Practical Gardening
OVER THE last week I wouldn’t have associated our weather conditions conducive to growing plants from Africa. But never more than at this time of year plants from Africa, particularly plants from The Cape peninsula and Southern Africa, poliferate in our Irish gardens. Many of these herbaceous plants we take for granted as easily grown late flowering colour that ease us into the rusty shades of autumn. Most also make excellant coastal plants with tough grassy foliage.
You could be mistaken in thinking that some are native by their apparent comfort at growing in our extremely mild temperate zone temperatures. The Cape lies on the cusp of the sub tropical and temperate zones of the southern hemisphere so maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised that so many of these plants become happy expats and adapt to Ireland’s conditions in spite of our additional rainfall.
Crocosmia or the more commonly called mon- bretia is a native African plant that has escaped from gardens to become naturalised in Ireland. An orange glow in many a roadside verge at this time of year can warm the very soul. Along with the success of Fuchsia magellanica, native to the southern cone of South America, you would be forgiven thinking these plants were natives, so prolific have they become. My two favourite Crocosmia are the yellow flowered C. ‘Solfaterre’ and the red flowered C. ‘Lucifer’.
Another African success story is the marvellous genus Agapanthus, the African Lily or Lily of the Nile. Like Crocosmia they are almost indestructable in Irish gardens and these blue/purple and white flowering architectural gems have become rightly popular. There has been an explosion in new varieties from plant breeders in recent years, too many to keep up with and the evergreen nature of the foliage can be ambiguous. A plant bred in Australia may be evergreen there but not here, likewise a plant overwintered under cover here may remain in leaf but not when overwintered outside. Agapanthus ‘Black Pantha’ is evergreen