Re: Pittosporums in the Snow....
Commiserations Tim......while you were having a white Xmas we were having
one of our hottest ever.40+C.......sap was boiling in the plants and many
things which would normally shrug off the heat just couldn't take such a
sudden shock. After all we were having 6C minima last week. The weather is
even more extra-ordinarily changeable than usual in this neck of the woods.
Once again one ponders if one plants the garden to cater for those freak
days of heat or frost, or plants for the mainstream weather with fingers
crossed that things will survive the five year highs and lows. My problem is
more exaggerated by the fact that this is a new garden, less than 3 years
old, so micro-climates not established yet.
Today is about 18c and showery! My thermostat doesn't cope with this rapid
fire weather!
Margaret.
Margaret and Peter Moir
Olive Hill Farm
Margaret River, Western Australia.
www.wn.com.au/olivehill
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Longville <tim@eddy.u-net.com>
To: <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 2:35 AM
Subject: Pittosporums in the Snow....
> Moira, David: Many thanks for helpful and encouraging info. Well, I
> hope it will *prove* to be helpful and encouraging, if and when our
> sudden shift to the (by our standards) sub-artic comes to an end.
> Temps. went up yesterday with the inevitable result - heavy falls of
> snow yesterday evening, overnight, and this morning. Great for the
> local kids and dogs, less great for the local gardeners. Less great
> for folks trying to get to work or back from holidays, too, of course
> - our Aussie visitors left at dawn, trying to get down to London by
> car: no word yet of their arrival (12 hours for a journey which would
> usually take less than half that) so either they're still crawling, or
> completely stuck, or have arrived and collapsed exhausted. And for
> this they left temps of 30+ in Canberra last week!
>
> By the time I got out into the garden with a long pole, several hefty
> tree and shrub branches had crashed under the weight of snow - and
> several plants which had looked sick but not dead as a result of sheer
> cold now look as though they've definitively thrown in the towel. Is
> there anything in the world which looks sadder than a dead 5ft high
> Isoplexis? - except perhaps a dead 8ft tall Echium pininana? (Heaves a
> heavy sigh...!)
>
> Some of my more marginal olearias aren't looking well, ditto
> prostantheras, but callistemons, melaleucas, correas and, yes,
> indeedy, pittosporums, so far all seem still to be in the fight.
>
> The pittosporums, BTW, include both 'Irene Patterson' (no trouble
> growing her here, I must say: indeed, one of the most vigorous) and
> 'Tom Thumb,' both of which Moira mentioned. I guess there are around
> 20 or so P. tenuifolium cultivars available in the UK - and I'd guess
> most were introduced from NZ, and most of those by Graham Hutchins of
> County Park Nurseries in Hornchurch, Essex. They don't, though,
> include any of those mentioned by David, so it sounds as though
> perhaps there's a 'separate development' of P. t. cultivars going on
> in CA?!
>
> I tried P. undulatum here but it never looked happy and expired some
> time ago. At the moment, I'm cossetting some encouragingly vigorous
> seedlings of P. viridis from S. Africa but they're safely stashed in
> the greenhouse: I wouldn't fancy their chances of surviving what's on
> offer here at the moment -
>
> Which makes Mexico sound an even more than usually attractive
> proposition: I hope you have a good time, David, and find lots of good
> plants.
>
> Tim
>
>
> Tim Longville
>
