Home Index Web Stuff Copyright Links Me

Saxifraga 'Southside Seedling'



A large growing hybrid that I bought in a local garden centre which amost certainly means it is a seed grown plant. It is probably the best known and most reliable of the saxifrages with large white flowers marked with red. My plant surprised me by going up to flower in the first summer and then dropping dead.

Granted an Award of Merit by the AGS when it was exhibeted by Ingwersens in May 1953, the record says:

"This is an outstanding hybrid of garden origin with foliage like that of S. cotyledon and arching 18 inch sprays of white, wide-rayed flowers with rounded petals, each marked with a broad crmson "flash". "

Writing in the Bulletin for 1994, Peter Smith gives the warning:

"these never figure prominently with me when consideration is given to 'good and true' Saxifraga 'Southside Seedling' because there are so many poor forms in circulation, largely, I suspect, because so much stock is grown from seed."
1st May 2016



Beryl Bland wrote-up the RHS trial of silver saxifrages for the 'Bulletin' in 2005. She said:

"There have been some good chance finds over the years, not least the plnt known as 'Southside Seedling'. This was a sport forst found in the garden of G. J. Sutton in Cobham, and received an Award of Merit in 1951. It was the cause of much discussion at the trial. There should, ideally, be only one plant carrying the name 'Southside Seedling', and one that matches the original description; however, it is obvious that many seedlings have come into cultivation. Some of these are very good plants and have striking red-splashed petals, while others are pale, insignificant shadows of the original and should have been composted. A 'Southside Seedling Group' was decided on to remedy this problem."




30th May 2016 4th June 2016 16th June 2016



References:

  • Bulletin of the AGS, Vol.21, Page.306 (1953)
  • Smith, Peter - 'Another Twelve', Bulletin of the AGS, Vol.62, Part.2 (1994)
  • Bland, Beryl - 'Silver saxifrages on trial', Bulletin of the AGS, Vol.73, Part.2 (2005)