Colourful spires of lupins conjure up visions of the romantic cottage garden. Despite being short lived, the flower spikes make a bold statement in the early summer border and are often used in gardens today, in planting schemes great and small.

The name lupin comes from ‘lupus’ meaning a wolf or destroyer, and, according to Prof William Stern, in his Dictionary of Plant Names, stems from the erroneous belief that these plants destroyed the fertility of the soil. They do, indeed, grow in poor soils, but this is because, like peas, they can make their own nitrogen fertiliser with the help of beneficial bacteria that live in their roots.

Ancestors of the garden lupin and its relations grow wild in the Andes, Rockies, Mediterranean, African highlands and in South America. The tree lupin was brought over from California in 1793. An excellent choice for coastal gardens, they were planted on the Norfolk coast at Blakeney Point before the Second World War as a shelter for migrant birds.

Todayt noteworthy species for the garden include Lupinus albifrons and Lupinus ornatus. Lupinus albifrons is a shrubby plant with short spikes of delicate flowers turning from cream, through lavender, to violet blue. Silky, silvery leaves provide architectural interest until autumn. Lupinus ornatus is a connoisseur’s plant that, when covered with spires of blue and white, is one of the loveliest sights in the garden.

The lupin that has had most influence on our garden varieties is the North American blue species, Lupinus polyphyllus. Crossed with the tree lupin and a range of annual species it has brought us the familiar hybrid garden lupin.

The beautiful colour range found today started with the dedicated, almost obsessive efforts of one man in the early 1900s: George Russell. Russell, a jobbing gardener.In 1911, in his late 50s, he took it upon himself to breed the perfect lupin. On a modest allotment in York, he grew on seeds and plants sent from around the world and let the bees get to work carrying pollen from one flower spike to another. He planted the resulting seeds and grew them until they flowered. He ruthlessly removed all the plants that did not come up to his standard and over the years his selected flower spikes became denser, larger and more colourful.
His lifetime’s work could easily have been buried with him, as he was very secretive, but a nurseryman from Codsell, James Baker, stepped in and saved the day. Russell, then in his late 70s, gave him all his stock of thousands of lupins.

Russell’s work has inspired others, and new generations of lupins are being produced by new generations of enthusiastic gardeners. One is Johnny Walker, from Birmingham, who went into breeding his own. Among his many successes are ‘Aston Villa’ (pictured left), a claret and blue bicolor and ‘Canary’, a deep yellow.
A few years ago he appeared on television’s Channel Four and made a plea for young gardeners to take up the challenge. The letters poured in. One was from a young woman, Sarah Conibear who had already caught the lupin bug and now, having added hJohnny’s lupin genes to hers, is getting even more impressive results. Like Johnny Walker and Russell she grows masses of lupins and retains best strains. Russell went for bombastic, closely packed flowers, Johnny Walker aims to revive the good blues, and breed some more unusual colours such as near black and green; and Sarah is going for a combination of good colour, strength, and flower size. She has some good strains already, including ‘Pink Cadillac’, the purple ‘Bishop’s Tipple’, the pink and white ‘Dolly Mixture’, and is soon to release 30 new varieties.

Strange but True?
The Romans ate the roasted seeds of sweet white lupins, Lupinus albus and made them into coffee and, at the end of the First World War, German officials held a lupin feast to demonstrate the potential of this crop as a source of protein.

Invitations were printed on paper made of lupins and the table was covered in a lupin tablecloth. Guests were served lupin soup, lupin cutlets, lupin cheese and even lupin coffee.
In Chile, sweet white lupin flour is still used as a base in soups, stews and milk shakes in school meals, and spaghetti made from white lupin flour has been marketed in the United States.
However, an important word of caution: many lupins, including our garden hybrids, are full of poisonous alkaloids, so don’t ever eat them.