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Seaside Fumeworts, Conservatory Geraniums

Susan: It certainly isn't the proximity to the sea in itself which is
causing your problems with Corydalis lutea and I don't think
temperatures as temperatures come into it much. Evidence: it's as
weedy here, within spitting distance of our imitation sea, the Solway
Firth (glinting in the evening sun outside the window as I'm typing
this), as it is with David down in Poole. So is C. ophiocarpa -
perhaps even more so. (For some screwy fumewort reason of their own,
they've made a long self-sown ruff 15 feet up in our boundary stone
wall. If only they'd confine themselves to that, they'd be welcome...)
I think the problem is soil. They do like a permanently moist (but not
sodden) soil. Ours here is slightly acid and very heavy and clearly
something close to fumewort heaven. If David's soil is equally
un-sandy, I think that might point to  the explanation for your
problems in getting it established. In which case, if you really can't
live without this admittedly pretty but definitely slightly monstrous
weed, solution would be: lots of added humus, compost, rotted manure,
even (s-shhh) peat. Then stand well back. (And don't blame me/us for
what happens next.)

David: Always glad to find another fan of G. mad. Talking of its size:
last summer I gave a plant to a friend who kept it in her unheated but
south-facing conservatory. Unfortunately I forgot to tell her about
not trimming off dead leaves and stems too closely to the main
'trunk'... Uh-huh. By the end of May the brute was something like six
and a half feet by five feet, with a 'trunk' of small tree dimensions,
covered in 1000s of flowers, making one corner of the conservatory
quite impassible, and stopping the conversation whenever anyone
visited. Then one morning there was a terrible creaking noise...a
mighty smash... and a lot of crushed plants in its path. Sa-a-ad. Now
all she has is a huge photograph of The Dear Departed pinned up in her
kitchen as a memento. And an order in with me for The Successor.
(Before anyone asks: you don't trim the dead stems too closely because
their remains naturally act as - what's the word? - bulwarks?
buttresses? to support the vast top-heavy growth: for such a huge and
quick-growing plant, it doesn't have much of a root system.)
Tim Longville
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