"echinosum" wrote in message
...

Farm1 Wrote:
"misterroy" wrote in message
ups.com...-
Hi, i've tried many of the online stores, and none have them,-
(unwins-
say they have, but there is none in stock), anyone here willing
to-
sell-
me some?-

I'd never heard of "champagne" rhubarb before so did a google for
this wonderous new variety that obviously isn't available in my
country.

I found this site:
http://tinyurl.com/yxeknq
&frame=Right&Src=/edible.nsf/pages/ed.1407!opendocument
which suggests that it's merely blanched rhubarb.

Is this right?
If you look at RHS plant-finder, under Rheum x hybridum "Champagne"
you
will find the wording "tentatively accepted name", which I suppose
means
that it isn't a well-defined variety.

I'm not in the UK so don't have one.

Two possibilities occur to me

(1) it is Stein's Champagne, an established variety with AGM, but
very
rarely available.

(2) Champagne rhubarb was used as a synonym for forced rhubarb. Then
people turned up wanting to buy it as if it was a variety, and some
unscrupulous seller offered them whatever they had to hand and
called
it Champagne. Informal networks then spread it out to people's
gardens.
(With easy-to-propagate plants, this is a remarkably effective
method -
a rare Chinese plant previously unknown to science or nurseries was
discovered about 10 years ago as a houseplant common in Scandinavia,
and traced back to a missionary who brought it back early in the
20th
century as a memento of his stay.

I love stories like that :-)) What was the plant do you know?

Likewise, the prolifically
self-seeding giant Echium (E. pinninana) is rapidly becoming very
common in England without it being easily available in garden
centres
as more of us get it to over-winter.)

My father claims to have "Champagne rhubarb" in his garden. It is
more
tender to the bite than my Timperleys, but so it ought to be growing
it
on moist Somerset clay as opposed to my dry stony soil. I ought to
take
a division and see if I can spot any difference.

I think that conditions do have a lot to do with good produce but I
also think that getting a crown or 2 of good varieties is also a
winner. My soil is also dry and stony (and it's also 'new' soil,
meaning it was only cleared of native vegetation in the 1960s and has
been used for unimproved pasture grazing since then so I've got a LOT
of soil improvement to do still). Feeding and watering does make a
difference but I'd kill for good soil.