Re: favorites that shouldn't be
david feix wrote:
>
> Speaking of favorites which shouldn't be, especially
> with regard to species which can be somewhat too free
> with self sowing under irrigated garden conditions:
> The following plants are incredibly easy here in
> california for shade, and may even fall into the
> category of being weedy: Impatiens balfourii, a white
> and lavender blooming annual which will self sow with
> abandon, and can get to 4-5 feet tall in moist
> conditions; Lychnis coronaria/Crown Pink, which will
> bloom as well in shade as in full sun, and also is a
> prolific self sower; Nigella damascena/Love in a mist,
> another annual for sun or shade and self sows readily,
> and Lapeirousia cruenta, a cormous bulb with either
> white or red flowers and which blooms as well in light
> shade as full sun, and volunteers around the garden.
>
Hi David
I welcome any of these here except that Impatiens, or the one very like
it we have here. The dwarf perennial Impatiens derived from I walleriana
are always a joy and a delight to me if they condescend to reproduce
themselve in my glasshouse or the roofed-over growing area of my terrace
(the only places where they can survive my winter). Because of their by
now very mixed breeding, I often find these self-sown ones give me my
most oustanding forms and colours all for free and I then reproduce the
favourites from cuttings.
The tall annual ones though are a different matter as they reproduce so
freely here, and even though the flowers are pretty, there seems to be
rather a high proportion of plant to flowers for them to make a good
visual impact. I have never welcomed them into my patch anyway.
The Lapeirousia you mention (more correctly now L.laxa apparently) is
common here but only in the small form, which is more hardy I gather
than grandiflora, and I also have a similar white-flowered species with
a red centre, which is perhaps even more prolific, but makes a good
in-scale bulb for a dwarf border and is not obtrusive once it finishes
flowering..(I did have a species name for this once, but seem to have
lost it.) I definitely class both species as a friends rather than
weeds.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
