IFTY years ago, in 1974, Tom Hewer said to me ‘the best way to lose a plant is to ask the RHS to look after it for you’. Prof Hewer was a very distinguished and charming plant collector and many of the bulbs he brought back from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan are still alive and well at RHS Wisley. However, he was cross because he had also collected a swathe of nameless new species and the RHS, he said, had let them die before even planting them
