Rhododendron 'Mi Amor' is alow growing, and not much of a looker in leaf, which is why it irks me to miss deesing its flowers.
In every garden I have ever owned, I’ve planted Rhododendron ‘Mi Amor’. This Rhododendron lindleyi x
Rhododendron nuttallii cross has striking dark green, textured foliage and sumptuous white, very fragrant flowers with a fruity citrus scent.
Rhododendron specialist Marina Shearer, of mail-order nursery Rhodo Direct, says ‘Mi Amor’ is one of their most popular varieties for fragrance.
Rhododendron ‘Mi Amor’ certainly blows its own trumpet but that’s not much use if no-one’s around to hear (or smell) it. It flowers later in spring than most, which irritates me no end as its blooming invariably coincides with the peak garden festival season, when I’m often away admiring other people’s rhododendrons! The Mexican tree daisy, Montanoa
bipinnatifida, at least has the decency to hit its peak in late autumn, when the gardening year is winding down and I’m stuck at home raking leaves.
Also known as the pom pom tree and tree chrysanthemum, Montanoa
bipinnatifida is either a very large shrub or a small tree, depending on your climate. Julian Matthews introduced me to it as a monarch butterfly magnet many years ago but it wasn’t until I saw it on Kate Jury’s mail-order list at Seaflowers Nursery near Thames that I had a chance to grow it for myself. It is a spectacularly out-of-proportion daisy, with huge jagged leaves that give way to clusters of nectar-rich, autumn flowers with white petals and yellow centres.
On Raglan nurseryman Peter Cave’s website, Montanoa bipinnatifida is listed in the “evergreen trees” category, which says a lot about the mellow coastal Waikato climate, because in my Hunua garden it is usually felled by early frosts mere days after it comes into bloom. In its first year, Jack Frost knocked it down before it even had a chance to open its buds. Now three years old, its height has topped 4m and keeping its head in the clouds seems to prolong the floral display, even if the lower leaves are blackened and rendered to mush at its feet. Peter describes Montanoa
bipinnatifida as “a giant daisy bush” with bold divided leaves and a big, arresting head of white daisies at the end of the current season’s growth. “Initially I thought they like shelter, but out in the open is the easiest way to maintain,” he says.
It’s dead easy to grow from cuttings. Just whack off a section of mature stalk, chop it up into segments with at least one growth node at the top, snip back any individual leaves by two-thirds and poke into the ground in late summer. We’ve had an 80 per cent success rate taking casual cuttings at Foggydale Farm, which is helpful because I’m fantasising about planting a fast forest of Montanoa
bipinnatifida to wrap around the circular deck that acts as a platform for Rose Petterson’s Divine Star sculpture in our meadow paddock.
Deciduous azaleas don’t last nearly long enough for my liking either, but they are so riotously cheerful in spring that who can blame them for needing a lie down afterwards?
I fell in love with deciduous azaleas at Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent, where they glow in a garish gold and copper blaze all the way along the moat walk. Sissinghurst’s creator, Vita Sackville-West, is better known for her tasteful white garden (and her love affairs with literary lesbians) and white wisteria spills over the brick wall on the other side of this walk.
There’s also an exquisite bank of deciduous azaleas in John and Trish Uffindell’s garden in the Kauaeranga Valley near Thames. They own Peppertree Nursery and have an eye for intriguing combinations, such as electric orange azaleas against a backdrop of claret red spring foliage.
I was so inspired by that look that I impulse-purchased ‘Copper Frills’ to tuck between the red berberis, ‘Red Emperor’ Japanese maples and smoke bushes ( Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’) in my own burgundy garden. But as is typical of best laid plans, the azalea promptly carked it (my fault; I was lax with the hose over its first summer) but perhaps I’ll try again with tough-as-boots clivias.
The problem with nifty colour combinations that focus on seasonal blossoms and buds is that the impact automatically fades with the flowers, whereas variegated foliage can offer a more permanent pop of colour to brighten up a boring green scene.
That’s what I was thinking when I succumbed to the tempting array of variegated dogwoods on sale at my local garden centre a few years back.
With their distinctive four-petalled fleshy white and pale green bracts, most cornus have a timeless elegance but they need a cool climate to flower reliably. (At home, the most bracts I’ve ever counted on my Cornus ‘Eddie’s White Wonder’ is four!) The tiered wedding cake tree,
Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’, is a guaranteed talking point in spring but I’m not convinced it’s so pretty in the harsh glare of the summer sun,
Now you see me, now you don't: the vibrant spring foliage of many variegated dog woods rapidly fades to plain green in summer.
whereas that’s not an issue for Cornus ‘Cherokee Daybreak’. Its fresh spring foliage is handsomely margined with creamy white and faint tints of pink, but all that colour fades by summer, leaving a plain green bush that sits there and bides its time until it goes out in a blaze of autumn fire.
The Cherokee range also includes ‘Cherokee Chief’, which reputedly has red flower bracts (though I’ve never seen one) to match its bronzered spring foliage, fading to dull green, and ‘Cherokee Sunset’, which has buttery yellow margins and splashes of bronze and pink, plus little red berries for the birds.
If you find that mix of colours a bit tasteless, never fear, for ‘Cherokee Sunset’ goes back to yawn-inducing green before you know it. Blink, and you can deliberately miss it.