Twenty years from now, it will be a collectors’ item. It will be on the wish list of every rare booklet collector. People will be discovered copies in their lofts and hidden away in their greenhouses and taking them to be valued for auction. Gardeners, who threw away the first or put it on the fire, will despair.
The world’s first-ever hosta catalogue is a literary treasure and people will visit Sticklepath in Devon where it was written. By a former undertaker.
Two years ago, Tim Penrose brought out his first book, “Undertaking In The Fast Lane” which chronicles his life as an undertaker before hestarted squirting squirt garlic wash on his award-winning Orange Marmalade.
“Godfrey’s Garlic Guard stops slugs and snails gorging on you precious hostas and ravaging them. Its an alternative to put your hostas in pots and smearing the sides with Vaseline or WD40. Hostas thrive with a regular garlic bath. Wilfred’s Wonderful Worm Wee comes from local worms. We have special worms in Devon. Ours are particularly selected elderly male worms with a penchant for regularly waking during the night for a wee.”
The current Bowden’s hosta catalogue includes Bedazzled, Wrinkle in Time, Lady Guinevere, Tickle Me Pink, Stand By Me, Marshmallow Sky , School Mouse, Let’s Twist Again , Stand By Me, Leapin’ Lizard , Cheatin’ Heart , Whirligig and the distinctive Orange Marmalade. The 70-odd wild hosta species originate from China, Japan and Korea. They are all hardy in the UK . Adds Ruth : “ Large ones like “Sum And Substance” can grow up to 90cm with a 1.8m spread.
The first known garden catalogue appeared at the 1612 Frankfurt Fair with the distribution of the bulb catalog, Florilegium Amplissimum et Selectissimum, by Dutch grower Emmanual Sweerts. It contained 560 hand-tinted images of flowering bulbs. Philadelphia’s D.Lamont & Son produced extended price lists in the late eighteenth century.
In 1818, Joseph Beck & Sons ( now Beck’s Bulbs) released a 84-page “ New England Agricultural Warehouse and Seed Store,.”
Former nail-maker Grant Thornburn, who emigrated to New York from Scotland, released his Catalogue of Kitchen Garden, Herb, Glower, Tree and Grass Sees , Bulbous Flower Roots, Greenhouse Plants Gardening, Agricultural and Botanical Books, Garden Tools in 1830. .James Carter’s seminal Catalogue Of A Choice Collection of Floricultural, Vegetable & Agricultural Seeds was published in 1842. In 1855, after publishing “The English Flower Garden Magazine,” Ipswich’s William Thompson ( as in Thompson & Morgan ) issued his first catalogue. Sutton’s debut catalogue appeared in 1917 and Dobbies in 1932.
Says Tim : “ Smithsonian Institute Libraries has a collection of about 10,000 seed catalogues. So no doubt they will be in touch!”
The Penroses bought the business from Ruth’s parents who were hosta pioneers. They now also specialize in bamboos, ferns and hold the National Agapanthus Collection.
Tim, a greengrocer’s son, once managed a funeral home in Hereford and arranged funerals for the SAS. He also ran Hudson’s Coffee House in Birmingham which was won the Egon Ronay “Best Teahouse Of The Year”.Bowden Hostas has won over a hundred horticultural gold medals (including eight in a row) and from 2007 to 2015 was awarded a Royal Warrant for hostas from HRH the Prince Of Wales.Hostas are also called plantain lilies and occasionally by the Japanese name giboshi. The genus was named by Austrian botanist in 1812 in homage to another Austrian botanist, Nicholas Thomas Host. Five years later, the plant became known in Germany as “funkia” after a well-known collector of ferns and alpines, Heinrich Funk.
Bowdenis one of the few specialist plant centres where you can discuss herbaceous perennial plants as well as worms, the serial killer, Dr Harold Shipman.
“When I worked in Manchester he used to come over from his practice in Hyde and sign cremation forms. He was a regular – once a week probably,” says Tim, the son of a greengrocer.
“I was kicked out of school for messing around and had a bet with a mate about who would get a job first. He was starting as a milkman on the Monday so I had to think of a job no-one would apply for. And I got one, managing a funeral home in Hereford.
“I arranged Sir Harold Nicholson’s funeral when I was nineteen. The average funeral price then -1984- was £480. I imported an American Batesville Casket and provided a white washed bricked grave, Rolls Royce hearse and three limos and a photographer winched up in their air on an embalming table! The bill was £11,500. I bought my first house for £7,500! I also arranged funerals for the SAS regiment.
“I was always moaning about how bad cafes were and Ruth got so fed up she bet me I couldn’t run one. In 1990 with £85 we opened Hudson’s Coffee House in Birmingham. Liveried waiters served gourmet sandwiches and afternoon tea in bone china and two-and-a-half years later we won the Egon Ronay “Best Teahouse Of The Year” in the UK. Then my father-in-law’s nursery came up for sale.”
The Penroses bought the business from Ruth’s parents who were hosta pioneers. They now also specialize in bamboos, ferns and hold the National Agapanthus Collection. Bowden Hostas has won over a hundred horticultural gold medals (including eight in a row) and from 2007 to 2015 was awarded a Royal Warrant for hostas from HRH the Prince Of Wales.
“Preserving the heritage of these brilliant plantsmen is so important,” continues Simon. “I’m on a mission to make it happen in my lifetime. I am not a hosta nerd. Although my wife probably is!”
Former nurse and midwife, Ruth believes her husband’s worms will sell more than his words. “ Wilfred’s Wonderful Worm Wee comes from local worms,” she says. “ Our worms are spoilt. We have special worms in Devon. Ours are particularly selected elderly male worms with a penchant for regularly waking during the night for a wee. Their wee is rich in nutrients. Our wormery is called Wilf. Our Glorious Garlic Guard is an almost foolproof way of protecting your hostas. No vampires were harmed in the making of the product.”