LILIES - RHS Lily Group

Chris North
‘Angela North’
Alan Mitchell has gathered together memories of this exceptional lily
hybridiser and valued friend.
HEN CAROLINE BOISSET CONTACTED ME to ask me to write a piece about Chris
WNorth,
but, as a “little challenge”, to avoid what I and others had already
written about him, my first thought was that Caroline was being a touch ironic
in her description of the magnitude of the challenge. However, any pessimism I
felt about meeting the challenge was dispelled by the willingness of the people
I contacted to write about Chris, someone they all respected as a lily hybridiser
and valued as a friend. I also feel, as the more formal aspects of Chris’s career
have already been dealt with in both national and lily-related publications on
both sides of the Atlantic, it is appropriate that the following contributions are
less formal in tone, a style in keeping with the way Chris North approached
things himself.
Col. Iain Ferguson was the Chair of the Lily Group from 1978 to 1982 and, as
the entertaining and insightful reminiscence that follows indicates, he appreciated
Chris North’s abilities as a horticulturist and valued him as a companion.
During the summer of 1980 the Directors of The Scottish Horticultural Research
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