Miniatures

Change of focus, change of scale...

I have friends who're devoted to daisies and their relatives. I'm not,
particularly, but they've persuaded me to try three new ones this
season and I have to confess they're all charmers and I'd like to know
more about them and about their families. Brief sketches follow.
Further info. welcomed.

Calotis cuneiformis is an Australian, making (in this garden, at
least) a sturdy wee bush to about a foot or so, with feathery
darkish-green foliage, covered in a darn nearly endless succession of
charming small blue daisies (and it doesn't seem to need dead-heading
to persuade it to go on flowering: hurrah!). It's a 'tender-ish
perennial treated as an annual.' That is, it is - or more accurately,
was - treated as a tender annual in the UK. It doesn't seem to be
grown here any more (my appromixate quote about its needs comes from
E.O. Booth's Encyclopedia of Annuals...). At least, it's not available
commercially. No calotis is. It was before the second world war and
for a few years after it. I'm told that in really sheltered gardens in
the south and west this might behave here, too, as a (probably
short-lived?) perennial, though I doubt if my own garden is sheltered
enough.

Query to Australians: is this grown in Aussie gardens? are there other
calotis worth investigating? in other colours?? Natural habitats?
Notions of hardiness levels?

And another Australian, Vittadinia muelleri. Even smaller, and
prostrate, more or less, this time, with even smaller daisies, more
pale-ish mauve than the clear blue of the Calotis - but a little drift
of it in a sunny scree-like position is very charming. I know that
there are other Vittadinias - or at least one: V. australis - and
would be grateful for details. I'm assuming this, too, is likely to be
in 'tender perennial as annual' territory, at least this far north in
the UK? but any other info. would be v. welcome.

And to be really exotic what I understand is a Brazilian: a soliva but
I'm not certain of its species name: petrospermum? petrorrhagum??
Prostrate mat of feathery, faintly aromatic foliage studded with
myriads of little white, yellow-centred 'daisies.' (Inverted commas
because I'm not really certain that this is a 'proper' daisy - but
it's certainly daisy-ish.) There don't seem to be any solivas
commercially available in the UK, either. Anybody know anything about
them? 

And a final miniature which isn't a 'tender perennial as annual' but a
miniature semi-prostrate shrub. It's a Tasmanian, too, or so I gather,
so I guess there'll be folks on the list who know it and maybe even
grow it. It's Coprosma nitida, with feathery heather-like foliage and
spikes of pretty mauvey-pink flowers. My own plant is seed-grown and
the only nursery in the UK which offers it is, almost inevitably, the
NZ/Oz specialist, Graham Hutchins, at County Park Nursery. I notice he
offers both male and female forms. Any of our NZ or Tas or Oz
participants care to tell the ignorant Anglo what the difference is -
ie, how I can tell which sex my specimen is? I'm growing this in full
sun at the front of a raised bed consisting mostly of gravel and sand
with an occasional suspicion of soil and it seems to be enjoying it.
Am I doing right? Is it going to survive -3C, say? What's its natural
habitat - and the height thereof - in Tas? 

(Yes, I know I shouldn't grow things without knowing where they come
from and what they need and whether they're going to live or die in my
climate. Yes, yes. And of course YOU never do.... Ha. In the immortal
words of don marquis, 'and those of you/who'd swallow that/could sit
upon an opera hat/and never squash/the dern thing flat/you skeptics.'
From memory, so don't tell me off if I've got it wrong.)



Tim Longville
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