AN ARMY of gardeners dedicated to safeguarding the nation’s plants is mobilising for a horticultural display in Forfar this weekend.

A collection of specialist and unusual trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs will be taken to the Guide Hall on Saturday by members of the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens (NCCPG).

And they will be on offer to gardeners to give them a chance to help with preservation work.

It is the only sale in the area this year to be organised by the Grampian and Tayside branch of the NCCPG, a charity which runs the national collections of plant species to prevent their extinction.

Among those supporting the effort will be enthusiast Phil Bolt, of Redhall, near Kirriemuir, for whom the back-breaking task of carefully tending his vast array of plants is a labour of love.

Mr Bolt is renowned for his collection of rowans—at the last count he had around 70 species and sub-species.

His interest in the rowan has grown over the last 10 to 12 years, aided by Hugh McAllister, an international expert in the field based at Liverpool University.

“He is the guru of the species and we have been in correspondence ever since I met him some time ago,” Mr Bolt said yesterday.

“He has provided me with a lot of seeds or seedlings from the gardens at Liverpool University and I reckon about 50% of my collection has come from that source.

“Once people got to know of my interest in rowans, I even had a lady collect some from China which she sent to me. Some of them are available commercially, others are not.

“How the NCCPG works is that plants are protected by a system of national collections, where people get hold of as many varieties of one plant as possible.”

Mr Bolt will take some of his second-year seedlings to the sale, as well as bulbs from his giant lillies—cardiocrinum giganteum.

Mr Bolt has grown them to an astonishing height of 10ft 10in and said they enjoyed a successful year in 2007. “Once they flower, they die, but they leave behind bulbs and they left plenty from last year.”

* Mr Bolt will open his garden at Redhall on June 29, as part of Scotland’s Gardens Scheme.

He hopes some of the giant lilies will be in flower by that time and proceeds will go to the scheme’s charities and Friends of Dundee Botanic Garden.