TOUCH OF THE TROPICS
Revive holiday memories with bright blooms from overseas
Should Covid keep you from foreign travel this year, here’s a remedy. Bring the holiday atmosphere to your garden with sub-tropical plants. They won’t give you a tan, but they could stir up happy memories and will enrich your surroundings. Many of us associate special plants with happy, sun-kissed trips.
Perhaps it was a jasminescented terrazzo, where you dined alfresco without shivering — even after midnight.
Mention Spain and I recall huge agaves and prickly pears lining dusty roads. For Greece, it’s an explosion of purple bougainvillea smothering a whitewashed villa. In the South of France, bright yellow mimosas reign supreme.
how wonderful it would be to train one of those on an English wall. If you’re rational, it’s silly to envy such things. We already grow over 70,000 plant varieties in Britain — a greater diversity than in any other nation. Yet still we hanker for something more exotic — and why not?
We can’t festoon outdoor walls with bougainvilleas. our winters are too cold for that. But we can grow a surprising range of subtropical plants which flower readily in our summers and are easy to over-winter.
With climate change, that list is getting longer. British winters are milder and wetter. Summers have higher temperatures, too.
PRETTY IN PINK
OLEANDERS are among the easiest Mediterranean shrubs for outside. Their narrow, evergreen leaves make a pleasing background. The flowers can be white, pink or near-red. They grow wild in rocky ravines and survive long droughts. But regular watering and good soil results in heavier flowering.
The hardiest, little Red, is deep pink. There are peachy hues, too, but the main colours are pink or white. oleanders thrive in containers. All parts are poisonous if eaten.
Scrubby and pungent-smelling, Lantana camara grows all over the tropics. The flower clusters open pale yellow, maturing orange or red. despite being roadside weeds, they’re excellent pot plants and flower continuously all summer.
From Australia comes Alyogyne huegelii. You’ll forgive it for being a straggly, weak-limbed bush when you see the saucer-sized, delectably blue to mauve flowers. You can grow it as a wall plant, or keep shortening the stems.
lantanas and Australian hibiscus are tender. But both will over-winter if minimum temperatures drop no lower than 0c.
SURVIVING WINTER
RELATED to hibiscus, Abutilon vitifolium grows freestanding as a small tree, but can also be walltrained. Each June, the branches are loaded with pale mauve blossoms. Flowers of A. x suntense are a deeper, more intense mauve. Both trees will take frost to about -5c. Tender varieties include Abutilon, Ashford Red and the species A. megapotamicum.
Sub-tropical plants like these are wonderful now. But we have to get them through winter. With mature shrubs, mulch the roots in autumn. If trained on a wall, have fleece or hessian to protect top growth during cold spells.
Then, pray for a mild winter. Better still, try this precaution: from each vulnerable plant, take a few non-flowering shoots as cuttings. do that before mid-September, rooting them in a greenhouse or windowsill.
If you take cuttings this month, most will have rooted before midautumn. Pot up your baby plants and keep them in a greenhouse, conservatory or on a windowsill until it’s safe to plant next May.