Visiting a lush oasis of a garden on Empire Avenue reveals another unknown plant
First to Wayde Rowsell’s mystery plant. Andy Barnes’ wife Jocelyn had suggested filipendula, but I was spelling it with a “o” when I looked it up. Duh.
Then Andy emailed “filipendula kakome,” but my research says this is only about 12 inches tall. Wayde’s plant seems taller than this.
Evan Simpson writes, “Your pink-coloured plant is certainly a filipendula. That’s the genus. The species is probably rubra but possibly purpurea. I have several in my garden on Long Pond Road. There are also white forms. The common name of the genus is Meadowsweet.”
This led me to further research and deciding from Wayde’s description of the flower’s colour later in the season that his plant could be purpurea “Elegans.”
It is described as having “neon pink blooms on dark stems and large lime green leaves,” and then “pale pink flowerheads accented by dark red stems.”
It is also known as dropwort, and is attractive to bees and butterflies in the garden. It does well in average, medium to wet, well-drained soil in full sun, but it prefers consistently moist, fertile, humusy soils and is great by a pond or water feature.
Another possibility is Filipendula rubra “Venusta” which is also known as meadowsweet, having been developed from the single-stemmed wild flower variety.
It forms a sturdy, upright bush with large heads of deep pink flowers and deep green lacy foliage.
It can get to four to five feet high and wide, but can be contained with a little pruning after it flowers. It prefers moist places in full sun but can do well in normal soil in the shade.
And while we’re identifying plants, I had the great pleasure of visiting a garden on Empire Avenue in St. John’s where Debbie and Bernie Ford have created a lush oasis.
I suspect there was only one bedding flower in the garden that Debbie couldn’t identify, and it was so uncommon that, of course, that was the one she was asked about.
One of our group thought it appeared to be like something she had planted in her son’s California garden and which started to trail after a while.
Coincidentally, I had just seen one very like it growing up a support on my friend Mitchie’s back deck, a retirement gift from a gardener friend.
I snipped a leaf from Debbie’s plant and was at Mitchie’s the next morning. Sure enough, it was the same plant. In my best Angela Lansbury imitation, I took a picture of the evidence.
The tag named it as dipladenia. Research reveals it to be a summer outdoors/winter indoors plant in our climate. You can also take cuttings from a soft tip of the plant.
They make a wonderful small climber or shrub in small gardens in sun or shade, but unusually, the sun makes them leggier and more suited to the climber than the shrub form.
Make sure their roots don’t dry out in summer and fertilize in the spring when you set them outside. Dipladenia are confused with a similar plant called mandevilla and they may be treated the same.
Contact with sap may irritate skin. All parts may cause mild stomach upset if ingested. So, as pretty as they look, don’t add them to your salad.
More on garden visits next week.