WHAT'S LOOKING EXOTIC IN 2015

Your garden room is looking wonderful, Peter!
Well the winter is turning out to be very unusual here this year. We usually have temps of around -8C in November, then it warms up again until January or February when it snows and can drop to -17C! So far, though, there has only been one light ground frost so the Cannas, Hedychiums, Ipomoea, Acacia, Oleanders and Alocasia are all still flowering or looking good and we're still picking tomatoes and cucumbers from the poly tunnel!
I cut the leaves off the Ensete maurellii a couple of weeks ago and tried to dry it out before mulching and wrapping it in situ. It's too big to dig out this year.
The Ipomoea is on a sheltered wall outside but doesn't keep it's leaves or stems. The roots are mulched to protect them and I cut down the old, dead stems sometime during winter if there's a dry, bright spell. It's becoming a bit of an embarrassment now as the stems are creeping over the whole bed, rooting as they go. It hurts to pull them out and bin them!
The plant I'm most concerned about protecting is a seed-raised Pandorea jasminoides that nearly didn't make it past seedling size but was planted at the foot of the same sheltered wall and has been growing well all summer. Do the panel think it will survive a cold spell? Do Pandoreas come back from the roots if the stems suffer?

 

Hello Bill and welcome to GC! Sorry, it must seem as though we're ignoring your post but it got lost in all the general excitement over the 'tropical' plants!
There's a thread here...http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/...ood-in-december-2014.83902/page-2#post-880569 for piccies of more hardy plants.
Aren't roses good value? Over here, they start in March and keep going, on and off until the first hard frosts Won't it be great to have Christmas dinner table flowers picked out of the garden?

 

I'm not sure about Pandoreas Noisette, Victoria grows them but I don't know if she gets the cold temps that you do. My green Ensete is too big to lift (for me!) so I have left it in uncovered, after two frosts it looks like mush and won't recover, I sacrificed it as I lifted a E maurelii, repotted it and it is in the greenhouse kept virtually dry at around 4/5c. There is so much water in Ensete stems that they are likely to freeze very easily.

 

It's definitely colder here than in Portugal, Strongylodon! In fact, it's colder here than parts of the UK but for shorter periods. Ah well, will wrap up the Pandorea stems when the nasty weather hits.
Ensete are juicy, aren't they? I've wrapped what was left of mine in dry, shredded paper, then fleece, then a cone of foil roof insulation. The roots have a 1' thick mulch, so it'll be interesting to see how it comes through (or not). They're not easily obtainable here and certainly not cheap, but the Alocasia survived with only it's old leaves as protection, so I'm hopeful!

 

Peter S, nice to see your Justicia rizzinii in flower! Love the flowers on it.. I'll have to wait around 3-4 months for my outside one to flower!

 

Not exactly stunning plants but my seed and cutting acquisitions from Mallorca last August are growing well despite being sown in early September.
I left a couple of buds on the Bougainvillea to make sure it was the red one, no it wasn't, it was mauve! I didn't think I took a mauve one, however it is another for the conservatory. The variegated red leaved cuttings were too woody and rotted.
Here are 2 of the 6 Caesalpinnia Gilesii and 1 Acacia Longifolia (front) and 1 CIDP seedling pulled up off the beach. I am still hoping some of the 5 remaining variegated Oleander cuttings in the propagator will root if they don't rot before early Spring.

 

Good luck with the Caesalpinnia and Acacia - they're nice looking plants.

 

They will grow quickly from March onwards, the Caesalpinnias will need stopping several times to make bushy plants.

 

My massive crop of Narranjilla this year.
Like the taste but not really for eating the whole fruit, just the juice.

 

Some plants doing well outside in December.. actually I've put up a picture of my Justicia rizzinii which, I thought, would never flower in December, but I think it will this Winter.

First photo is the Justicia rizzinii (the small leaved plant).. there are little flower buds forming, though you can't see it on this photo.



Second Schefflera arboricola .. my favourite plant in the border - I just can't grow the likes of Schefflera taiwaniana, as they grow too big, too quickly, so this does it for me, and is actually genuinely tropical looking.



Third is Dieffenbachia, how on earth this is still alive I don't know.. but it is.



Fourth and Clivia miniata.. hasn't flowered yet but is growing well, and looks good!



Last one is bird of Paradise.. bit small for flowers, but I hope in a few years it will flower!



ps Pete, never even heard of that fruit.. what does it taste like?

 

Stephen, I can't believe your Dief is still alive let alone looking ok. I have never seen them growing successfully in the Med!
We have had just three hard frosts (-2c) which killed the Pelargoniums, Argyranthemums and stripped the Fuchsia Thalia of it's leaves but the little Chamaedorea Elegans is untouched (but not as healthy looking as yours).
I think we've had colder nights down here than you have had. Even with cover I think they would have suffered badly here.

 

Yes, I was sure it was going to have died by now.. even Aglaonema is still alive too, with minimal leaf damage. I still doubt it'll make it to next Spring, but who knows? Pelargoniums are still flowering here, and there are some impressive Argyranthemum bushes around town (white flowered varieties not pink). In that border the coldest yet is +2.2C.. though the coldest part of the garden went down to -1.6C on one night, most of the garden hasn't yet been below 0C. On a side note I have Bougainvillea growing in the ground just further up and that's looking ok... just didn't grow a great amount last Summer.

ps Strongylodon.. Caesalpinia are absolute gems of plants.. I'd love to be able to grow one here, but I think they require more heat than I can give them.

 

Go on, Stephen, give the Caesalpinia a go! I grew several C. gillesii from seed and they're planted out near a sheltered wall. They made 1.5m single-stemmed 'trees' and flower well every year despite winter lows of between -8C and -17C. The one I gave to a friend in the next departement is planted out without any shelter at all and although it is later coming into leaf and flower it survives.

 

I find with C. gillesii it needs summer heat to flower well.
It also needs good dry weather during flowering, the flowers rot very quickly during wet weather.

I'd say similar to a passion fruit but possibly slightly more acidic, the juice really has a taste of its own.

 

You're right, Pete. I was forgetting that it's not just about hardiness.