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A dark rosetted cultivar that I bought from an AGS show on a whim. Raised by David Walkey,
a hybrid between S. 'Gaydon-Love' and S. 'Tysoe Splendour'.
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| 6th April 2017 | ||
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A dark rosetted cultivar that I bought from an AGS show on a whim. Raised by David Walkey,
a hybrid between S. 'Gaydon-Love' and S. 'Tysoe Splendour'.
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| 6th April 2017 | ||
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Dr. David Walkey died in 2017. In his obituary in the West Yorkshire AGS group, Eric Rainford wrote: "Over the last few years, David established himself as one of the leading Porophyllum Saxifraga hybridisers. His body of work speaks for itself - 65 quality cultivars is no mean feat. Those 65 plants arose out of approximately 2000 crosses, so you are looking at a success rate of around 3%. David did not simply cross any plants, he carefully selected parents to achieve the results he required, and this ability to choose parents takes a lot of skill and knowledge. He particularly wanted to create new hybrids that had certain qualities, attractive cushions and most importantly near sessile flowers. He also had a strong perception of flower design, he looked for full open flowers of a good size and colour with petals that made a strong impression. He liked veining and strove to achieve wavy and notched petals edges, these two features are clearly seen in S. ‘Tysoe Splendour’. Adrian Young (Saxifraga Collections Manager at Waterperry) has worked closely with David on the selection process since 2010. Every year he would visit David and take back to Waterperry (where the National Saxifraga collection is located) 6-10 plants of his new creations, which would usually be around 300 pots. What David wanted to see was his selections growing in different conditions, as he grew his plants in a fairly shady environment and he knew at Waterperry they would be exposed to more light, which of course frequently produced quite different looking plants. Saxifraga ‘Tysoe Sunrise’, ‘Tysoe Sunset’ and ‘Tysoe Moonstone’ are good examples: in David’s conditions they were OK, but growing in Waterperry conditions they proved to be exceptional, much harder, tighter cushions and importantly shell pink flowers, while in David’s conditions the flowers were white. He found this dual trialing process important and Adrian was only too pleased to help this wonderful hybridiser. David started his selective breeding campaign in 1988 with Saxifraga ‘Whatcote’, one of his Warwickshire village plants. At that time he worked in partnership with his colleague Brian Dowker. Between 1988 and 1991 he introduced 17 new cultivars. All of the 17 contained Saxigraga poluniniana as one of the parents, ‘Harlow Carr’ or ‘Winifred’ was mainly used for the other parent. In 2001 he released 3 new cultivars, Saxifraga ‘Gaydon-Love’ ‘Crimscote-Love’ and ‘Hartford-Love’ all using Sax. ‘Miluj Mne’ which is a cultivar from Jan Burgel. He had a lot of respect for Jan Burgel and was successful in producing good new Sax. x poluanglica hybrids. In 2004 David started releasing his Tysoe series with Saxifraga ‘Tysoe Star’. So far there have been 45 cultivars, the latest batch include some crosses using Saxifraga ludlowii, and this is the first time this Tibetan rarity has been used in hybridisation. David has named one of the new cultivars after Vojtech Holubec (Sax ‘Tysoe Holubec’), the Czech botanist who first introduced the plant. Many of David’s hybrids are being grown and exhibited with considerable success at AGS shows." |
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