Kalmia latifolia

Today's the day ……………………. for a Quaker Botanist

We thought this garden shrub was something completely different - but when the flowers opened, I knew right away that it was a Kalmia latifolia or the Mountain Laurel.

There was a plant growing in the garden of the Quaker Tapestry  in Kendal, where I used to work - and I always used to think that the flower buds looked like those piped-icing decorations that you get on cakes!  It was very appropriate that it was growing in that garden because Kalmia is one of the plants introduced into this country by the Quaker merchant, Peter Collinson.

Although Collinson was a cloth merchant by vocation, largely trading with North America, his real love was gardening. Through his business contacts he obtained samples of seeds and plants from around the world.   He came to realise that there was a market for such things in England, and in the late 1730s began to import North American botanical seeds for English collectors to grow. He financed the travels of the American plant collector, John Bartram and distributed the New World seeds collected by Bartram to British gentry, nurserymen, and natural scientists.

And I'm absolutely delighted that this one has found its way to our garden here ……………………...