2012/13 Catalogue - Edulis Nursery

OUR CATALOGUES ARE RARER THAN OUR PLANTS!
Much to my joy, I have managed to produce a catalogue at last. The frenetic pace of running a nursery alongside
a landscape design business, and the shear pleasure of being in the mountains has meant that spring has often
been upon me without a catalogue in site.
Many of you will know us from the large number of fairs and shows we have attended over the past decade or so.
Last year, we had great success with the garden I designed for The Garlic Farm at the Hampton Court Flower
Show. Gold and Best in Class was a nice surprise! Following this, I decided to create a display at the Chelsea
Flower Show and we are in the Grand Pavilion this year. Which is proving to be an exciting challenge!
Edulis Nursery came out of the desire to grow unusual perennial edible plants for the gardens I was designing at
Paul Barney – Landscape. These plants were simply not available or not in sufficient quantity to use for
landscaping. We have created a number of permaculture and forest gardens in the years since 1994. One of the
most celebrated being the Edible Roof Garden at RISC (www.risc.org.uk/gardens/). For many years my collection
of edible plants grew, but with little commercial sense, as nobody wanted to buy them. So the nursery was kept
viable by selling rare and unusual plants, also used in my landscape schemes. In the early 2000s, people would
ask ‘What is edible about this?’ and I had to explain that not everything we grow is edible. So my collection of
unusual plants expanded with the edibles as I travelled to flora rich mountain areas like Chile, Bhutan, Crete,
Morocco, Vietnam & Georgia.
Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in ‘Grow your own’ and sustainable growing. These days, plants
like Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolia) are in big demand. A plant I might have sold just 5 of in 2003! Little known
fruits like the Chilean Guava (Ugni molinae) are becoming well known. We have a particularly hardy form (Ugni
molinae PAB 1347) I collected from a car park in Pucon, Chile (with ruptured Achilles tendon!). Other perennial
vegetables like Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) are also being recognized and good yields are being achieved by allotment
holders everywhere.
Inspirational books like Ken Fern’s Plants for a Future helped spread interest. With more recent titles like A Taste
of the Unexpected by Mark Diacono (of River Cottage fame) has made the more unusual more usual! The
Szechwan Pepper (Zanthoxylum sp.) is another hardy spice brought to the fore recently, is seen on the cover of
Mark’s book. This is a small tree that favors our climate and produces hundreds of bright pink ‘peppercorns’. I
was in Guizhou, China, last autumn and saw numerous varieties of Szechuan pepper on sale. I hope to be able to
introduce some of these over the coming years and each species having a different balance of ‘ma’ and ‘la’ (A
tingly numbing and spicy hot flavour)
An exciting new introduction to the nursery has been the Hooker’s Onion (Allium hookeri ‘Zorami’). My wife, Tete,
is from Mizoram, and on one of our many trips to the market in Aizawl, I saw a strange root on offer. This turned
out to be Allium hookeri. All parts of this delightful allium are edible and it flowers over a very long period up to the
first frosts. The flowers are a bee and hoverfly magnet, to the extent they actually prefer it to other plants like
lavender. At Wisley Flower Show last year, the bees were seen on this allium when no other plants had bees. We
have 4 forms in the nursery, the form ‘Zorami’ is particularly robust with large strappy leaves. And can be used in
cooking. Having travelled parts of China and India, I see that A. hookeri is used by the poorer mountain families
and is grown around many settlements in mountainous areas.
Any plants that are attractive to the hard pressed honey bee, are of interest in the nursery. A number of native
perennials we grow purely for their beauty and bee friendliness. The Melancholy Thistle (Cirsium heterophyllum)
and Devil’s Bit Scabious (Succisa pratensis) are a couple of excellent bee plants. Our display of C. heterophyllum
at The Garden Show at Stansted Park always attracts hundreds of bumble bees. Followed closely by interested
onlookers.
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