Nerines

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The Nerine sarniensis is a native of South Africa where it grows in the mountains of the Cape Province. It is an autumn flowering member of the Amaryllis family and should not be confused with its hardier cousin the hardy pink Nerine bowdenii.

It first made its appearance in Europe on the island of Guernsey in the early seventeenth century where a box of bulbs was washed ashore from a wrecked East Indiaman. They naturalised themselves and hence the name ‘Guernsey Lily’. Their other name is the ‘Jewel Lily’, from the crystalline flecks within their petals that sparkle in the sunlight.

Hybridising these plants began in the late nineteenth century when H.J.Elwes found that through judicious crosses with other nerine species many and varied colours were available other than the bright orange of the original specie. The distinguished bulb merchants Barr & Sons also raised many new hybrids.

Lionel de Rothschild acquired many of these and throughout the 1920s and ’30s significantly improved on the strain. The Exbury Nerines continued to grow here until the 1970s when they were sold off. Colours now ranged from the original orange through red to white and bluey-mauve.

Part of the collection then went to Sir Peter Smithers who had seen them at Exbury with Lionel. Sir Peter had begun breeding Nerines when he was MP for Winchester in the 1960s. A brief interregnum took place while he was Secretary-General of the EU in Strasbourg. He took up growing Nerines again when he moved to Vico Morcote, a house he built for himself overlooking Lake Lugarno. When the opportunity to augment his nascent breeding programme with the Exbury Nerines came up he took on the challenge to improve upon what had gone before.

This he did most spectacularly. His selection process was rigorous, all new seedlings had to undergo the ‘Beauty Contest’ which was held each autumn on the balcony of his house. His friends were invited to form a jury and were asked to forget about any consideration other than beauty as they saw it. Each new flower was compared to its parents and to the others in its colourway. Marks were given and the top plants went on to survive in the collection for another year. Sir Peter evaluated his crosses, giving marks out of five for each of the following points: colour, form and size of florets, shape and size of the flower head and length and strength of the stem.

In 1995 Sir Peter met with Lionel de Rothschild and then Nicholas de Rothschild. He mooted the idea that it was time for the collection to pass from him and would Exbury like to take it on from where he had got to. It was thus that Exbury has retaken the mantle and is now home to the much improved breeding programme of the Vico/Exbury Nerines.

The finest of these are being shown off each October in the specially prepared Five Arrows Gallery in the Gardens. It is designed to highlight the extraordinary beauty of N.sarniensis hybrids, and particularly the scintillation which they display under direct light – gold flecks in the scarlets and silver in the pinks and whites. The new hybrids range in colour from deepest purple through copper and bronze to white and candy stripes of pink and salmon.