (12mm) hole in tufa to a depth ~ 4cm. with the cutting in place, the hole is filled with Spanish River Carbonatite which provides nutrition, and the top part is capped with clay to prevent wash-out. The clay does not bother the stem and preventing wash-out is important. One may also “smear graft” a rooted cutting onto the tufa. It will quickly root into the stone. The tufa does slow down growth, but the plants are quite healthy."
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Panayoti Kelaidis, of Denver Botanic Garden is one of Jim Archibald's biggest "fans". Jim and Jenny held PK in great esteem as well, they made tremendous trips together and formed a firm friendship. Panayoti writes fondly and with great admiration, about Jim in his 'Prairie Break' blogspot.
This was his reaction to news of Jim's death:
" Several correspondents emailed me today to tell me that Jim Archibald died yesterday. I know and admire many people, but none more than I admired Jim. I respected and loved Jim with a sort of unalloyed quality hard to describe. Jim could be harsh (especially in the famous forwards to his catalog): and I loved it. He could be many things. I somehow approved and enjoyed everything he did. The three weeks we spent together in Africa are a highlight of my life. I treasure our too few visits in America and Britain. I think he was the greatest plant explorer ever, and the greatest plantsman in the world.
I am despondent that I will never again have the opportunity to hear that nasal Edinburgh twang, nor watch that pipe point demonstratively. I will miss the zingers and the thoughtful circumlocutions and the always wise observations and the zest for people and plants. Oh Jim! I will miss you.
Thank God my garden is full of treasures Jim and Jenny brought back from around the world. Like Campanula trogerae (above) and dozens of other Turkish, Greek and Spanish treasures.
O Captain, my captain. You've left us much too soon."
Panayoti Kelaidis:
Some days are emblazoned in one's heart and mind forever. The first time I crossed Joubert's Pass over the Witteberg in the East Cape (in January 1994) has to be emblazoned forever in my mind: I'd already spent a few weeks sampling the glories of the Drakensberg mountains proper, and then suddenly I found a whole new suite of plants, many of them xerophytes, on this spur of those great mountains and I realized how much remained to be learned. There was a most swale filled with Kniphofia uvaria at the base of the pass far from its more Westerly distribution, and spectacular Gladiolus saundersii in the foothills, joined soon by the equally dazzling orange form of Gladiolus dalenii. Gigantic angel rods (Dierama robustum) where dangling and swinging like censers everywhere in the meadows. On the rocky summit I was stunned to find Anacampseros rufescens, Pelargonium sidoides and other shrubby pelargoniums and especially this treasure of a succulent composite, Othonna capensis.
On subsequent trips I found this on many other mountains further westward in the East Cape, all looking very similar to my first find. I suspect anything in cultivation with this name stems from one of the collections I made in 1994 or on another unforgettable trip I took with the late and much lamented Jim Archibald in March of 1997. Although several nurseries offer this, no one seems to think the plant is very hardy. I suppose because it is a succulent it is relegated to very hot dry exposures, which is not really to the taste of this bona fide alpine. Here it has thrived for years for me in my rock garden at home, on a south facing slope to be sure, but shaded much of the day by giant Scots pines, and with a drenching every few days during the hotter months. It generally produces its first flowers in April and there is a sprinkling of bloom all the way to late autumn: this picture was taken in October, but I'll bet there will be some bloom in a few weeks in November even after some pretty hard frosts...eight months of winsome bloom, and a beautiful succulent mat the rest of the year. Not bad for this little waif from the White Mountains of the east Cape!
Lavender cloudburst Tuesday, August 9, 2011
A year ago we lost the greatest plant collector I have known: Jim Archibald succumbed still in his sixties to cancer. Just as Horace erected his monuments in poetry, a plant collector leaves graceful footprints in our gardens through the wonderful plants he introduces: my gardens are positively cluttered with Archibaldiana. I have a special weakness for a dozen or more Turkish Salvia that have somehow escaped Plant Select (I know, we have S. daghestanica, but that was a Zetterlund collection). Chief among these is this lovely lavender cloudburst: Salvia cyanescens which I have treasured since the early 1980's, here photographed in front of the Succulent house at Denver Botanic Gardens where it is now reblooming (a wonderful trait in a plant). I scattered seed of this at my girlfriend, Jan Fahs', house and there hundreds--nay thousands--of plants of this salvia have made a virtual groundcover. I filled a garbage bag with their crispy (and intensely aromatic) seedheads a few weeks ago: very gratifying. Here you can see the silky rosette of foliage. It looks for all the world like some sort of sexy gesneriad: a strangely delicate texture for a plant that thrives on heat and drought. I have grown this in several unwatered gardens where it thrives.
The Moonlight Larkspur Friday, June 29, 2012
It was 25 years ago last week that Jim and Jenny Archibald flew into Denver on their first expedition to Western America: how do I know this so precisely? Because the arrived the day my daughter, Eleni, was born (June 17, 1987)...we shall not dwell on a few of the amusing and not so amusing ramifications of this conjunction.
Suffice it to say that I was rather torn, shall we say, between my fatherly responsibilities and my pressing desire to host the premier plant explorers of the last half of the century. I couldn't WAIT to show off Denver Botanic Gardens to Jim and Jenny. And when I finally managed to shepherd them down there, I remember only two things: it took them forever to get down to the Rock Alpine Garden because Jim was so entranced with our Spuria collections (which we subsequently flushed), declaring it the best thing we had at the time...and seemingly the only plant in the Rock Alpine Garden which captivated Jim was Delphinium semibarbatum (better known by the zippy name Delphinium zalil) which I had obtained from Index Seminum. I had a stand of a couple plants forming astonishing golden candelabrums. These persisted for a number of years and they were at their apogee for Jim and Jenny exactly a quarter century ago...they persisted a few years and one day I realized they were gone....I regret that there are quite a few sad stories along these lines in my resume...but this one has a sort of happy sequel. Read on!
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Kenton J. Seth is American, one of the regrettably rare breed of young people who are setting out on their life in the great world of plants. Just 24 years old, he has but recently become a passionate student of rock gardening and is a nascent plant hunter who had the exciting experience of meeting Jim Archibald in Georgia 2010, when Kenton was on his first major expedition to see plants outside the USA and Jim was on what was to be his last plant hunting trip. You can see more on his website about his experiences on that trip, as well as his travels with Bob and Rannveig Wallis, themselves British plant hunters with a great interest in bulbs and great friends of Jim and Jenny.
Click HERE to see his blog....... and HERE
"In memory of the great Jim Archibald, whom many people agree was the present world's finest plantsman, who died this week. He and hıs wife Jenny are responsible for a vast enrıchment of plant materıals collected from the world over and delıvered to Botanic Gardens and private collections the world over. My heart absolutely sank when I read it- I was plannıng to visit him ın Wales ın the comıng months to see hıs work and thank hım for beıng so generous to me and the horticulture world.
You certainly made an impressıon on thıs young horticulturist, Jim. May you garden ın heaven and show them how ıt's done."
We are delighted to be able to republish Kenton's article from the NARGS Quarterly of Spring 2011.
NARGS (the North American Rock Garden Society) and SRGC work together on various projects and we are grateful to our friends there and to Kenton, for sharing this article.
Click on the title to read: 'Backpacking for flowers around the Caucasus'
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Tom Mitchell of Evolution Plants in Bradford-on-Avon wrote of Jim’s open-handedness to other plant hunters:
“Jim Archibald, who regularly publishes (sic) the world’s most interesting seed list took the time to write me a long letter with details of the plants I could expect to find in Hercegovina.”
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Kew Science Editors: Malin Rivers and Richard Wilford:
"Verbascum dumulosum (shrubby mullein)
Shrubby mullein is found only among the ruins of the ancient city of Termessus in Antalya, southern Turkey.
The genus Verbascum is represented by around 228 species in Turkey. Verbascum dumulosum is one of about 176 species found only in Turkey.
Verbascum dumulosum was introduced to cultivation from a collection of seeds made by Peter Davis (professor of plant taxonomy at Edinburgh University) and was widely grown by alpine gardeners in the 1950s and 1960s. In April 1952, the same year this species was described by Davis, it was awarded a Preliminary Commendation by the RHS and an Award of Merit a year later. It began to slip out of cultivation until seed collectors Jim and Jenny Archibald collected and reintroduced seed in the 1980s, and in May 1999 it was awarded a First Class Certificate."
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Sarah Raven, garden writer and broadcaster, from a Telegraph series on the best British nurseries, wrote in 2007 of being in the garden of Nick Macer, a 39-year-old plant collector.
"The nursery is in a walled garden and over one wall is a cricket pitch and pavilion. Over another is a honey-stoned manor and a Grade 1-listed Gothic orangery. With this as a backdrop, it feels like a charmed, private, enclosed world; you arrive expecting roses, delphiniums and peonies; pretty, frothy plants for a typical English herbaceous border. But there's not a hint of that here. As soon as I walked in, I spotted a big block of Euphorbia ceratopcarpa in pots……………………………………….
After this, I noticed the best clump of Lobelia tupa I have ever seen. This Chilean lobelia is unbelievably beautiful, dramatic but exquisite, with coral-red hooded flowers (this was an exceptionally tall form from the Jim Archibald collection). Here, silhouetted against the backdrop of the brick wall, it was the most glamorous thing I'd seen in any garden this year."
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To return to the main Archibald page, click here
In addition to the articles on this website, which includes over a hundred of our Journals, the SRGC has a huge resource of thousands of plant photos and information in the pages of the interactive Forum. The Forum is fully searchable and you may well find there all you need to know about a particular plant.
