Cottage garden fused with tropical

afternoon all,

Clianthus puniceus - the flowers are amazing but i'm not too keen on the plant itself. Looks a bit scraggly

Solanum rantonnetii - this is a very pretty plant. Looks better as a standard in my opinion. Would love one of these however the tednerness of it is putting me off. I wouldnt be able to store it over winter :-(

Emory Paul - WOW WOW WOW. This i want! them flowers are huge. They would look really good as a background plant with the large flowers poking through the top.

Longk - the Brugmansia is the highlight of this thread so far for me so could do with a little advice. What protection do they need? are they ok to be left out all year?

 

Mine is still happy enough outdoors in a sheltered spot. Taken a couple of light air frosts.

I left mine out all winter and it survived, although no blooms this year. It is one of the cold group, so will flower later in the year, or all summer in a crap year. I would over-winter it in the walk in g/house.
The Iochroma is worth consideration. As I say. Pete has a large one outdoors, so if you're after a small tree for the back I can send you seed.......................




Eucomis is a great crossover plant for the exotic/cottage garden. E.bicolor.........................

 

Snap1. Because I have a large garden I don't have time for individual plant mollycoddling, so Good Do'ers are preferred (and others may succumb :( ). Trouble is I don't know what they are, and haven't found a useful source of "Interesting, unusual, bullet-proof plants to amaze your friends" ... "Boring, humdrum, bullet-proof plants that all your friends grow too" are available in every garden centre in the country. I don't need another Kerria japonica!

Snap2! I grow them, try them, and keep a few ... very few. See Snap1. "Rinse and Repeat"

Oh dear! Growing that for first time this year.

Perhaps we need a (lengthy??!!) thread for "Tried and Binned"?

My solution is to Photograph and Upload to ID section

For me it is wanting to copy/steal ideas that have worked well for other people. Particularly plant combinations that I have found attractive / startling.

Nice variegated ones grown as Lollipops at East Ruston Old Vicarage. I bought a small one to take cuttings off ... give me a nudge in 5 year's time and see how I'm getting on?!!


Sorry, fuzzy photo of Solanum rantonnetii variegata lollipop

Some other Solanums at East Ruston:





and a couple of whoppers! :

Here you go: £2.15

http://www.national-dahlia-collection.co.uk/en/emory-paul.html

I have Summer flowering ones. I bring them in for the Winter, kept frost free is fine, they defoliate at those temperatures, so an unlit garage would be OK - perhaps brought outside, in winter, during mild spells. But beware, my experience is that the fancier ones are hard work. Eaten by everything & anything, struggle to put on a good flush of flowers, struggle harder to put on additional flushes, so being kept and maintained like an expensive mistress for a few good days out :( My advice would be to stick the the known Good Do'ers. Better still, stick to Grand Marnier

There's a thread on here where Wayne, GC's resident Brugmansia expert, made a recommended list of Good Do'ers.

 

Link to Wayne's Brugmansia Good Do'ers list:
http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/brugmansias.51387/page-2#post-675617

 

Not hard work, but less forgiving of the weather. My B.sanguinea is actively growing in an unheated greenhouse.

But less so than the more common ones (I've grown them back to back). More susceptible to RSM under glass though.

Oooh, but what days!!!!!

 

Agreed - you start it and I'll fill it!

I don't!

Am I so unappreciated!!!!

No such thing (another of my pet hates, along with standards).

Seriously impressive. How are they overwintered?

 

Oops! Not sure many of yours are bulletproof though? Or maybe just seems that way to me that they need some careful attention. I also think there is a difference between Wow'ing a plant collector, and Joe Public. Joe Public needs covered-in-flowers and dressed-to-amaze, whereas Mr Diehard Collector will be interested in a singe, exceptional, flower hidden in the foliage (and you DO have a few of those in your Bucket List )

But from you, or others here, I have grown Solanum laciniatum, Nicotiana sylvestis and N. langsdorfii, all winners that I didn't know of before. When I stated growing Cannas someone suggested C. musifolia grande - great fun big leaves- no good for Impact though for anyone wanting impressive flowers but for a leafy / architectural garden they are bog-easy and seriously impressive

Unusual Amaranthus (Elephant Head, Foxtail and so on) have been fun. Visitors think they might be Love-lies-bleeding, but aren't sure

I love the Salvia amistad that Jenny gave me a cutting of. Best one I have

Tucked in between the hedges at East Ruston they have a couple of commercial sized greenhouses ... I guess they are full of Brugs and the like over winter.

 

Kristen - your garden and ideas are awesome! Great work

I notice you have planted Paulownia Tomentosa! I have just bought 60cm potted plants (they are just bare stalk at the moment) and wanted to get advice on when to plant them out please? I live in Derbyshire and it's damn cold at the moment although no snow ....not yet anyway.

Also with them being 60cm already, how much growth can I expect in their first season?
I don't wish to cut them back in the autumn - is that ok?
If I don't cut them back, are they likely to grow even taller the following year?
Can I grow new plants from seed? (I have also bought seeds)
If I can grow them from seed, how easy is to germinate the seeds?
From seed, how tall does the plant have to be before it can go in the ground?

I shall also post this as a new thread in case forum users miss this and can offer advice.

Many thanks.

 

Answered in your other thread:

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/...a-when-to-plant-out-success-with-seeds.56471/

 

Yes indeed, but somewhere in between the two there are other categories of informed garden-as-visual-space connoisseurs who might be impressed by both your alternatives or neither!

 

In fact that's where I sit - I have many plants that are good lookers, but not that unusual, but unusual enough that my gardening chums may have heard of them but not grown them. Gives me the chance to give them some plants / seed

 

Craig - as you can see you have hit on a topic that interests many of us here. It appears that you don't have much facility for overwintering tender plants so you are really looking for hardy plants. If you are willing to do a bit more there is also a number of tender plants that can be easily overwintered as tubers or rhizomes. They need to be frost free, but take up little space.

This book might be of interest. "Palms won't grow here - warm climate plants for cooler areas" by David A Francko. It covers many more plants than just palms, and goes into a fair amount of detail of exactly how hardy many exotic plants are. For instance it quotes Musa basjoo (Japanese Banana) as being leaf hardy to -1C, stem hardy to -4C, but root hardy to -26C. That means that it will die back each year but will regrow from the base.

Kristen - I love the pictures of your garden. Those bananas are really striking and set the scene for a tropical look. I suspect a tropical look depends on 4 aspects.

Height - perhaps giving an enclosed feel.
Bananas are brilliant for this, Musa basjoo is hardy but you could also use Ensete 'Maurelii', which, for me, is the most spectacular. 'Maurelli can be lifted each autumn, cut back, and stored frost free like a Dahlia tuber. Large Cannas such as altensteinii and tuerckheimii can reach 6 foot in a single season - they too can be cut back lifted and stores as rhizomes frost free. There are also hardy bambos and palms mentioned in the book.

Large leaves
Bananas and Cannas, score here again. Colocasia esculentos can have very big leaves and can be overwintered as a tuber. But because most large leaved plants are tropical they need winter protection.

Outsize flowers
Brugmansia fits the bill, but they may be more difficult to winter. In a shed they need to be frost free. The lovely B. sanguinea tends to be a late autumn/winter flowerer which makes it more difficult than most. Dahlias obviously fit the bill, but are fairly common. Some of the Salvias such as atrocyanea, guaranitica, patens and rhinosina are tuberous and can be lifted like Dahlias.

Unusual plants.
LongK's your man here. But the reason you don't see the unusual plants is because they are the ones that need protection over winter, and most people are not willing to do that.


You could try Echium russicum. Its hardy to -20C as long as you keep water out of its crown. Its a biennial.


Then there is Leonotis nepitifolia - an annual that gets up to 8 feet for me.

 

I am finding more of them to be hardier than I've given them credit for in the past. But yes, there are those that need a little extra care or winter love scattered around.

Pot, kettle, black!!! You have really led me astray since I joined up here!!!
You are one of a group of members here that I look to for inspiration, and you are largely responsible for my interest in (and expanding collection of) Salvia.

Outstanding!

I can vouch for this one too Craig.

 

Has anyone mentioned Phormiums or Yuccas?
Cant do tropical without a few spikey plants, or at least plants that look spikey.
Or Eryngiums, sea holly.