Best friends
You put in a plant. It becomes your friend. Then you encounter it elsewhere – even on the far side of the world.
Iwill always try a new plant that takes my fancy. Even if it’s not quite hardy, I’ll give it a go. How else do you expand your plant knowledge and horizons; discover for yourself a plant that just might become a long-term resident in your garden.
Plectranthus are plants that like it warm temperate to tropical, but I optimistically planted Plectranthus argentatus in my garden.
I was attracted by its velvet-textured, silver leaves. Unlike most silver-leaved plants, it thrives in shade so I planted it under shrubs, out of the frost. It survived for a couple of years and then it was gone – a victim of winter.
Some years later, I was holidaying in eastern Queensland in Australia. I went on a field trip to the hills specifically to see the hoop pines Araucaria cunninghamii growing in the wild. It is a tree that I have growing – albeit slowly – in the grounds here at Larnach Castle.
Yes, there they were with the clusters of leaves at the end of the branches like pompoms. Underneath these trees, unexpectedly, what did I see? The silver-leaved plectranthus. This was its natural home where it grows as a spreading groundcover.
Just last July, I revisited Sissinghurst Castle in Kent.
For me, the celebrated white garden has always surpassed expectations, again and yet again, as different gardeners reinterpret Vita Sackville-West’s romantic white and silver planting theme within the cerebral structure designed by her husband, Sir Harold Nicholson.
This time I visited at the end of the day, had dinner, then viewed the white garden by moonlight. A rose grows over a pergola in the centre of the garden. This pergola was designed by Nigel Nicholson to replace the failing almond trees that Vita had planted.
Under the rose-covered pergola, taking the central position in this most famous of gardens, I again encountered my plant friend, the velvety, silver-leaved plectranthus. The plant was in a container which, I suspect, is overwintered in a greenhouse.
On this same visit, I had spied Clematis x durandii in the courtyard in the purple border.
At Sissinghurst, I could gain an understanding of this plant’s potential: a lusty 1.5m clump of four-, five- and six-tepaled flowers of rich, indigo violet. It’s a hybrid with one parent certainly Clematis integrifolia. The other parent is disputed.
This clematis is not quite sure whether it is a perennial or a climber. It dies right down each winter, comes up in spring, growing up straight in a clump, then it flops. It can be grown – though a shrub – for support or staked and tied.
Leslie Cox, of Gala Plants, was shifting her garden and found that her Clematis x durandii had layered. She potted up the layers and I acquired a couple of these just last year.
This summer, to my great joy, it flowered in the border which I call the serpentine walk.
I have a little niggle about losing the silver-leaved plectranthus. I want to try it again. This time I would be more careful; I would take cuttings to overwinter in the glasshouse. But it’s just so annoying. I cannot find a supplier.