RE: This Medit-garden on Christmas Eve

I read Trevor's garden report with great interest, for some reason it had
been sitting in my e-mail in-box these past few weeks. The variety of plants
you're managing without irrigation is amazing. I'm especially motivated to
try some of that long list of Clematis and the Salvia guaranitica. But
Ferrula, yoiks! It is a bane of my existence, the neighbor's backyard looks
like a miniature savannah, with Ferula playing the role of the trees. It
certainly will 'do' here. And how. However, the geese won't eat it and it
can't be pulled out. At least it is aromatic and finches and so forth
occasionally enjoy it.

Can the Jasminum australe make it without irrigation?



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trevor Nottle had written:
From: Self <tnottle@picknowl.com.au>
To: <listproc@ucdavis.edu>
Subject: Re: This Medit-garden on Christmas Eve
Copies to: "Mediterannean Plants List" <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
Date sent: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 08:36:31 +1030

"Red sky in the morning, shepherds warning.", so it looks like rain tonight
or maybe tomorrow for Christmas Day. These summer storms are the tail end of
the monsoons that sweep across NW Australia in summer. Most often they don't
come so far South, petering out somewhere over the Red Heart - The Great
Sandy Desert and Sturt's Stony Desert of Central Australia. Tho' the sky is
very threatening it could easily come to nothing but a scorching hot blast
of North wind and great rolling clouds of dust. Any rain at this time of
year is a bonus, the last few drops before the great drought begins. If it
should rain tomorrow it won't spoil my day. It will be most welcome even
though the garden is going dormant everywhere.

So what is there in flower at the tail end of the growing and flowering
season? Well, not much. There are Agapanthus in variety, about 30 fifferent
kinds, mainly cultivars with a scattering of species and some named hybrids.
Incidentally, who has tried the 'new' scented Agapanthus - blue and white? I
couldn't find any their perfume any more noticeable than in the common
kinds. There are a few last iris growing where the septic overflow soaks
away and elsewhere Dietes iroides and D. robinsoniana flower strongly. My
own various Hemerocallis seedlings are at an end. Mostly yellow kinds, and
spidery, I keep them because they flower so well in rather dry conditions
where imported hybrids fail to perfom. I never expected varieties from
Florida or Ohio and California to do well, but experience shows that plants
from closer to home - Victoria and Queensland do not do amywhwere near so
well as those grown and selected here. Having moved on from being a
collector I now no longer care about having named cultivars or big prize
winners. I just want plants that will 'do' here. The roses have all finished
and as I won't be watering them through the summer they will be entering a
kind of dormancy until the rains of late April bring on a flush of blooms.
Along the fences and scrambling over shrubby Artemisias are hybrids of
Clematis viticella. These are superb now and have proven to be the best
plants I ever imported; well worth the costs of de-potting, de-soiling,
bundling, packing, quarantine export inspection, air-freight, more
quarantine inspections this end and then the costs of being held in
quarantine for months and months until the plants showed new growth that had
no signs of malformation that could be caused by disease, pests, viruses
etc. I would not be without these hardy performers: Etoile Violette, Betty
Corning, Royal Velours, Blue Belle, Margot Koster, Venosa Violacea, Alba
Luxurians, Huldine, Sodertalje, and Purpurea Plena Elegans, plus a half a
dozen slightly variable plants of Clermatis viticella itself. There are also
other clematis too - campaniflora, viorna, recta, recta Purpurea, texensis
and texensis hybrids.

There are one or two Salvias in bloom too - S. corrugata (already mentioned
in this group) and S. x Waverley, a hybrid of corrugata. Then there is a
large stand of Salvia guaranitica that attains about 2.5m, upright and vivid
cobalt blue. I have a smaller group of S.x 'Argentine Skies' but they are
not in flower yet. The rest I find difficult without recourse to summer
irrigation, while some I'd love to have such as S. gesneriflora and S.
mexicana 'Limelight' are too cold tender for our winter winds. (One of these
years I'll get my greenhouse fixed and then I will be able to overwinter a
few such gems.)

The hedge of Chinese Star Jasmine around the swimming pool is in full bloom.
Intertwined with it is an Australian native jasmine. I think it is Jasminum
australe but lost the label years ago. It has a quiet charm and some status
as a local but couldn't compete with J. polyanthum.

Ferula communis is showing a fine head of seeds but for some unknown reason
the whole stem has turned upside down.

In pots on the verandah and by the back door we have Rhodendron vireya
hybrids in pure hot, tropical colours oranges and pinks and a lovely old
creamy white form called 'Gardenia'. These are backed up with a variety of
ferns and hostas, one or two weeping cut-leaf maples on standards and a
growing number of Oriental lilium hybrids. i will have toi curtail my
interest in these as I must be approaching saturation point with them and
don't want to have so many they become a burden to care for.

I've just found a dealer in unusual succulent plants and have renewed my
boyhood enthusiasm for them by purchasing a number of caudiciform plants -
Ficus palmeri, Adenium obesum, Sinningia leucotricha, a begonia sp from
Madagascar with a huge 'bulb' at the base of it's stem, and Bursera
fagaroides. These are all seedlings yet, but they seem to be settling well
and moving away with new growth. To them I've added as many echeveria
hybrids as I can muster. These colourful cabbages, rather like ornamental
kales - tho' that is too, too crude a comparison, are easy and pleasing pot
plants for sunny spots that get some sun protection during the day as the
shadows move across our front and back verandahs. So far we've got
'Bittersweet', agavoides, agavoides New Form, agavoides var Corderoi, gilva,
'White Rose', 'Curly Locks', 'Katella 4', 'Red Edge', 'Violet Queen',
lilacana, 'Silver on Red', 'Topsy Turvy'. And then there are my new Yucca's;
too small to go in the garden yet but planned for and most welcome. I've
looked out for those with 'blue' foliage such as Y. rigida, Y. thompsoniana,
as well as those with absolutely no spines at the leaf tips - Y. baileyi and
Y. arkansana. Plenty to look forward to with those so I'm not the least
concerned about my 'lapse of taste' in deciding not to keep on soaking my
David Austin roses all summer long.

No hose lugging for me; no unblocking mini-jet systems, no sucking out
mouthfuls of ants and ant eggs from stopped up poly pipes, no swealtering
and sweating to maintain an English look garden in the drought. I'll be
doing what my body tells me - keeping out of the sun, staying cool and
resting up ready for working in the garden when the season turns.

Happy Christmas and a great Medit-Plants New Year

trevor n

Trevor Nottle
Garden Historian, Garden Writer, Designer, Consultant
WALNUT HILL, 5 Walker Street, Crafers, SA 5152 AUSTRALIA
Tel./ Fax. 61 8 83394210
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index