Val Bourne on three centuries of colourful hybrids

I love auriculas, especially at this time of year when they produce their pristine flowers.

They’ve been popular for three hundred years and they were one of the original florists’ flowers, grown by enthusiasts who collected them, bred them and exhibited them as showpieces, purely for their decorative qualities.

The meaning of the word florist changed in 1870 or thereabouts, coming to mean a seller of flowers. Ruth Duthie wrote a detailed little book, Florists’ Flowers and Societies in 1988 published by Shire Books, and this definitive text is occasionally available secondhand. It’s a fascinating read.

The auricula was the most prized of the florists’ flowers and is still popular today, but there were also societies for the tulip, primrose, anemone, ranunculus, hyacinth and dianthus.

Often certain flowers had their own geographical location. Auriculas were very popular in Lancashire because the cool, almost alpine, climate suited them well. One popular auricula, ‘Lancashire Hero’, was bred by Robert Lancashire of Middleton, near Manchester in 1846.

Good varieties could cost up to £20 in the 19th century and they became collectibles, prized by the aristocracy and arranged on special theatres. An early stone theatre still exists at The National Trust’s Calke Abbey in Derbyshire and a miniature version was recreated at The Chelsea Flower Show some years ago, to great acclaim.

Early auricula enthusiasts walked to their shows carrying their prized plants in wooden racks on their backs, rather like a rucksack. The pots were dropped into holes in the shelves to keep them secure and covered with a roof and these wooden structures were the inspiration for the first auricula theatres. The shows, known as Florists’ Feasts, were noisy affairs with lots of banter. They were usually held at local inns, in an upstair room, and the show was advertised by a large copper kettle hung outside. This was usually the main prize. Plants were passed from hand to hand round the table and, after the winner was chosen, a feast ensued and much ale was drunk.

Oxfordshire was a centre for another Florists’ flower, the carnation. One advertisment in Jackson’s Oxford Journal dated July 25, 1772, advertises three Florist’s Feasts at The Ship Inn in Oxford, The Queen’s Head in Banbury and at The Swan in Bicester. The dates were all in early August, but on different days, and The Swan Inn in Bicester is still there. I believe the other two may have gone — but stand to be corrected! They could be renamed the Slug and Lettuce. Ugh!

The auricula was the perfect florists’ flower because it offered diversity and produced green edges, stripes and doubles in lots of different colours. The first variations occurred in the wild however, near Innsbruck, where acid rocks overlapped with limestone. The lime-loving yellow P. auricula and the acid-loving pink or red P. hirsuta produced colourful hybrids and these were officially recorded by the alpine botanist, Anton Kerner, in 1875. However they had already been collected in the wild and passed to growers such as Clusius and Emperor Maximilian II of Austria, who were both growing auriculas in the mid-16th century. They received their plants from Professor Johann Aicholz, an Austrian botanist.

The most important thing is to keep your auricula roots cool. Orange plastic pots are best and these can be slipped inside slightly taller terracotta pots for display. The best ‘plastic pot’ mixture is one third John Innes no 2, one third peat and one third horticultural grit. A top dressing or coarse grit looks attractive, but always remove in summer to expose the compost as it may encourage mould. Water from the top of the pot. Keep the plant as dry as possible between October and February, preferably in an airy, unheated greenhouse or cold frame. Keep watering to a bare minimum in July and August too and, if your plants wilt in high summer, move them into cooler shade. Don’t drench them. This will encourage botrytis. Vine weevil are a problem too.