A surprise Lunch with Matt Bishop.

A surprise Lunch with Matt Bishop.

Sunday night Otto rang, he had just had a phone call from Matt Bishop he was coming to the Dandenongs for the day, would I like to join him. Of course I would, a chance to talk to Matt Bishop of Snowdrops fame. He wrote the book Snowdrops with Aaron Davis and John Grimshaw.
The first thing Otto and I did was to get our books with Matts signature along side John Grimshaws, he said it was defacing the book and it would loose value. I didn't think that would be the case in Australia but that may be the case in Europe who cares its just lovely to have books signed by the Author.
The first question we asked Matt is what he was doing in Australia he said holidays, he and his partner John had been visiting Matt Murray in NSW Mt Tomah Gardens, In the Blue Mountains he was very impressed with the gardens and said they were well worth a visit.
The question Matt asked us was what were we mainly growing and we both said Galanthus he is also very interested in Trillium and Erythroniums he is doing quite a lot of crossing of his Erythroniums.
It appears he is also very interested in Australian Native plants especially Grevillea hybrids he grows quite a few of the hybrids in his garden. So lunch at Seasons Restaurant then down to Kuranga Nursery, he was fascinated with the hugh array of Australian plants and wanted to take many home especially the almost black Leaf Eucalyptus and a lovely soft tricolour Eucalyptus and some of the hugh glazed pots they were selling. I wondered how he would get them on the plane, he restrained himself.
It is interesting how we try to grow plants from different countries isn't it.
Matt will be visiting again later and is happy to do a lecture for us, he is writing two more books on the 2,000 odd new Galanthus Hybrids the book is almost finished and then he will start on the 3rd edition
on the rest of the hybrids that would not fit into the other 2 editions.
A very enjoyable day.