Cambridge, the Canaries, Cumbria, the Azores and S. Africa

Mediterranean?! You have to be joking...

Before I forget: thanks to everyone for info. on the white-and-red
variant of Anomatheca. Encouraging! Still surprising that so few
nurseries in the UK offer it. It's making a lovely front-edge drift in
a raised bed here at the moment.

Lurking on Alpine-L I picked up Peter Lewis's reply to Jack Elliott on
his Azorina vidallii (we ought to have cross-list postings!). I'm just
growing this myself and am much impressed by my (unflowered) specimens
simply as wee foliage plants. Peter's reply suggested that this
Azorean will take virtually no frost at all (particularly vulnerable
in pots??). My question is simply to ask if others can confirm or deny
that? I am (desperately, unsuccessfully, for the nth time) trying to
cut down on the number(s) of plants I overwinter under glass, so would
like to try it in the ground if I've at least a fighting chance of
success. My average winter involves a few nights with a degree or two
or three of frost; few if any sustained frosts; but a lot of wind and
wet (combatted by lots of raised beds and gravelgravelgravel). If it's
worth a go at growing it in the ground, what are its preferred
conditions? Is this a sunny campanula relative or a shady campanula
relative? Just from its looks, I'd guess sun and maximum drainage.
Yes?

Peter: books v. plants. Dilemma understood! And shared....

And a few S. Africans. 

First, Agathosma imbricata. Anyone grow or know this or others of the
genus? (My seeds came from Kirstenbosch via a friend outside Bath, who
grows it successfully.) I'm told it should have scented white flowers.
No sign here. It makes (has made) a neat dapper little more or less
conical shrub to around a foot but flowers - nah! What do I need to do
to persuade it? Simply give it a lot more heat? My plants are coming
to the end of their second season: are they simply too young to
flower??

x Ruthyrospolia 'Phyllis van Heerden.' This will sound like
showing-off, I suspect. Sorry. Isn't meant to. Indeed, it has nothing
at all to do with me-as-a-grower, really. A friend who has a garden in
the UK and a garden in S.A. (lucky woman) gave me a cutting of this
bi-generic hybrid (a member of the Acanthaceae) between Ruthya ovata
and Ruspolia hypercraterfolia (? sp of species name), named after the
woman who found it. My friend said it should grow to around 5ft and
have spikes of pink flowers. She said nothing about its growth habit
or its preferred conditions beyond that. Here, it's made a strongly
suckering clump to around 3' which seems to wilt whenever the temps.
get over 25-6C but shows no sign of flowering. I wondered about moving
it into damp and shade?? but to make it flower will it need more heat
than it's likely to get in those conditions in my climate ? We
haven't, I think, heard from any of our S.A. members for a while but
if any of them are lurking and know anything about this plant, I'd be
more than usually grateful for any info. It's such a pleasingly
vigorous creature I'd like to make a real success of it by getting it
to flower.

Then, Burchellia bubalina, common name Wild Pomegranate (tho' it's in
fact got nothing to do with'em), a member of the Rubiaceae with orange
tubular flowers, the only member of its genus and named after an early
S.A. plant collector, Dr W.J. Burchell. 'A slow growing big shrub or
small tree which flowers when quite small, in sun or semi-shade,' said
the aforementioned friend when she gave me a cutting of this one.
Well, slow growing it certainly is. It's just sat and looked at me for
18 months. Nothing. Nary a new leaf, even. On the other hand, it
doesn't look dead or even sick. It just sits. What could be more
infuriating? As for 'orange tubular flowers': forget it. Anyone have
any knowledge or experience of this brute and/or ideas as to how best
I can persuade, sweet-talk or savage it into playing ball?

Talking of S. Africa: no one picked up my query about spp of Aristea
other than A. ecklonii. Does no one else grow them?! I'm amazed if so.
Or have they been rejected as boring weeds? I'm amazed if... A.e.
isn't the world's showiest plant, I confess, but it's a good sturdy
doer, always neat, uncomplaining and vigorous, and the flowers if a
touch short in volume compared the volume of foliage are a good clear
blue - always a desirable colour. (At least, they're a touch short in
volume in this climate in most years; this, relatively dry, relatively
hot, year, it's in fact had dozens of flower-spikes for a good two
months; perhaps in a hotter, drier climate it would perform like that
each year?)

Generally, postings about S. African plants seem to provoke the
smallest response. Is my vague feeling that this is perhaps an area
few of us have yet seriously explored an accurate one??

Interminable posting - sorry - after-effects of a consoling bottle of
wine while watching the English cricket team come unstuck against the
Kiwis again - when of course I should have been out in the garden
doing good responsible garden-owner things: don't remind me....
Tim Longville
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