PUBLICATIONS

Issue 31 - Autumn 2004

Hardy Exotics & Elegant Bamboos

A good range of distinctive and hardy exotic plants, including elegant bamboos which are now de rigeur for modern gardens, is not that easy to find, so we should all be grateful for Peter Stam, who stocks an impressive range of handsome, architectural plants at his atmospheric nursery in Co Waterford (visits strictly by appointment only).

Autumn is probably the best time to visit, when a larger stock of good and often very rare varieties is available. Last time I visited the nursery, it was like stepping into an enchanted woodland, of being at the beginning of a very big adventure. A list of just some of the fabulous plants he keeps makes dramatic reading:
Podocarpus salignus; Beschorneria yuccoides; Cordyline indivisa; Casuarina cunninghamia; Cupressus kashmiriana; Rhododendron falconeri, R. macabeanum and the huge-leaved R. sinogrande a native of Burma, Tibet and China.

Then there's the dainty Azara microphylla 'Variegata', beautiful Eucryphia nymansensis, both 'Mt Usher'and 'Nymansay'; Cunninghamia lanceolata 'Glauca' (the horsetail tree) and unusual varieties of Dacrydium, Trachycarpus, Butia, Chamaerops, Dicksonia, Cyathea, Musa, Ligustrum, Pinus, Abies, Alnus, Koelreuteria, Acer, Miscanthus, Sophora, Paulownia, Magnolia, Broussonetia and Thamnocalamus.

Garnered by Peter over the years from sources around the globe, he propagates these and other very important-looking plants, grows them on in the field and has an impressive array at various stages of maturity. The collection also includes cloud-pruned Poodle Pines, cloud-shaped Japanese maples, Taxodium distichum and something I've never heard of before, called I think Schima (I can find no reference in books), which is a shiny-leaved evergreen with big, scented, wide open creamy flowers and gold stamens that open in late autumn, just as the beautiful Eucryphias are fading.

He keeps a range of all the best kinds of Hoheria and one glasshouse is full of rare ferns. There are very sophisticated half-standards of the variegated Azara microphylla, impressive Cornus capitata, Washingtonia californica and a Cotton Palm with intriguing criss-crossed bark. There's also a selection of rare, beautifully tinted, Chinese stones (calcareous mudstone), which symbolise bamboo shoots in spring and stand about like dolmens, adding a solid, weathered element to the place.

As Peter Stam points out, these are plants "for the discerning, to create instant impact and give a timeless elegance and stylish atmosphere to any garden". Hippest of all the bamboos still seems to be the famous black bamboo, Phyllostachys nigra punctata, which has shiny, arching canes and is grown in temple gardens in Japan, where only the noblest plants are given space.

This is followed closely in the designer fashion stakes by its more recently introduced cousin, Phyllostachys vivax 'Aureocaulis', which has extraordinary yellow stems decorated with vertical green stripes that look as though they've been painted on. Apparently, it looks glamorous right through the winter.

Peter disagrees, giving as his hot tip for the future bamboo - the still very rare blue bamboo, (yes, blue), Himalayacalamus hookerianus, which he stocks in limited quantity. A tall bamboo, it has a waxy, distinctly blue appearance when the culms are young. The plants at Stam's are sold in three ways, containerised, bare-rooted and root-balled, the latter most beautifully wrapped and bound in loosely woven hessian that is a pleasure to handle and ultimately, compostable.

The nursery began when he arrived in picturesque Cappoquin in 1988. Trained as a horticulturalist in Boskoop, the "town of a thousand nurseries" that lies at the heart of Holland's horticulture industry, Peter went on to study garden design and now divides his time between the nursery and his busy design practice.

Although first known for his collection of bamboos, which he commissioned botanical artist Susan Sex to paint, so that he could use the very attractive images on his labels and brochures, Peter has long moved on to collect and propagate the kind of powerful personality plants that act as instant building blocks in any garden, arboretum or parkland where they are planted.

Some of his more public design work can be seen in the exceptionally pretty nearby town of Lismore, which is dominated by a fairytale German Gothic style castle on a hill, owned by the Devonshires. There, he has - somewhat controversially - planted a row of exotic palm trees at the town entrance and - less controversially - lined each side of the South Mall with stately, semi-mature limes.

Recently, the Stams bought five acres of best west Waterford land, which lies exactly equidistant between the towns of Cappoquin and Lismore. Here, bathed in a lovely light and surrounded by wonderful views of rolling downs and the snow-capped tops of the Knockmealdown Mountains, they are building a house and a new, state of the art nursery. It will be very different from the old worksheds and wheelbarrows of Cappoquin, with their almost mediaeval air, but he's likely to keep the old place going, along with the new, which is good news for us all.

Helen Rock

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