The MGS Forum
Plants for mediterranean gardens => Bulbs (including other geophytes with corms, tubers, rhizomes etc) => Topic started by: Alisdair on October 03, 2011, 08:57:23 AM
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For John Fielding's photo of Crinum moorei 'Album', click here (http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=388.msg2182#msg2182).
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Though people mostly grow them for their flowers, the tall handsome leaves make them valuable as ground cover in mediterranean-climate gardens when out of flower. Here they are used to edge a path under a long pergola in the Italian riviera garden of La Mortola:
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And here they are** used as large-scale ground cover under plane trees at Moratalla, in southern Spain:
**SEE FOLLOWING MESSAGES - actually these second plants are agapanthuses, not crinums as I had first thought
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Oh! We were saying that this was agapantus in Moratalla. This explains why the leaves were still handsome and not beaten up like my agapanthus are by the autumn.
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Crinum moorei in its best forms is one of the most striking garden plants, an arquitectural character like Acanthi, Melianthus major or the best Euphorbias. It will demand good watering during summer and autumn and does best with morning sun. The very broad fresh green fleshy leaves grow in a huge rosette on top of a massive "stem". And the exquiste large white flowers with black anthers are really striking.
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I've had a different experience with Crinums (both Moorei and Powellii) here in Corfu, and am just about giving up on them. Despite shamefully frequent watering, the leaves are never abundant or beautiful and it's the grayish scaly stalks that one sees since the leaves are clustered at the top. The flowers are no more beautiful that the Lilia or Amaryllises that thrive here on no care at all and no summer water. In the 7 years that I've had them neither bulb has increased significantly in size or produced more flowers.
In contrast the Agapanthus leaves are plentiful and beautiful all year round and keep multiplying. I think, Fleur, Attica might be too dry for them. I know they love the humid air here.
Incidentally, and for what it is worth, on two different visits to La Moratalla, I never for a moment doubted that the "ground cover" was anything other than Agapanthi, with therir characteristic rounded ends. The crinum leaves come to a point and the whole plant rises from the ground....
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Cali, About Moratalla, I'd trust your judgement more than mine! I didn't make a note at the time, and looking at my photo I thought the ends were pretty pointed. But hmm, I could easily convince myself that they are more agapanthus-shaped...
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Alisdair, hurrah for Google!
http://books.google.com/books?id=QopXrEDCHf4C&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=La+Moratalla+Forestier&source=bl&ots=WpN7yjqeaV&sig=RUVKsdwIe6ybnf3oLyNTEq8S7Ks&hl=en#v=onepage&q=La%20Moratalla%20Forestier&f=false
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Brilliant, Cali, Thank you.
I'll amend my original note.
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I was thrilled to see that photo! I'd often wondered what it looked like with the agapanthi in bloom.
To the Crinum question I'd like to add a few things.
To their disadvantages in our/my climate I'd like to add that the leaves bend/break at sharp angles in the wind looking quite ugly even when the broken parts don't die. Then they die off leaving the bare stalk bt autumn.
I would also like to revise my remark that they're no handsomer than Lilia or Amaryllis belladona. I found this one of C. x. powellii 'Album' among my photos and was struck by its grace and elegance. I knew there was some reason I kept them around for so long....
Last month, on a visit to the botanic garden of the Capetanio nursery in Puglia, I was given several mature bulbils of C. asiaticum... a plant that towered over our heads (though not by much). Ive now planted them in pots, just below the surface of the soil according to instructions I found on the internet, and am waiting for them to germinate.
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Beautful picture Cali!
Does there exist any Crinum which looks similar neat as Agapanthus or Clivia (also without flowers) and could be used as groundcover in the mediterranean?
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There are some dwarf forms of the asiaticum alliance that would make a neat groundcover.
Crinum bulbispermum, although belonging to the warm cycle, is more resistant to drought than others.
The widespread X powellii is too untidy to use it anywhere in a planting except for the flowers.
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Crinum powellii, Swamp lily
Seen in the Royal Botanic Garden, Madrid in 1997