James Aitken joined his father’s nursery business at Orchardbank, on Kinnoull Hill. He developed his own outstanding rock garden at Orchardbank, and helped to design and build the rock garden at Branklyn Garden next door.  He developed an interest in the native Scottish flora, travelling about the country to photograph native plants and writing about them. His nursery advertised the complete design and layout of alpine gardens. An excellent photographer, he delighted many SRGC meetings with his wonderful accounts of Scottish native alpines of which he had a real fund of knowledge.  He was a member of PSNS for 70 years from 1933, and was Society President for 16 years.  On his death he left a large sum of money for the renovation of the arboretum on Deuchny Hill, Perth where some interesting trees can still be found.

The Almonds from Dundee must have scoured more hillsides looking for plants than anyone other than the Stones and the Taylors. They have spread their net from the European Alps through to Turkey. Their descriptive articles in the Clulb Journal are lessons in how to write interesting and informative guides to anyone who wishes to follow in their footsteps.

They insist they are not collectors; they hardly need to be, given the beauty and precision of Michael and Lynne Almond’s photographs. The information they have gleaned has been of great value to those who grow the plants they describe. They are also able growers and have established a rock garden complete with raised beds planted with a rich assortment of alpines on a rich but stiff clay in the Carse of Gowrie.

The Andersons of Wester Balruddery, Dundee, Were unique in that one bank Of their garden was in Perthshire and the other in Angus. It was in 1964 that they started work on their marvellous site, a steep-faced valley with rich, moist soil on either side of a small stream. Their garden soon became famous for drifts of meconopsis and primulas together with extensive plantings of rhododendrons. In early spring Primula bhutanica made a carpet of blue on the east-facing bank.

The Andersons spent much of each winter in the southern hemisphere collecting hardy plants so that their garden was soon full of species from the Drakensberg, Australia, Tasmania, Argentine and Chile. The hardy cactus Maihuenia poppigeii from Chile flowered on the sunny rock garden whilst mutisias flourished on the walls of the house.

The Andersons collected widely in South Africa, Argentina and Chile between 1970 and 1990 and brought back some excellent plants. Among those propagated and given to nurserymen by Henry & Margaret Taylor are Androcymbium striatum from Lesotho, Romulea thodei from the Drakensburg, Oxalis adenophylla ‘Brenda Anderson’ from Argentina and Sisyrinchium arenarium humile also from Argentina.

John Anderson died in 1985 and Brenda in 1994, but it is pleasant to record that many of their plants were distributed by their descendants among the Scottish Botanic gardens.

Jim Archibald, along with his wife Jenny, was part of the UK horticultural scene from the 1960s to 2010. He travelled very widely throughout the world and introduced many wild-collected seed to cultivation. During his early years in Scotland, Jim had travelled in search of plants through North Africa and the Middle East, collaborating with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh and Kew. He also worked with Jack Drake at his nursery in the Scottish Highlands. 

 From 1967 he spent over 10 years with Eric Smith running ‘The Plantsmen’, a nursery based in Dorset, UK, specializing in unusual herbaceous and alpine plants. Many of the plants they introduced are now classic garden-plants. After Eric's retirement, Jim and Jenny Archibald ran the Dorset nursery together from 1975.

From 1983 they spent most of their looking for plants in the wild. Over the years they travelled through most of southern Europe and North Africa, through Turkey and the Near East to Iran, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. They journeyed extensively through western North America many times and in South America through the Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina. The visited the New Zealand mountains and the South African Drakensberg. Few people could rival the extent of their knowledge of plants in the wild and even fewer could equal their experience of growing and propagating these same plants in cultivation. For well over the next twenty years Jim and Jenny Archibald specialised in supplying seeds from wild species of non-woody plants of potential garden-value to the most advanced amateur and professional specialist-growers throughout the cool-temperate and continental climatic regions of the world.

The SRGC is pleased to be able to host details of the Archibald Archive, containing historic Collection Fieldnotes, Seedlists, and Nursery catalogues along with much other information. The Archibald Archive is available on this website here.