TERMONFECKIN 2002

The trip to Termonfeckin last weekend for the annual Alpine plant conference was just as exciting as every other year. The heavy rain along the east coast all day Thursday caused widespread flooding and for some time I thought that the function might be cancelled, as a lot of areas in the capital city was under water.

Unusual for the west of Ireland, in contrast to the east we had a lovely weather with little or no rain all day. Friday morning started in much the same way with the sun shining and dry roads, which made the first one hundred miles rather a pleasant journey. After that, lots of water started appearing along the sides of the road and I was beginning to wonder if I would get through at all.

The radio reports were full of warnings and diversions in the area to which I was heading, but as it turned out I only had one diversion of about five miles, and that was because of road works and not flooding. The folk from the city all found a way round the water and arrived in good time for high tea at six thirty.

After the usual exchange of plant stories that are part and parcel of such outings and an informal slide show everyone retired to bed in preparation for long day ahead on Saturday.

Was up early as usual next morning and after breakfast Ron Mc Beath took us on a tour of Tibet and west China with some beautiful slides of his many plant hunting exploits. Ron is a well known nurseryman from east Scotland and has travelled to many parts of the world in search of new plants.

In the afternoon Harry Jans from the Netherlands gave us a beautiful lecture on gardening below sea level. Harry's garden is something out of the ordinary, with Tuffa walls and lots of exotic alpine plants that we can only dream about growing. A road maintenance engineer by profession, Harry had some very ingenious ideas, a few of which I took note of and maybe sometime will get round to trying out in my own garden.

The plant sales area was busy all evening as everyone was searching for that special plant that might win them a Farrer medal in the future. After dinner there was the usual plant auction and having promised myself that I would resist anything on offer, I am afraid the temptation got the better of me, but I only bought one plant, although I did bid on a few others but withdrew when the price got above what I thought was a reasonable for the plant on offer.

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