Cally Gardens - The Mailing Catalogue

A mail order catalogue is published annually in November, with the plants sent the following spring. Over 400 varieties are included, with the selection changing by at least half each year to maintain interest. The catalogue is available by following the links below. Alternatively you can download the catalogue as a pdf file.

Since writing the last catalogue I have visited The Bale Mts., Ethiopia for the first time and returned to The Rwenzori Mts., Uganda and The Mishmi Hills on the India/Burma border. The idea that the world has all been explored years ago is quite wrong; there are many remote places with beautiful plants and landscapes waiting for anybody prepared to do the research and get off the beaten track.

The website now includes a list of most of the plants in the garden. This is intended to give prospective visitors an idea of the range of plants they can see here. In addition, we would value customers’ suggestions on which varieties they would like us to propagate for the catalogue in the future. The site is well illustrated with original photographs and includes sections on the garden with its history, the nursery, artists at Cally and a photographic diary of the 2001 plant hunting trip to China.

You will find here the usual varied selection with the emphasis on new and rare perennials. These come from other nurseries, here and abroad, by seed from expeditions and from exchanges with botanic gardens worldwide.

ORDERING Important- please read
Business is by mail order or collection using the enclosed order form and the plants will be dispatched in March and April. If you want your order to be acknowledged please enclose a stamped addressed envelope. All orders should be accompanied by a cheque or postal order made out to Cally Gardens including post and packing as follows: 10 plants and under add £7.50, 11-20 plants add £8.50, 21 plants and over add £10.00. Minimum order £15 excluding P&P. Any refunds for sold out varieties will be sent with the plants by cheque; no credit notes issued. Those who wish to collect their plants from the nursery in March or April should mark their order ‘to be collected’ and add no postage charge; you will be advised when they are ready by card or telephone. Many of these plants are available in very limited quantities and may take some years to build up before they can be sold again. Orders will be dealt with on a first come, first served basis and so early ones are most likely to succeed. Please indicate in the space provided on the order form which alternative you prefer in the event of some varieties being sold out. Substitutions will not be made unless specifically asked for.

ON ARRIVAL
Unpack your plants as soon as possible and plant when weather permits; if the soil is frozen or very wet keep pot-grown specimens and potted up divisions under cold glass until conditions improve and water sparingly. Delicate varieties (especially those marked * in the catalogue) should be kept under glass until frosts are over. Please let us know promptly if the plants are in bad condition - we will replace or send a refund for anything that arrives dead or ungrowable. N.B. Herbaceous perennials are often sent when dormant and signs of life may only be apparent on knocking the plant out of the pot.

HARDINESS
It is not really possible to predict where, geographically, a plant on the borderline of hardiness is likely to survive because the soil and the micro-climate of the planting site are so important. A plant will suffer much less from the effects of frost growing in light, well-drained soil at the base of a south or south-west facing wall in a city garden than in heavy soil in the open in the country. As a rough guide, plants which are likely to need extra care in the less favoured parts of Britain are marked with a *.

PLANT BREEDERS RIGHTS
Cally Gardens does not knowingly offer plants subject to Plant Breeder’s Rights and we will not apply for them on anything we introduce. This means that you are free to propagate for sale anything in our list without fear of prosecution, whether you are producing a few plants to sell locally or thousands to wholesale.
The reasons are:
(1) I believe that Nature should not be owned. Natural genetic material should be freely available to anybody with the energy and ingenuity to make use of it, as has always been the case, not the preserve of whoever manages to appropriate it first.
(2) The gardening public are being charged royalties for plant breeding that, in most cases, has never taken place. Most of these
plants came up by chance or were collected in other countries; proof that breeding work has taken place is not required to get PBR.
(3) There are no enforced rules on labelling and many PBR plants are not labelled as such, even by wholesalers. PBR plants that are labelled often say, “Propagation Illegal”, which is untrue – it is propagation for sale that is prohibited.
(4) Worthy old garden varieties are likely to be dropped by PBR-orientated growers in favour of similar or even inferior ‘new’ones which attract a royalty.
(5) Some nurseries simply rename PBR plants to avoid the royalties; other nurseries rename old varieties to get PBR..
(6) Both of the PBR systems currently in force here (UK and EEC) are riddled with inconsistencies and dubious practice. We have experienced attempts to charge us royalties on plants that turned out to be non PBR.
(7) PBR are part of a global trend towards the patenting of the natural world which is interfering with, at one end of the spectrum, scientists who need to collect and freely exchange natural material for research, and, at the other end, subsistence farmers who can’t now grow food varieties which they developed themselves over generations by selection, because these varieties have been appropriated and patented by western companies – and the farmers can’t afford the royalties.

PBR are driven by the business community’s appetite for appropriating valuable natural assets, and governments that charge £1,000’s to maintain PBR for a few years on one variety, whilst failing to regulate the system for the protection of the public who end up paying for it all. However, the solution lies with the gardening public who can defeat the system by simply not buying PBR plants and avoiding retailers who are unable to say if their plants are covered or not.
There is no public debate and a shortage of information to base it on. I have tried to remedy this with an article on the origins and implications of the PBR system that was published in the December 2005 issue of the RHS Plantsman magazine. This is available at www.callygardens.co.uk

Michael Wickenden

OPENING TIMES 2008

22nd MARCH – 28th SEPTEMBER,

TUESDAY - FRIDAY 2.00p.m. - 5.30p.m.,
SATURDAY & SUNDAY 10.00a.m. - 5.30p.m.
CLOSED MONDAYS and WEEKDAY MORNINGS

Groups or individuals wishing to visit at other times please write or e-mail. Our collection of 4,000 varieties can be seen and a selection of plants from this catalogue will be available in larger sizes plus rare kinds that never reach the lists. The £2.50 entry charge is helping to finance the restoration of 1,000’ of 18th c. brick walls and the old vinery. A season ticket costs £6.00.
To find Cally Gardens take the Gatehouse road off the A75 and turn left (coming from Dumfries) through the ornate gateway to The Cally Palace Hotel from where the gardens are well sign-posted.

NAMES AND DESCRIPTIONS
I have generally used the botanical names of plants as I have had them from other growers and can’t, therefore, absolutely guarantee they are correct. However, I believe that the vast majority are and have done my best to find the right name where doubt has arisen; for example when one plant has turned up under two different names. Horticultural varieties (clones) must, to remain true, be propagated by cuttings or divisions; all clones in this catalogue are vegetatively propagated except where stated.
For more detailed descriptions and evaluations of most of the herbaceous plants in this catalogue, see ‘Perennial Garden Plants’ by G.S. Thomas. For good photographs of a wide selection see ‘Perennials’, Vols. 1 & 2, by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix.

If you do not have Acrobat Reader, you can download it free from the Adobe Website.


		A mail order catalogue is published annually in November, with the plants sent the following spring. Over 400 varieties are included, with the selection changing by at least half each year to maintain interest. The catalogue is available by following the links below. Alternatively you can download the catalogue as a pdf file. 2007 - 2008 Catalogue (pdf 544K) Download Order Form (pdf 95K) The last date for the receipt of orders from this catalogue is April 15th 2008 CONTENTS Herbaceous Perennials A-F \| G-M \| N-T \| U-Z Grasses Ferns Shrubs Climbers Since writing the last catalogue I have visited The Bale Mts., Ethiopia for the first time and returned to The Rwenzori Mts., Uganda and The Mishmi Hills on the India/Burma border. The idea that the world has all been explored years ago is quite wrong; there are many remote places with beautiful plants and landscapes waiting for anybody prepared to do the research and get off the beaten track. The website now includes a list of most of the plants in the garden. This is intended to give prospective visitors an idea of the range of plants they can see here. In addition, we would value customers’ suggestions on which varieties they would like us to propagate for the catalogue in the future. The site is well illustrated with original photographs and includes sections on the garden with its history, the nursery, artists at Cally and a photographic diary of the 2001 plant hunting trip to China. You will find here the usual varied selection with the emphasis on new and rare perennials. These come from other nurseries, here and abroad, by seed from expeditions and from exchanges with botanic gardens worldwide. ORDERING Important- please read Business is by mail order or collection using the enclosed order form and the plants will be dispatched in March and April. If you want your order to be acknowledged please enclose a stamped addressed envelope. All orders should be accompanied by a cheque or postal order made out to Cally Gardens including post and packing as follows: 10 plants and under add £7.50, 11-20 plants add £8.50, 21 plants and over add £10.00. Minimum order £15 excluding P&P. Any refunds for sold out varieties will be sent with the plants by cheque; no credit notes issued. Those who wish to collect their plants from the nursery in March or April should mark their order ‘to be collected’ and add no postage charge; you will be advised when they are ready by card or telephone. Many of these plants are available in very limited quantities and may take some years to build up before they can be sold again. Orders will be dealt with on a first come, first served basis and so early ones are most likely to succeed. Please indicate in the space provided on the order form which alternative you prefer in the event of some varieties being sold out. Substitutions will not be made unless specifically asked for. ON ARRIVAL Unpack your plants as soon as possible and plant when weather permits; if the soil is frozen or very wet keep pot-grown specimens and potted up divisions under cold glass until conditions improve and water sparingly. Delicate varieties (especially those marked * in the catalogue) should be kept under glass until frosts are over. Please let us know promptly if the plants are in bad condition - we will replace or send a refund for anything that arrives dead or ungrowable. N.B. Herbaceous perennials are often sent when dormant and signs of life may only be apparent on knocking the plant out of the pot. HARDINESS It is not really possible to predict where, geographically, a plant on the borderline of hardiness is likely to survive because the soil and the micro-climate of the planting site are so important. A plant will suffer much less from the effects of frost growing in light, well-drained soil at the base of a south or south-west facing wall in a city garden than in heavy soil in the open in the country. As a rough guide, plants which are likely to need extra care in the less favoured parts of Britain are marked with a . PLANT BREEDERS RIGHTS Cally Gardens does not knowingly offer plants subject to Plant Breeder’s Rights and we will not apply for them on anything we introduce. This means that you are free to propagate for sale anything in our list without fear of prosecution, whether you are producing a few plants to sell locally or thousands to wholesale. The reasons are: (1) I believe that Nature should not be owned. Natural genetic material should be freely available to anybody with the energy and ingenuity to make use of it, as has always been the case, not the preserve of whoever manages to appropriate it first. (2) The gardening public are being charged royalties for plant breeding that, in most cases, has never taken place. Most of these plants came up by chance or were collected in other countries; proof that breeding work has taken place is not required to get PBR. (3) There are no enforced rules on labelling and many PBR plants are not labelled as such, even by wholesalers. PBR plants that are labelled often say, “Propagation Illegal”, which is untrue – it is propagation for sale that is prohibited. (4) Worthy old garden varieties are likely to be dropped by PBR-orientated growers in favour of similar or even inferior ‘new’ones which attract a royalty. (5) Some nurseries simply rename PBR plants to avoid the royalties; other nurseries rename old varieties to get PBR.. (6) Both of the PBR systems currently in force here (UK and EEC) are riddled with inconsistencies and dubious practice. We have experienced attempts to charge us royalties on plants that turned out to be non PBR. (7) PBR are part of a global trend towards the patenting of the natural world which is interfering with, at one end of the spectrum, scientists who need to collect and freely exchange natural material for research, and, at the other end, subsistence farmers who can’t now grow food varieties which they developed themselves over generations by selection, because these varieties have been appropriated and patented by western companies – and the farmers can’t afford the royalties. PBR are driven by the business community’s appetite for appropriating valuable natural assets, and governments that charge £1,000’s to maintain PBR for a few years on one variety, whilst failing to regulate the system for the protection of the public who end up paying for it all. However, the solution lies with the gardening public who can defeat the system by simply not buying PBR plants and avoiding retailers who are unable to say if their plants are covered or not. There is no public debate and a shortage of information to base it on. I have tried to remedy this with an article on the origins and implications of the PBR system that was published in the December 2005 issue of the RHS Plantsman magazine. This is available at www.callygardens.co.uk Michael Wickenden* OPENING TIMES 2008 22nd MARCH – 28th SEPTEMBER, TUESDAY - FRIDAY 2.00p.m. - 5.30p.m., SATURDAY & SUNDAY 10.00a.m. - 5.30p.m. CLOSED MONDAYS and WEEKDAY MORNINGS Groups or individuals wishing to visit at other times please write or e-mail. Our collection of 4,000 varieties can be seen and a selection of plants from this catalogue will be available in larger sizes plus rare kinds that never reach the lists. The £2.50 entry charge is helping to finance the restoration of 1,000’ of 18th c. brick walls and the old vinery. A season ticket costs £6.00. To find Cally Gardens take the Gatehouse road off the A75 and turn left (coming from Dumfries) through the ornate gateway to The Cally Palace Hotel from where the gardens are well sign-posted. NAMES AND DESCRIPTIONS I have generally used the botanical names of plants as I have had them from other growers and can’t, therefore, absolutely guarantee they are correct. However, I believe that the vast majority are and have done my best to find the right name where doubt has arisen; for example when one plant has turned up under two different names. Horticultural varieties (clones) must, to remain true, be propagated by cuttings or divisions; all clones in this catalogue are vegetatively propagated except where stated. For more detailed descriptions and evaluations of most of the herbaceous plants in this catalogue, see ‘Perennial Garden Plants’ by G.S. Thomas. For good photographs of a wide selection see ‘Perennials’, Vols. 1 & 2, by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix. Order Form You can download a copy of the order form here. Download Order Form pdf. If you do not have Acrobat Reader, you can download it free from the Adobe Website. Back to top
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