Ultimate Conservatory Garden

I have just acquired a garden room for the first time - see Garden Room thread, and with help from Kristen, Pete and others have decided to just keep it just frost free over the winter with electrical heaters.

Now comes the exciting bit - what to grow. Kristen I did see your previous thread http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/ultimate-conservatory-plants.50216/ and thought how relevant it was and still is. I felt guilty at not replying to it, but I think it was at a time when I was about to go away.

Other than using a conservatory as a greenhouse to overwinter tender plants and raise seedlings in spring. I can see two separate primary uses. One is to create an inside garden and the other is to grow WOW plants. As these are really separate subjects perhaps we could use this thread to discuss an indoor garden and Kristens thread to talk about individual WOW plants.

Indoor Garden
As well as growing some exotic individual plants I would like to try to create an indoor garden and would like some help.

The objective is to grow plants inside all year round, but rather than just have a collection of plants, I would like to create a garden as an entity. ie something that you could show at Chelsea - but without all the gimmicks. This means balance rather that just a collection of attention seekers plants. I want to create an enclosed jungle feel, with a smaller number of larger plants.

Kristen - you pointed me to an excellent book The Conservatory Gardener (thank you). That suggests having :-

Big specimen Plants - :-
Ensete maurelii is a must - but how do you keep it below my roof height of 7 to 8 feet.
Big Cannas such as altensteinii - any others
Brugmansia - got to have a couple
Palms ? - how do you get a big one without paying a fortune
Ravenala - I have 20 seedlings - so must have this.
What else?

Mid sized plants
Cannas - Cleopatra is brilliant - what else - will they flower for a long time under glass?
Gingers - what are the best ones ?
Strelitzia
What about some long flowering reasonable sized shrubs.
Some interesting foliage - like Colocasia

Climbers
Cobae scandens didn't do well for me this year - but I would like to see if growing under glass is any better. Rhodichiton and Asarina are superb and I will be repeating them.
I must put up a trellis along the back wall, and also erect a frame to run wires across the roof.
I need something fairly rampant to cover the back wall. A bit like a Clematis montana but more exotic. And one or more climbers to cling to the wires under the roof. Hill House nursery (Devon) has a beautiful red passion flower that overwinters just frost free.

Colour
My 'Chelsea entrant' has got to have colour as well - even if it is only Pelargoniums. A big species or unique would be nice.

All ideas welcome

 

...this sounds like it's going to be great Petera real exciting project
A variegated Star Jazmine would be nice

 

No idea how to achieve that, so will follow the thread with bated breath

I thought of building planters into the floor of mine, which would give the plants root-access to the ground below, but it was "all too difficult", so my plants will be in pots too.

How are yours getting on? I was expecting mine to do more than they have done. They don't look completely happy, I wonder if I am not giving them something that they need? I expect they will want to be moved from cold-greenhouse to indoors before the hard frosts forecast for the coming week?

Ensete / Brug / Canna - all mine go out for the Summer (they don't have to of course ...).

I had my Musa sikkimensis seedlings in the conservatory for the first year, and they were quite a talking point. They got up to the roof by the Autumn ... I suppose you could have small plants becoming big'uns in Year 1 and then plant out for Year 2 and then let them take their chances that Winter (given you have another, year-younger, batch coming on in the conservatory). Someone suggested to me that I leave my Musa sikkimensis outside for the winter, unprotected, and replace each spring - until I get a batch that survive the winter and then I will have selected a hardier form

(By the by, I got lucky with that first batch of Banana seed, I haven't managed to generate even a single one since ... so I bought half a dozen plants on eBay mid summer, they were very cheap, so that might be an alternative if you have germination-failure one year)

I've got three. I get only a few flowers on each. I have decided they are boring - sorry! I am growing a S. nicolai from seed - I seem to remember the one at Kew is the height of a double decker bus though!!

Me too Although I am thinking of Vine-eyes and wires instead.

How about a selection of Passion Flowers (intermingled)? I've been threatening to buy 5 or 10 rooted cutting varieties from the specialist in Holland for a year or two now - carriage cost means it would be better to buy 10, than 2 lots of 5. I've partly not done it because my conservatory rebuild project was "pending" ... but come next year I will be running out of excuses!

I have a Plumbago capensis which is a really good Do'er. It came from Jungle Plants and was touted as having darker flowers than the norm. They aren't THAT dark, but they certainly aren't washed out either. Not tried cuttings but I could have a go if you'd like one? (Jungle no longer selling plants, only Seeds)

You've missed out Lapageria, which I think you and I both need (I have found a reasonably priced source of seed-grown plants, let me know if you are interested)

Other than that in terms of your Mid Size shrubs, and perhaps climbers too, I am thinking of things that have a really good pong about them. Quite a number of things are described as having a "heady scent" or words to that effect; many are nocturnal smellers; I think they might be fun to have, so that on evenings when you are in shirt sleeves and shorts, and the temperature drops enough to make you want to get out of your chair, you could just move to the sun room and not only get warmer but also have the benefit of the scent

I'm minded of Christo Lloyds writings about what he terms "keyhole plants" - flowers like the longiflorum lilies that he said, for him, should be in the room next door with only a keyhole to allow their overpowering scent to reach the room he was in!

I have a few Hoya's. Pete (I think? apologies if I have misremembered) very kindly sent me a couple of cuttings, and Shiney has given me a couple of unusual ones) and my plan was to put them in pots attached high up on the wall from which they can drape down - I think that will look better than trying to train them UP something.

You got plans for irrigation? or is that another thread perhaps?

 

Thanks Lolimac - I am going to look into that.

Mine seem to be doing OK. But they are very small with, at most, only 3 small leaves. But I remember Strongy saying that his started very slowly - then grew very fast later on. I have kept mine in the house all year, and I see 16C is quoted as a winter minimum. But I must Google further - there are so many different figures quoted.

I have a couple thanks, from seed. They have been outside in the cold in the summer for a couple of years, and not grown that much. But I see that they can get really quite big. I hope they do better inside a greenhouse.

I saw the one at RHS Wisley, earlier this year. And yes it was huge. I fancy having a go at that as well. If you remember I asked about nicolai seed some time ago and that was the point that you bought up Ravenala - which I had never hear of - but have now also seen at Wisley and Kew.

I tried to grow that from seed earlier this year - but failed.

I like your idea of vine eyes and wires rather than a trellis along my back wall - not so intrusive - thanks.

 

That's reassuring. Mine are the same - and have been attacked by slugs / snails by the looks of it.

Mine only came in from greenhouse yesterday. Don't have a MIN for the greenhouse, but air mins have been 1C or 2C, so certainly a lot less than 16C FWIW ... so far they look no different

I'll give one or two of them some serious light over the winter and see if that encourages them

 

The one I saw at Wisley was in their new glasshouse, and was no age but they had already had to move it to a spot with maximum headroom - which is a bit worrying!

Mine you, their Ensete montbeliardii looked to be young too, and that was a monster!

These photos were at New Year's 2012/2013


Travellers Palm


Ensete montbeliardii

 

Peter, I grew a Ravenala years ago at work, kept it in the corner of a half acre glasshouse but after 4 years or so it was too large to keep (8/9ft), as a young plant it was often mistaken for a Strelitzia.
This was at the Hotel in Nairobi last year, they are a fantastic sight when mature.
Uploaded with ImageShack.com

 

What about a slightly less common Tree Fern? For example, I've got a Cyathea medullaris which is quite fun, a bit different, and grows some nice long fronds Here's mine (March 2013) which I bought last Autumn

 

Strongy - thats a brilliant picture - its one of the most spectacular of all plants. Your figure of 4 years is a helpful guide as I knew it wouldn't be long. Even if you could cut it back to limit its size, you would totally ruin its shape. How about restricting its roots and not feeding it? Perhaps I should leave some of my seedlings out in the cold and set them back a year. It would give me a second string.

One good thing is that Ravenala is extremely easy from seed. I must have had 80% or 90% germination.

Kristen - I saw those at Wisley this summer. I absolutely loved that glass house and spent almost my entire visit in there.

I think Ensete 'Maurelii' and 'Montebelardii" are fantastic, but have a similar problem. Can you limit their height by cutting back to the base each year?

Although my Garden Room looked quite big - empty, its only about 10' by 15' and isn't going to take that many plants.

.

 

Yorkshireman's solution?

Don't think so. Montebelardii is more of a problem to overwinter as it grows very upright, but suits a smaller garden, taking up less width ... I suppose in a small garden you could have a vertical conservatory to overwinter it?

Maurelii more conservatory-friendly in that sense.

I think the solution to both might be to buy/germinate every few years and flog-on the big ones on eBay.

I have heard that if you cut off an Ensete at the base it will Pup, so that might be worth a try when it gets too big. Now that Jungle Plants has stopped selling plants I don't know of another source of Montebelardii

 

Kristen - you have prompted me to find some videos on propagating Ensete Maurelii, as I have been interested in that for some time. I think its time we had a specialist Banana thread, so I have put them in a new thread in Tropical Gardening.

I am well aware that Maurelii and Montebelardii will outgrow their space very quickly - unless you can let the overwinter outside. So I found the videos very interesting.

 

And maybe a kitchen-table-top tissue culture thread too?

 

Kristen - you may joke, but I would love to have a go at that. But I think the hygene question makes it much more difficult than cuttings etc. I think you have to do it seriously and not casually like most of my gardening.

 

it was only half tongue-in-cheek. I do believe that some folk are having a go, and I at least have the benefit of having worked in a tissue culture lab "when I was a lad" - and one that didn't have clean-cabinets and all the fancy gear, so in a sense it was closer to kitchen-table-top.

But I think if I did it now I would want a clean cabinet, much easier to keep the moulds out of the agar. But you also need an autoclave (or would a microwave do perhaps?) and a temperature controlled area with racks that are well lit ...

... I'm typing this and thinking its not much different the artificial lighting rig, and heated propagating mats, that I have anyway!!

I'm off to google Kitchen Table Top Tissue Culture ...

 

Blimey! First link in Google is "Affordable Plant Tissue Culture for the Hobbyist or Have Kitchen, Will Culture?"

http://www.kitchenculturekit.com/StiffAffordablePTCforhobbyists.htm

Edit:

Also found this useful (it related to Carnivorous Plants, which need less nutrients, but I found several useful general points)

http://www.omnisterra.com/botany/cp/slides/tc/tc.htm