re: July 10

Dear Medit Planters,

Mid-winter here but a fine sunny day with a wind cold enough to deter prolonged outdoor activity, but comfortable enough for short forays into the garden to check this and that, to plant those pots of urgent plants whose roots are already moving strongly. I guess we are over what is so uncomely called 'the hump'; almond trees on the hillsides are pink and white with flowers and the buds of Formosan cherry are fit to burst. Spring is about to be sprung.

The Algerian irises are the predominant flower in this garden today. Over the years we have amassed quite a few varieties: Starker's Pink, two selected white forms with no names (seed raised variants I think), Marginata (with a fine white pencil line around each blue petal), Mia (a dark flowered diminutive form derived from I. unguicularis 'Cretensis'), Variegata (sky blue with bold purple streaks and blotches), Methyl Blue (as the name indicates), Mary Bernard (in my experience a not very lovely pale blue that could be virus infected), Walter Butt ( neat dark blue flowers), the species itself and several seed raised variations on the theme. Martyrs to small slugs they seem impossible to protect from the nightly depredations of these pesky molluscs. We try to cut the foliage down just before flowering; we managed to do all clumps on time this year but still the slugs find to many hiding places. For such a terrificly hardy Medit plant it is curious that it has never attracted much attention from plant breeders. I find it does not set seed much here. I've never found any self-evident seedlings. Has anyone experience with clones that are seed producing?

Cyclamen coum is the other ain attraction right now. How lucky that the Cyclamen Society has focussed attention for some years on making expeditions to collect seed of this wide ranging, and very variable species. I believe their programme involves making expeditions to known and anticipated sites and working in conjunction with local government agencies and conservation groups colecting small samples of living bulbs and seed. These are then grown on in carefuly segregated collections to maintain the natural diversity of the species. It from these cultivated collections that seed is sometimes distributed to members. I find all of them easy to grow under deciduous shrubs and even in our rough grassy non-lawns. C. coum 'Album' has naturalised itself quite thickly in thin turf under cherry trees and stands mowing over with no damage. The leaves being small and held close to the ground are easily protected by setting the mower blades high enough to avoid them being cut down. Elsewhere, under decrepit apple trees pink, white and dark pink forms spread slowly by seed fall and natural germination. I have been especially pleased to have first flowers on 'Meadens Crimson', 'Broadleigh Silver', 'Tile Barn Elizabeth', 'Sterling Silver' and 'Propellor forms' among twenty or so other seed lots.

Also in pots there are pleasing numbers of Crocus chrysanthus 'Hubert Edelstein' - my favourite with deep purple exteriors maked with a silver V about half way up. There is also a good cluster of Crocus malyiii, white flowered with conspicuous orange stamens. A small sowing of Narcissus romieuxii ssp romieuxii var. rifanus reminds me that I MUST plant more seeds of these charming and easy wild daffodils. My good intentions have been spurred by recent successes with seed raising and by the rapidity with which fresh seed geminates: old seed takes forever.

Hamamelis x Jalena, with burnt orange thread-like flowers is already at full force and in the background Camellia grijsii sets them off with a mass of creamy white butterfly blooms. Both plants are beautfiully scented. Underneath these a mass of Arum italicum 'Pictum' spread too willingly. I am beginning to manage the spreading clumps by smothering unwanted patches with thick layers of newspapers covered with a mulch of walnut leaves, walnut shells, grass clippings and shredded twigs and small branches. Once I have achieved a better degree of control I will insert more clumps of early flowering narcissi of the Tazetta group. I have in mind more Narcissus 'Geranium', 'Abba', 'Medusa', 'Sir Winston Churchill' and others with white petals and coloured cups. The all yellow kinds go somehwere else, not here, as do the chalk white kinds such as 'Silver Chimes'. At the back of the garden under two stands of variegated Yuccas a large plantation of Euphorbia characias 'Wulfenii' will soon be flowering and with them I have paired several newer lime-green Tazetta daffodils 'Verdin' and 'Dick Cissell'. These are both Australian raised varieties but the must surely be equivalents available in the US and Europe. Earlier this year I was given a plant of E. c. 'Green Velvet' - a German cultivar I believe with blunt, rounded leaf ends and a remarkable 'velvetty' leaf surface. I will be interested to see how it goes teamed with the common winter wallflower 'Bowle's Mauve' and the even more common mauve-purple Honesty (Lunaria annua). I have admired the form with dark flowers and purple stained seedpods and would like to try this combination too but what is this form called? And where to get it? Scuttering about under all this is Vinca minor 'Elizabeth Cran' (double wine purple flowers) and Euphorbia cyparissias both a bit thuggish and weedy but good groundcover and easily managed by chopping back to boundaries with a spade or by slicing off and scooping out the plants and their roots with the same implement.

With treasures such as these, and the ease of raising many delightful, non-weedy things from seed there can be few reasons and no excuses for not improving Med gardens where-ever we live. What is more these plants exist happily on the rainfall of winter and love the dryness of a Medit summer; they grow in harmony with our climatic type. Who needs delphiniums, begonias, astilbes or other water hogs?

regards to all

trevor nottle
Trevor Nottle
Garden Historian, Garden Writer, Designer, Consultant
WALNUT HILL, 5 Walker Street, Crafers, SA 5152 AUSTRALIA
Tel./ Fax. 61 8 83394210
















































   



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