This is another Blog to which I'll be adding items to occasionally but this one is about some of the flowering plants I grow.
Featured here are:Roscoea, Zauschneria Californica, Salvia Patens, Dicentra Scandens, Cannas and "Whiplash" Arisaemas.
Named in honour of William Roscoe, founder of Liverpool University Ness Botanical Gardens, the genus Roscoea has a long history of cultivation here in the U.K.
A genus of nearly 20 species, they grow at high altitudes in the Himalayas and South West China etc.
Normally found growing in well drained meadows, on slopes and in lightly forested area, they are the most northerly growing members of the ginger family. (Zingiberacae)
All of the Roscoea can be regarded as frost hardy in U.K. gardens.
By tradition, they’ve always been looked on as plants for the alpine and woodland specialist and despite the present day popularity of other members of the ginger family; this still seems to be the case today.
In recent years, there have been several new introductions and by carefully choosing the species, you can have Roscoea in flower from late May until mid autumn.
Roscoea are easy to grow plants with no particular vices.
Light shade is a good place to grow them and they don't mind a bit of late afternoon sun.
Soil should be well drained but moist with plenty of organic matter dug in.
If you water and fertilize well during the growing season you'll soon build up a really nice clump.
Winter protection isn't required.
Believe it or not, I’ve spent many hours keeping watch on my Z.Californica hoping to see a humming bird sipping nectar from the flowers.
Sadly, there seems to be a shortage of humming birds here in Birmingham and I haven’t seen one yet!
Still, ever the optimist, I continue to watch in the hope that one day one will come along.
Seriously though, I’ve grown Z.Californica on and off for over twenty years and it’s one of my all time favourite plants.
For late summer colour it can’t be beaten, the fiery orange red flowers giving the border a real lift. (“Lift” also known as the "WOW" factor because you can’t miss it. The larger the plant the bigger the "WOW"!)
Native to California, (you guessed) Z.Californica is a low growing, problem free, easy to grow hardy perennial for the hot sunny border.
Once established, it’s drought resistant and requires little in the way of maintenance.
In late winter, cut off the dead stems from the previous years growth and you’ll be rewarded with a mass of new shoots which in my garden flower from mid August through to first frosts.
Z.Californica does have one vice in that it can be invasive.
Personally, I don’t mind this but if it does spread too far, it’s very easy to pull or dig up the stuff you don’t need.
So my friends dash out and buy Z.Californica, plant it in the sunniest, hottest spot you’ve got and prepare to be “WOWED".
Of course, you can always join me and spend your days watching and waiting for the elusive humming birds.
For this plant, we move from California down into Mexico.
Here we find Salvia Patens, which is another easy to grow trouble free plant that’s worthy of a place in anyone’s garden, in fact a real gem.
The most notable feature of course is the flowers, which are large, usually described as beak shaped and are one of the most stunning, intense blues you’re ever likely to see.
One other notable feature is that amongst a genus of plants which normally have fibrous roots, S.Patens grows from tubers, just like Dahlias.
The flowering period is usually July/August but this can be extended by cutting off the old stems as the flowers die.
Plant in sun in a rich, well drained, moist soil and give it plenty of water and fertilizer when in growth.
Usually classed as a half-hardy perennial, S.Patens is hardy in my garden so I leave it where it is.
However, if you don’t feel that confident, dig it up when the foliage has died down and store the tubers in damp peat in a frost free area for the winter.
Pot up the tubers in spring and put them somewhere warm to bring them back into growth, then plant out after last frosts.
(Despite continuing advances in digital imaging, I’ve yet to see a digital photo of S.Patens which does justice to the flower colour.
The closest I came to capturing it was some years ago when I used Kodachrome 25 in my 35mm film camera and although digital is catching up, I think we’ll still have to wait awhile before it’s as good as film at rendering colour.)
Dicentras, are a genus of generally low growing perennials from moist mountainous and woodland areas of North America and Asia, the most popular being D.Spectabilis the much loved “Bleeding Hearts”.
Hidden away among the 20 or so species, are a couple of little known climbers, D.Macrantha and D.Scandens. D.Scandens is probably the easiest to obtain and this blog is my bit of homage to a very fine plant.
I grew my D.Scandens from seed many years ago and when I first saw it I had trouble believing it was a climbing plant at all.
This is because it has none of the “hard” woody look about it that most climbers have.
With its bronzy coloured almost translucent stems, tendrils which are little thicker than a human hair and delicate looking foliage, it doesn’t look as though it has the strength to climb anywhere.
Don’t let all this delicacy and fragility fool you though because this plant is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Once it gets into its stride, it will amaze you with its speed of growth, walls, fences, shrubs, trees, in fact D.Scandens will grow up, over and around anything, including you if you stand still long enough.
Now reading this, you might think that D.Scandens is a real thug and has no place in your garden, but you’d be very wrong.
For a few brief weeks in summer it graces the garden with its beauty, the panicles of flowers hanging down like little drops of gold.
Then, almost as quickly as it arrived, it disappears completely leaving behind just a few, easily removed dried up stems to mark its passing.
If you plant it in a well drained, rich, moist soil with some shade to stop the roots from drying out, then I’m sure that D.Scandens will bring you as much pleasure as it does me.
Cannas are another plant that has made something of a comeback in recent years bringing height and with some varieties gaudy leaf colour into the garden.
Like most people, I’ve always thought of Cannas as garden plants but this is far from the case.
In fact, Cannas have a history of cultivation as a food source stretching back hundreds possibly thousands of years.
The rhizomes of C.Edulis and other species are a rich source of starch, the leaves and stems can be used as animal fodder while the young shoots are cooked and eaten as a vegetable.
In fact nothing is wasted even the seeds are used in rattles and in tortillas.
The first garden hybrids were created in the middle of the 19th century and this led to an explosion of new varieties ready for an eager gardening public to buy.
In the U.K; Cannas fell out of favour in the early 20th century and many of the new introductions were lost to cultivation.
There’s a fair bit more I could write about these magnificent plants but with space at a premium, I’ll finish this section here.
I’ve grown many varieties of Cannas over the years but nowadays I tend to stick with four of my favourites and they are: C.Indica, C.Musifolia, C."Striata" and C."Tropicana".
Cultivating Cannas is easy, in fact it really isn't any different from growing Hedychiums.
The rhizomes should be planted in a warm sunny spot, in moist soil that's had plenty of well rotted manure dug in.
Cannas love moisture and they're greedy feeders so for best growth and appearance, really give them a good regular soaking and feed heavily with tomato fertilizer.
At the end of the season, the rhizomes can be lifted and stored for the winter or they can be left in the ground and mulched for protection.
The plant in this photo, which if you’ve never seen one before probably looks like something out of an “Alien” film is actually Arisaema Costatum.
A.Costatum is one of several of the genus which are collectively known as “Whiplash” Arisaemas.
The reason for the name “whiplash” is the threadlike appendage that you can see wrapped around the leaves of the plant in the photo.
This “whip” which can be anything up to 36ins long on some species is an extension of the spadix and it seems that it serves a very useful purpose.
As the leaves and the spathe (flower) expand the “whip” unravels and stretches out along the forest floor where it gives off enticing odours.
These odours attract insects to the plant and these in turn pollinate the spadix.
Unfortunately, the enticing odours don’t seem to be working on my A.Costatum and I’m still waiting for it to set seed.
If you want to grow these strange but wonderful plants, here are some more species: A.Griffithii, A.Propinquum, A.Speciosum and A.Thunbergii.
For tips on cultivation, see my blog Growing Arisaemas
When you consider that there are two hundred plus species of Hibiscus growing throughout the mainly warmer regions of the World, it comes as a bit of a surprise to find that only two of them are regularly offered for sale here in the U.K. H.rosa-sinensis and H.syriacus.
In order to redress the situation a bit, here are two more species for you to try, if you've a mind to that is.
H.coccineus (Scarlet rose mallow) is the first one.
This beauty comes from the southern States of the U.S.A where it's found growing in wetlands such as swamps, marshes and river systems.
It grows to eight feet tall and on the slender stems are borne the most stunning scarlet flowers, each between six and eight inches across.
The second one is H.moscheutos (Swamp rose mallow) and again this is a wetland plant.
This one is found in Texas and the eastern States of the U.S.A. as far north as Ontario.
H.moscheutos is one of the shorter Hibiscus growing to four feet tall.
It is also very variable both in form and petal colour and there are many unnamed sub-species.
Plant breeders have also been at work on this plant and they've produced hybrids with
flowers up to ten inches in diameter.
These Hibiscus are very hardy and easy to grow, but to get the best out of them they do need plenty of water.
A rich soil and plenty of fertilizer when in growth will all help the plants along and keep them in tip top condition.
They make excellent plants for a sunny bog garden or a spot that's permanently moist and if you grow them in a pot, then you can stand them in a pond where they look very effective.
They can also be grown in the herbaceous border, but you'll have to keep them very well watered as they don't like drying out.
I've never seen these species for sale, so like me you'll have to grow your own from seed.
I soak the seed for twenty four hours in water that's just luke warm and then plant them into fibre pots.
When the seeds have germinated and the plants are large enough, the fibre pots can be planted straight into the open garden.
(Using fibre pots eliminates the shock of transplanting which is something else Hibiscus aren't keen on.)
These Hibiscus really are excellent garden plants and I think it's a great pity that no one seems to bother with them.
Fascicularia Bicolor is the third and last of the Bromeliads that I grow.
Another Chilean plant, it has, like Bilbergia Nutans and Puya Alpestris turned out to be one of the best plants that I've bought for my garden.
These three plants alone have amazed me with their ease of growth, freedom from pests and their hardiness
They are without doubt, some of the most rewarding plants I’ve ever grown and I’d recommend them to anyone.
F.Bicolor is a clump forming plant made up of several vaguely urn shaped rosettes.
On my plants, the leaves are narrow, about 12 inches long and they’re armed with spines along each leaf margin.
As the rosettes age, they become more open in their growth and the leaves begin to turn a silvery colour.
On reaching maturity, the rosettes are almost fully open and in late summer the leaves turn a bright red or scarlet colour.
At this point a flower head develops and if you look closely at the photo, you'll see that this is made up of many small buds.
It's the petals on these buds opening up that give the flower head its pale blue colour.
Unfortunately, once it’s flowered, the urn dies away to be replaced by new growth.
You do need a bit of patience with this plant because flowering doesn’t happen every
year, so you need to wait until more of the rosettes have matured before it happens again.
Mind you, it’s worth the wait because to see two or three of the rosettes in full colour is really spectacular.
(If you want to take a photo of your plant including the blue flowers, then you'll need to be quick.
The reason for this haste, is due to the fact that the petals are a magnet for every mini-slug and wood louse in the area and in a very short space of time you're flowers have been eaten.)
Cultivation is easy, full sun and a very well drained soil is all that’s required.
For more details, see my Blog at Puya Alpestris a gem plant.
That my gardening friends, is about it. Posted by Mike.