Amazing Astelia nervosa
Much of the shady garden has been cleared of debris, weeded and had leaf mould spread over it. The soil surface went from being very wet to very dry thanks to days of rain-free, north-easterly winds. It’s been very cold and some plants have had a hard time of it. Yet, in the biggest bed beneath the trees, three beautiful plants of
are doing brilliantly, their swordlike, silver leaves glistening in the winter sunlight. They’ve only been planted for a few months but are very happy so far. I’m apprehensive about their welfare because their predecessors in this bed succumbed to cold, wet weather one winter, having lived there happily for years. The postmortem revealed that it was the combination of wet and cold that did for them. It’s often this combination of prolonged cold and wet that kills plants; they might cope with one or the other, but not both at once.
Astelias are sometimes seized upon by garden designers searching for an architectural plant to grow in a container in a hot, dry, sunny site in poor, gri y compost, but they thrive in shade in peaty soil. They’re such striking plants and make a telling contrast to their neighbours – snowdrops, epimediums, geraniums and their ilk. Being evergreen they’re visible throughout the year but it’s now, against the dark, dank soil, that their handsome silvery foliage makes the maximum impact.