One of the finest evergreen winter flowering shrubs in the Gardens of Windsor and an important plant that represents one of our National Collections is the genus Mahonia. The Gardens hold over a hundred distinct species, varieties, and cultivars along with a number of Windsor-named hybrids.
Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ is a selected seedling which originated in the famous Slieve Donard nursery, Newcastle in Co Down, N. Ireland. It’s proprietor at the time was the well know nurseryman Lesley Slinger. It was Lesley who raised a number of selected seedlings from Mahonia lomariifolia, a native to western China and Myanmar, formerly Burma in Southeast Asia.
It was introduced to cultivation by Major Lawarence Johnston (Hidcote Fame) from a seed collecting trip to Yunnan in 1931. It is believed that Mahonia lomariifolia was fertilised by the pollen parent of Mahonia japonica, a shrub familiarly cultivated and once thought to be native to Japan but has never been found in the wild.
Seeds were gathered and sown from the Mahonia lomariifolia which geminated in good quantities – they had produced over 1,000 seedling plants potted into 2 1/2-inch pots. A number of the seedlings were procured in 1950-51 by John Russell of Richmond Nurseries in Windlesham, Berkshire. Sir Eric Savill on a visit selected three seedlings from the batch at Richmond Nursery and grew them on at The Savill Garden in Windsor.
The first Mahonia in The Savill Garden
On 22 October 1957, the Gardens Team under the banner of The Crown Estate Commissioners exhibited at the RHS Show at Vincent Square London an exceptionally fine flowering Mahonia. It created considerable interest and was awarded a Preliminary Commendation. It was given the clonal name ‘Charity’. On 27 January 1959, it was awarded an Award of Merit and a First Class Certificate (F.C.C) on 27 November 1962.
In 1969 Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ received the Award of Garden Merit (AGM) which is one of the accolades that still stands today that recognise plants as garden worthy.
Sir Eric Savill named the second seedlings Mahonia x media ‘Charity’s Sister’ which is well represented in Savill, Frogmore, and Valley Gardens. The third seedling did not survive.
Once word had got out that Windsor had named some of the Mahonias from the Slieve Donard-crosses, Slieve Donard decided to name one of their own from the same cross that were held back by the famous nursery, and in 1969 Mahonia x media ‘Winter Sun’ was introduced. This quickly became alongside Mahonia x media ‘Charity’, as one of the finest winter flowering shrubs.
On 7 November 1972, Lesley Slinger gifted a Mahonia x media ‘Winter Sun’ to Windsor. The original plant is still cultivated in the Gardens.
Mahonia x media ‘Winter Sun’
Mahonia F1 hybrids
Whilst Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ was getting established, lots of good seed were produced each year. Some of this seed was sown, and from the germination a selection of new F1 hybrids began.
The first of these was named Mahonia x media ‘Hope’ which has a beautiful soft yellow flower and a dense cluster of upright flowers. It received an F.C.C. in 1966. Others named were M x media ‘Faith’, close in appearance to M. lomariifolia, and M x media ‘Rebecca’.
Over time Windsor would add several more Mahonia x media to the collection, including M x media ‘Roundwood’, named after the House where Hope lived with his wife Margaret; as well as M x media ‘Hope’s Rival’, M. x media ‘Home Wood’, and M x media ’Underway’.
Other notable Mahonia x media in the collection are crosses made by Lionel Fortescue at Buckland Monochrome in Devon. He deliberately crossed M. lomariifolia (seed parent) with M. japonica. The result was several hundred seedlings of which five were retained. One such seedling was grown and named at Windsor M x media ‘Lionel Fortescue’ after the raiser Lionel Fortescue.
Another was named M x media ‘Buckland’, similar in growth to M. japonica and with the longest inflorescence, or arrangement of flowers on a plant, of the group. Windsor received a plant of M x media ‘Buckland’ on 20 November 1968 from Lionel Fortescue.
Today the Mahonia x media collection is going strong and there are several seed raised from the F2 & F3 hybrids that will in time hopefully be garden worthy and be named.
M x media ‘Lionel Fortescue’
The location of the original Mahonia planting
However, there is a dilemma. Over the past decades there have been conversations, disagreements and near fall outs in the horticultural echelons as to the location the original planting of Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ in The Savill Garden.
We have two contenders, one by the Temperate House border, considered by many as the original plant. This has been conveyed to me by several notable horticulturists and referenced in the Roger Philips and Matin Rix Book in their book on Shrubs – showing a picture of the plant in flower and stating the original plant is at the Temperate House. In correspondence with Martin Rix, he was given the information by John Bond – the then Keeper of the Gardens.
Interestingly in the Estate archives the hardback notebook entitled List of Trees, Shrubs and plants in The Savill Garden Plant Inventory from July 1957 to 1962, there is no reference to a Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ growing by the old Weeping Willow (Salix x sepulcralis var chrysocoma) by the Temperate House.
Instead, there is reference to a Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ which received a Preliminary Commendation in 1957; First Class Certificate 1959 and Award of Merit in 1962 planted by the fence near the Magnolia x veithchii ‘Peter Veitch’. This area is known by most as the Summer House borders. This could certainly be considered as the original Mahonia x media ‘Charity.’
Mahonia x media ‘Charity’
Brickell, C.D. 1979. The Hybrids between Mahonia japonica and M lomariifolia. The Plantsman 1 pp.12-20. RHS
Written by John Anderson VMM, Keeper of the Gardens. With thanks to Patricia Craven, Supervisor of the Valley Gardens, Windsor Great Park, and representative for the Windsor Great Park National Collection of Mahonia on the RHS Mahonia Trial, Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Hampshire.
