Friday 7 August 2015

Nice plants in my parents' garden

Crinum x powellii 'Album'. In the early '90s I remarked to Primrose Warburg that we'd had two stems on this, to which she replied that she thought she'd had forty on hers (planted at the foot of her washing line post).
I had an hour or so at my parents' home in Maidenhead yesterday afternoon, and took some iPad snaps of plants looking good in the garden. Most of the planting there was put in by me in the 1990s, and it is interesting to see how permanent some plants are while others have faded away over the years. It is a warm, south-facing plot in a very mild area, on well-drained loam, so it's a very favourable site for plants that are not reliably hardy in colder areas.

Agapanthus praecox, grown from seed from plants that grew in my garden in Tanzania. It has been hardy here for about twenty years.

Allium senescens and Eryngium bourgatii 'Oxford Blue'

A mystery Allium that has appeared - thoughts on identity are welcome!

A nice combination in my mother's planter of Aeonium 'Zwartkop' and Plectranthus argentatus
 
Fresh fronds of Polypodium interjectum 'Cornubiense' forming a lush carpet

Lavatera cashemiriana came from Chris Chadwell in 1991 and maintains itself by self-sowing modestly.

Myrtus communis, originally grown from a cutting liberated from a garden in Charmouth, Dorset, in 1982.

Myrtus communis 'Variegata' is generally said to be tender, but this has been unscathed here since it was planted in 1991, justr like its plain counterpart. It was grown from a cutting supplied from the Oxford Botanic Garden for the plant propagation class in my Botany course in 1987.

Cynanchum sp.  - a curiosity as a hardy, climbing asclepiad, with tiny almost black flowers, followed by typical pairs of capsules looking like inflated horns , with silky-haired seed. It sows around, but doesn't really warrant its space.

Ivy Broomrape, Orobanche hederae, on ivy roots in a dry border by the drive. A fun plant that parasitises only ivy so can't do any harm to anything else - and the ivy copes perfectly well.

1 comment:

  1. My goodness at all the plants that have been in the garden for so many years. They must have soil of gold. I sure wish mine was like that.

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