Exotic Garden open for National Garden Scheme…
Posted on | July 29, 2010 | 2 Comments
EDP article for Saturday 31st July
It doesn’t seem like a year since the garden was last opened for the (NGS) National Garden Scheme – where has the year gone? This Sunday August 1st the garden gates will be flung open again for visitors raising monies for this august charity. It is always one of the highlights of the year here at the Exotic Garden and being August is usually warm and sunny for such an occasion. Using my rather rust memory, I thought the garden had been opening for about 18 years, but a quick phone call to NGS headquarters revealed that this is in fact the 21st year, so I think I can safely say that the garden has come of age, raising thousands of pounds for charity for over two decades! The garden has changed dramatically over the years and is now very firmly fixed on the map as one of the most well known gardens in Norwich.
Despite having had the coldest winter in recent years the garden is look very sumptuous. Most the tender perennials and annuals were planted out in the third week of May, only to be thwarted again by another cold snap setting the garden back several weeks. Luckily the last months clement weather has redeemed the garden with relatively warm days and balmy nights giving it a chance to catch up, and now it is ahead as growth has been phenomenal this month – in fact I’m always amazed at the speed plants can grow if the conditions are right!
Three years ago a new long raised bed edged in flint was added to the garden near the entrance and planted up in the Victorian style with mostly tender bedding, including a mixture of Coleus, Cannas, Dahlias, Iresine, purple bananas and more recently – ornamental sweet potatoes – relatives of the popular edible sweet potato. Several varieties have become available to gardeners in recent years adding a new dimension to summer bedding. They thrive in hot sunny weather and are now growing really well as lots of organic matter was added at planting time along with the obligatory blood-fish- and bone for good measure. Known botanically as Ipomoea batatas, these ground cover plants are actually sweet potatoes selected for their vivid and attractive leaves. Planted about 45cms (18ins) apart, they soon grow together forming mats of dense foliage with outstanding colour. ‘Blackie’ is a favourite of mine with large, deep purple to black leaves, while ‘Black Heart’ is another dark form with virtually black, heart shaped leaves. A great foil for such dark foliage is a delightful form named ‘Marguerite’ which has bright heart-shaped, chartreuse lime-green foliage which seems to glow in the evening light. Tricolor (this is the correct spelling) is more diminutive, with small, sharply pointed leaves which are deliciously multicoloured with green, pink, and white foliage – this form is less vigorous than the others, though never-the-less attractive. There are several forms available here in the UK such as ‘Sweet Caroline Light Green’ and ‘Sweet Caroline Purple’ which make great additions to the summer border. I recently purchased a new form I hadn’t seen before from Urban Jungle in Costessey called ‘Sweet Caroline Bronze’, a wonderful sweet potato with rather alluring pale brown foliage – I really do like this one!
Iresine herbstii also make excellent foliage plants with dazzling leaves that rapidly grow into large plants as the summer progresses, with some growing up to 1.2m (4ft) tall by October. Also known as Beefsteak plant and Blood leaf, they form upright, bushy, short lived perennials, used as annuals in this county as are the ornamental sweet potatoes. The leaves are strikingly variegated, and on mature plants can be up to 8cm (3ins) long. I have planted two different cultivars which grow into each other; ‘Aureoreticulata’ which has mid-green leaves with striking, prominent yellow veining and ‘Brilliantissima’, with rich, vivid magenta leaves, making a stunning combination.
Towering above these is large clump of Canna ‘Australia’. This difficult to find Canna has the darkest burgundy-black foliage with a satin-like sheen, rising to 1.2 -1.6m (4-5ft) tall, topped with a magnificent display of large, shocking red flowers. Unfortunately it is rarely offered as it is one of the more difficult cannas to over-winter. Where most cannas happily slumber as tubers, ‘Australia’ requires mollycoddling, as it doesn’t like to go dormant, preferring to be kept in full foliage at around 5C (41F). I find this well worth the effort though for such a wonderful display, with the added bonus of flowering early – in fact this one flowered for me at Christmas time!
Close by is a clump of Colocasia esculenta ‘fontanesii’, which is enjoying the summer heat at around 1m (3.3ins) tall, with shiny purple-black stems topped with equally shiny, large heart-shaped pointed leaves up to 30cm (1ft) long, though I know American readers can grow much bigger plants than this. Underneath is planted a drift of the common spider plant Chlorophytum comosum, which I grow from pups taken from parent plants in late winter, that soon grow on to be handsome plants in their own right. All these plants grouped together produce a veritable, almost psychedelic explosion of colour to greet visitors to the garden.
Colocasias are a must for the exotic effect, though many people find them difficult to grow in this country as they do love heat and require rich soil with plenty of added organic matter to perform at their best. I have tried several new introductions to the UK this year that have rather spectacular foliage, and one that I obtained earlier this year from Amulree Exotics http://www.turn-it-tropical.co.uk/ looks almost unreal. Colocasia ‘Mojito’ is its name, (pronounced Mo-he-toe) a sport of C. ‘Burgundy Stem’ via C. ‘Black Marble’, discovered at Agristarts nurseries in Florida. Named after the popular Cuban mixed drink, the amazing leaves are medium green with dark purple flecks looking as though ink has been splashed at random all over them giving a very jazzy effect. Although it grows to about 90cm (3ft) in Florida, mine are only 30cm (1ft) tall but no less attractive for that.
What every you do this weekend, have a good one…
Exotic Garden bug delight…
Posted on | July 23, 2010 | No Comments
EDP article for Sat 24th July
I do enjoy high summer – warm evenings and balmy days, though last week’s winds played havoc with the garden. Two coach parties of enthusiastic gardeners visited the Exotic Garden on Thursday last week to be greeted by pots and containers lying on the ground. Many of the visitors propped them up only to fall over again, so in the end it was easier and safer for the plants to lie on their sides until the winds died away. The visitors were totally unabashed by this, knowing that you have to go with the flow when the wind blows at this time of year. High wind desiccates plants far quicker than hot weather, in fact the creeper Crimson glory vine -Vitis coignetiae – which covers most of the front of the house here at the Exotic Garden looked in a sorry state for 48 hours as the winds howled through leaving the foliage looking rather forlorn and drooping, though a good watering reinvigorated the foliage which sprung back to life by the weekend.
As I look out of my studio window which overlooks the xerophytic garden, I am saddened to see that despite the coldest winter for over 30 years, my large old Horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum has been ravaged by the horse chestnut leaf miner cameraria ohridella. I was hoping that such a hard winter would put an end to, or at least severely cut back this pernicious pest. Mine and most other trees in the neighbourhood are absolutely devastated as miniscule caterpillars feed on the tissue between the upper and lower surfaces of the leaf, producing ‘mines’. These are tunnels through the leaf where the tissue has been eaten; causing the foliage to look shrivelled with leaves turning a crispy pale brown and withered – a very sad thing to see in high summer. This tiny (non-native) moth was first seen in Macedonia in the 1970s, though it may have originated in Asia. It was first noticed in the UK in 2002 and has now spread like wildfire across England. I have noticed over the last few years that the leaves are becoming smaller year-on-year as are the conkers. I fear that these wonderful trees will become a thing of the past in years to come as they may become more susceptible to lethal diseases, as Dutch elm disease did in the second half of the 20th century. Some Conker trees are resistant to the moth and luckily I have two pink flowered Horse Chestnut Aesculus x carnea which are completely unaffected by the moth.
While we are on the subject of pests – have you noticed the number of small beetles on any flowers in your garden that are yellow? It is a small black beetle with a metallic brassy or blue-green sheen. It is in fact the common pollen beetle – Meligethes aeneus and is harmless on garden flowers, though it can make the flowers look rather unsightly. From spring to autumn it is very common; feeding in a very wide variety of flowers, especially yellow species, from spring to late autumn, and may descend in huge numbers on yellow items of clothing, washing hung out to dry and even yellow cars! They are most widespread in areas where oilseed rape is grown as it is here in Norfolk and are attracted by the colour yellow in all its shades. I have noticed them en-mass crawling all over my Hemerocallis ‘Burning Daylight’. This can be the bane of flower arrangers using yellow flowers, but as they are also attracted to light, placing affected flowers in a dark shed with a bright light source may lure them away from the blooms. Mostly, the beetles do little harm although occasionally they may nibble on unopened flower buds.
The garden itself is looking fantastic at the moment with much now in full bloom and of course the warm weather and mild nights mean that everything in the garden is growing at record speed especially with the large amounts of blood fish and bone that was liberally spread around most of the plants in the garden earlier in the year. One plant that is particularly eye-catching at the moment is the Giant Mallow – Hibiscus moscheutos growing in a container near the front of the house. This flowering gem is a deciduous, perennial shrub, though it is often grown here as an annual. It is originally native to swampy areas from Massachusetts to Florida and westward to Alabama in North America. The ‘Southern Belle’ strains have the largest flowers in the Malvaceae family and what a size they are with blooms reaching up to 20cm (8ins) across on plants 1.2m (4ft) plus tall. This whopper of a flowering plant comes in a variety of colours from pink to white, red, rose and bicolour making it a veritable showstopper!
Most of the tender perennials and annuals are now almost up to full size and growing to perfection. When they are planted out in late May, the gaps between them always seem huge making you want to plant them closer together, but after six weeks or so they start to form a patchwork carpet of colour to titillate the eye and put a smile on your face – high summer in all its glory is here…
Blooming July…
Posted on | July 14, 2010 | 2 Comments
EDP article for Sat 17th July
For the first time in weeks I’m not fretting about sitting in front of my computer rather than being in the garden. I have a pile of cats tightly curled up on a seat beside me in my studio at the back of the house, with the sound of gentle drizzle falling on the foliage of a rather large Giant Knotweed through open French doors that overlook the garden.
The word ‘knotweed’ usually sends a shudder through most gardeners as it is certainly a very pernicious plant indeed. Hailing from the Sakhalin Islands of northern Japan; Polygonum sachalinense, or giant knotweed, is closely related to P. cuspidatum (Japanese knotweed), and they are somewhat similar in appearance. The main difference is size; both the leaf size and overall plant size are much bigger in giant knotweed. Once established giant knotweed spreads by rhizomes and can be exceedingly invasive. Mine is growing in a fairly small area imprisoned behind a maximum security solid flint faced concrete block enclosure from which it cannot escape though I haven’t built security towers or put in an electric fence yet! Joking aside, I have to admit that I’m very fond of this herbaceous perennial as it grows to a height of 3.6m (12ft) plus each season with large leaves up to 38cm (15ins) long giving a very jungle-like feel to the garden. Visitors sometimes tell me that having it is illegal which is not the case; though I would certainly not recommend planting it. Luckily mine is well behaved and would only be removed if it managed to break out of its maximum security confinement.
Polygonum sachalinense (Giant Knotweed) imprisoned behind a thick concrete wall hidden behind a raised pool.
Polygonum cuspidatum (Japanese knotweed) left and Polygonum sachalinense, (Giant Knotweed) right.
There is also an attractive variegated form -Fallopia japonica ‘Variegata’ which is accentuated by dark green to reddish stems with mid-green leaves splashed with yellow and pink. Although it is far less invasive than the common form – to be safe I only grow it as a containerised plant where I can admire its beauty knowing that it isn’t going to take over the garden.
Fallopia japonica 'Variegata' (Variegated Knotweed)
For the record – It is not an offence to grow giant knotweed in your garden or on your land and there is no legal requirement (unless stated in a particular contract or arrangement) to control it. Giant knotweed is not listed in the Weeds Act and is therefore not ‘notifiable’, meaning there is no need to report its presence on your land. It is an offence though to dispose of cut stems or soil containing rhizomes for instance by taking it to the tip or by putting stems or rhizomes in your green waste bin and it is certainly an offence to plant it in the wild, so be warned!
Of course there are many members of the family Polygonaceae which are completely safe to grow in the garden and far too many to mention here, so I will only mention one, also commonly known as Knotweed – Persicaria microcephala ‘Red Dragon’ which grows to about 90cm (3ft) tall in full sun to dappled shade position. The leaf colouring changes from deep maroon with a silvery-white V-shaped marking in spring, to darker green with a maroon V-shape in summer. Sprays of tiny creamy-white flowers appear in clusters above the foliage in summer much loved by bees. It is a non-running and non-invasive cultivar so totally safe to grow in the garden.
Persicaria microcephala 'Red Dragon'
Many plants are coming into full bloom and one that is flowering to perfection at the moment is a rather large Yucca glorious some 2.7m (9ft) tall with two enormous 1.2m (4ft) flower spikes, or as I have now noticed, one, as the weight of the flowers and rain caused the tallest spike to crash down taking out a large clump of Canna ‘Eisenhower’ as gravity brought it to the ground! When the rain stops I will have to try and prop it up again providing it doesn’t snap of in the process.
Yucca gloriosa flower spike laying on top of Canna 'Eisenhower' and Crocosmia 'Lucifer'
I love to walk around the garden in the rain as it is so lush and verdant with dripping leaves and the strong scent of Brugmansia in the air, in fact the whole garden is pervaded with the scent of multiple flowers and foliage in the rain, such a welcome change after so long a dry period – you can almost sense the garden sighing with relief as the gentle rains wash the dust out of the air reinvigorating all the plants.
Brugmansia 'Snowbank'
Even fairly drought tolerant shrubs like Aucuba japonica variegata the spotted Laurel has been under strain in recent weeks with floppy leaves, but know they back to normal and looking fabulous. Even plants in the Xerophytic (desert garden) are enjoying the summer rains after such a long desiccating period.
Only a few weeks ago many of the plants in the garden were several weeks late after such a hard winter, but now most have caught up and growing fast. Most traditional herbaceous borders are now going over, especially with all the heat and drought of late, but the tropicals are now powering up for a crescendo over the months to come. Here is to rain at night and warm days – well one can wish…
Exotic plants just love this weather – especially the Begonias…
Posted on | July 6, 2010 | 5 Comments
EDP article for Sat 10th July 2010
The heat goes on – at least here in Norfolk and the exotic plants just love it, especially the Begonias! For some years I have had a passion for these wondrous plants from the hardy species like Begonia grandis evansiana to those that are decidedly tender. I have a display of these wonderful beasts just inside the entrance to the garden, many nestling in the shade of a Windmill Palm Trachycarpus fortune as most need protection from the hard glare of the midday sun at this time of year when it is at its highest.
Most of my collection are called cane-type begonias, which are distinguished from the others by their bamboo-like stems. Most are free blooming and have large clusters of flowers of which many are ever blooming if temperatures are high enough. Unfortunately, being tropical (mostly from Brazil) in nature I grow them in large pots which are brought out into the garden when all fear of frost has past, usually around the third week of May here at the Exotic Garden.
One in particular that I find devilishly eye catching is the highly vaunted Begonia luxurians, a masterpiece of nature hailing from the forests of Brazil in South America. I think this is one of the most beautiful Begonias that can be grown. It is particularly unique in its genus as it doesn’t particularly look like a begonia! Its hand-like leaves are up to 30cm (1ft) across and composed of 10-20 dark green leaflets that are fleshy and sometimes rippled and arranged in an almost complete circle at the top of each petiole (leaf stalk) and curving down giving a really dramatic weeping effect to the whole plant. The leaves are produced alternately up the stem which bends slightly at each leaf axil (where the leaf stalk is attached to the stem) resulting in an intriguing zigzag appearance. It certainly deserves its name as the foliage does look luxuriant making a great specimen. At this time of year it is topped with racemes of dainty small creamy-white flowers. My multi-stemmed plant is about 1.5m (5ft) tall so the flowers can be easily admired at eye level, though in the wild it can grow to a staggering 3m (10ft) tall!
I have a rather large Begonia corallina at around 2.3m (7ft) tall in its container which is one of the easiest of the cane-type begonia species and fairly common though no less attractive for that. It has angel-wing like leaves 20cm (8ins) or more long, in a dark green shade with occasional spotting. The dark brown woody stems can become quite thick with age, up to 2cm (1ins) in diameter. It does have a tendency to drop its leaves giving a somewhat open appearance especially during the winter months. Since the plant can become rather large, it needs to have its individual canes staked if the flower clusters become too heavy as it blooms profusely with large cluster of red flowers, sometimes up to 30cm (1ft) or more across. Old canes that have gone barren (lost their leaves) can be pruned to two leaf joints above the ground in early spring.
Another large one is Begonia ‘Thurstonii’, a rather striking shrubby cane begonia which grows to around 2m (6ft) tall with striking shiny dark olive-green leaves with red veins and a red underside. Its overall glossiness makes it stand out from the other begonias, especially with its’ bunches of pink flowers at this time of year.
I have always had a soft spot for Begonia ‘Burle Marx’ which was much admired by the late Christopher Lloyd. This shrubby begonia grows to around 75cm (2 1/2 ft) tall, with densely packed, puckered, bronzy-green leaves and sprays of small white flowers on long stems. Finally but not least, Begonia maculata ‘Wightii’ also known as Spotted Begonia and Wight’s Spotted Begonia is out of this world looking as though it has been made in some fantasy land! This Begonia is new to me this year and is an extraordinary shrubby cane-type begonia with large glossy dark green leaves up to 30cm (1ft) long that look like bat or angel wings with pronounced silver dots. The white flowers are quite showy, appearing from late winter into the spring, arising from the canes among the leaves. My plant is about 30cm (1ft) tall though it will become a medium sized begonia that should reach 60-90cms (2-3ft) or maybe taller if it likes its location!
Although most books say Begonias shouldn’t be overwintered at less than 15C (59F), like my Bromeliads, I find they cope with a minimum low of 5C (41F) if kept pretty much bone dry during the winter months, though this does cause some leaf drop, but once warmer spring weather arrives they soon come back into leaf. I also find that the use of a large fan to blow the air around the greenhouse eliminates any mildew forming on the foliage, a scourge of our damp British winters. They all prefer a potting mix that is at least fifty percent loam based with added Osmocote slow release fertilizer plus the occasional sprinkling of blood fish and bone for good measure. The cane types do have a tendency to become rather floppy especially when in flower, hence the judicious use of bamboo canes for support is often essential on the taller types as mentioned earlier. They mostly prefer a dappled shade position that does not receive any midday sun as this will scorch the leaves. Other than that, most begonias enjoy being outside for the summer months from late May well into October. So – why not have a go at growing some yourself or come and admire them growing here at the Exotic Garden…
Twilight at the Exotic Garden
The heat is on…
Posted on | July 2, 2010 | 9 Comments
What a fabulous week of heat we have had here in Norfolk – from freezing cold a few weeks ago to boiling hot, in other words – typical British weather for the time of year! (The driest spring for 80 years!) My watering regimen has been stepped up to cope with the drying heat, especially those porous terracotta pots and containers that often need watering twice a day when the temperatures reach dizzying heights. Luckily for tropical’s this is ideal weather where most plants are putting on a massive growth spurt.
Last week’s open day at the Exotic Garden was rather interesting as several of the visitors requested to watch the England versus Germany match on my TV – no comment on the score! The height of my afternoon though was the arrival of Joe Seamone (aka Boca Joe) an exotic landscape designer from Washington, DC on the East coast of the United States, who arrived suitably attired in shorts and the obligatory Hawaiian shirt. We had a fascinating couple of hours slowly walking round the garden discussing the differences in growth rates of exotic plants on both sides of the Atlantic and as you would expect they are very different indeed! His garden is on a latitude more in line with Lisbon in Portugal, so as you would expect the summers are much hotter than ours at around 30-35C (85-95F) during the summer months and exceedingly humid, though their winters can get down to an arctic -18C (0F).
Joe Seamone outside his home in Washington DC with an exceedingly large Colocasia esculenta ‘Jacks Giant’...
What about the exceedingly cold winters though? Because gardeners there know it’s going to get really cold the more tender planting is overwintered frost free, often in a basement which most houses have in the US, or a thick layer of leaves or something similar is placed over the roots to a depth of 30cm (1ft), which allows them to bring tender plants like Colocasias and Cannas through the winter with little damage, or, like we do, bring them into frost free conditions. It is the summer heat though that really makes the difference compared to our typically luck warm summers. He showed me a picture of himself standing next to a Colocasia ‘Jacks Giant’ with leaves up to a staggering 1.5 x 1.2m (5×4ft) where in this country with warmer winters and cooler summers we might expect about a third of the growth, that is unless we have a hot summer – I’m always in hope.
Things are really moving in the garden this week thanks to the warm weather with most of the exotics visibly growing almost in front of my eyes. In the Xerophytic garden it’s a riot of colour with a sea of the California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) which hails from – as its name suggests California and much of the western US. It is an annual species with intense almost day-glow-orange, silky textured flowers above floppy greyish-blue feathery foliage. I have always loved this plant as it’s very reminiscent of long, hazy summer days when I was a child – I’m sure the summers were hotter then!
For shear over-the-top colour, there is nothing that can beat members of the Mesembryanthemum family (meaning ‘midday flowering’) a delightful genus of drought tolerant plants from South Africa in a range of daisy-like flowers often found in intensely lurid colours. Lampranthus for instance in its many different forms range from shades of white, bright lemon yellows through rich maroon tones to the brightest almost pulsating pinks and purples, all growing on low spreading succulent leaved plants, revelling in a hot dry full sun position giving a real ‘Wow’ factor to the garden. Delosperma is another member of this genus with greyish-green succulent foliage and equally over-the-top day glow colours forming large groundcover mats about 10cm (4ins in height).
Close to these are several clumps of the hardy Aloe striatula, a tough plant which has proven to be hardy down to -8C (17.5F) and probably lower if kept dry. This succulent grows fairly quickly into a multi-stemmed plant around 90cm (3ft) tall in height and spread. The erect flower spikes stand well above the foliage somewhat resembling the flower spikes on Kniphofia (red hot poker) in a shade of yellowish orange. Blackfly are also rather partial to it as well, though these pesky little blighters can easily be removed by spraying them with a very week solution of soapy water. Like the Mesembryanthemums, they must have supper well drained gravely soil for the best performance.
Another rather common but but never-the-less attractive little succulent is Aloe aristata which is just about to come into full bloom. This small succulent is a stemless, clump-forming succulent, with dense rosettes of stubby, lance-shaped toothed leaves with small white spots and soft white spines, particularly beneath. The flowering spike is about 30cm (1ft) tall topped with orangey-red downward pointing well spaced tubular flowers. This one does like to grow in the slight shade of taller plants where it will last for years.
Echeveria glauca is a superb and fairly cold tolerant succulent if kept on the dry side during the winter months. This rather attractive succulent is grown for its bold fleshy silvery bluish-grey leaves which form tight rosettes as they mature from 10 to 30cm across (4ins to 1ft) and look good planted solo or en masse. In summer the foliage is punctuated with spectacular spikes on long greyish stems about 30cm (1ft) tall consisting of waxy flowers that change from red through orange to yellow from the top to bottom of each flower. Echevarias also make excellent container plants as long as they are not over watered which will cause them to rot – dry is best for these beauties.
Thinking of containers – a lovely succulent that looks superb in a terracotta pot is the diminutive Ledebouria socialis, also known as ‘Silver squill’ or ‘Wood hyacinth’ a bulbous species also native to South Africa. It is a small plant reaching only 15cm (6ins) in height with strap-like leaves that are a very attractive silver-gray with dark green splotches rising from small reddish tightly packed bulbs. Once established it forms small colonies which look excellent in a shallow pot in a full sun position. Unfortunately this one is not hardy so must be brought into somewhere light and airy, where you will be rewarded during the winter months with massed spikes of very small, greenish-white flowers – let’s not think about winter yet…
