The MGS Forum
Our gardens, a month-by-month pictorial diary of what's looking good now => Our Gardens => Topic started by: Alisdair on August 20, 2012, 09:58:56 AM
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Rather off-topic, I'm afraid, as the main plant I'm showing here would be very unhappy in typical mediterranean conditions - but I hope I'll be forgiven, as at least it is pictorial, and is in our garden now!
The plant in the first two pictures is Desfontainea spinosa, in a sheltered corner by our house in south-east England, growing to a height of nearly 3 metres. What's unique is that this has already flowered, in June, and now is flowering for a second time - it's never done that before, and this year's weird weather with such a wet dark summer must be responsible. I've loved this evergreen, from humid parts of southern Chile, ever since I first saw it in my aunt's garden in Scotland, and discovered that if you pulled off a flower you could suck a delicious nectar from the back of the tube. And it's always fun to see a "holly" (actually the leaves are opposed in pairs, unlike any true holly) that has such pretty flowers. Sadly, it needs far too equable a climate to cope with mediterranean heat, sun and summer drought.
The third picture shows some salvias here, rather more "mediterranean-happy" plants, coping well with our non-summer, and like the Desfontainea photographed this morning.
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Interesting, Alisdair.
I have never seen Desfontainea spinosa in the flesh, but your photos provide a good 'taste' of it. Holly like, indeed. I presume it is hummingbird/lepidoptera pollinated, going on the shape of the flowers (which also remind me of Hamelia patens and some Fuchsias).
I think your collection of Salvias is curiously pleasant, colour-wise. I would never have thought of such a colour combination, but it seems to work in its own way. Nice one, Nature!
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Lovely salvias, Alisdair. Do I see S.patens 'Cambridge blue'? A really intense sky blue.
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The flowers of the Desfontainia spinosa look so much like Cuphea micropetala.
A pretty plant and obviously very vigorous where you are.
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Absolutely right, Pamela! It is a good blue, pretty fade-proof. We've been very lucky with the exact siting of the desfontainea as it doesn't usually much like the south-east of England.
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Desfontainia spinosa doesn't like alkaline soil....so no good for the Med basin.
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Alisdair, do you know who des Fontaines was or why the plant is so called? I have seen it growing in Chile and have tried to grow it from seed both in Australia and here in Toscana. No luck. It reminds me of Australian Xmas bells, genus Blandfordia, I think.
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Sorry if I'm leaping in on your question, Alisdair, but the plant was named after Rene Louiche Desfontaines (1750-1833) a French botanist and professor at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.
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Thanks very much, John, for jumping in there - I'd have had to burrow among my books!
Joanna, it's interesting that you say it reminds you of Christmas bells. That's pollinated by honeyeaters. In Chile the Desfontainea is pollinated by the local equivalent, a humming-bird, the green-backed firecrown - there's actually a picture of the bird drinking from the flower in A Wildlife Guide to Chile, by Sharon Chester (Princeton, 2010).
Pamela, you mentioned Cuphea micropetala; that's another hummingbird plant.
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I love your salvias as well, Alisdair. I am particularly fond of the blue ones, and in spite of the very wet and rather cool summer here in Oslo, the salvias (Salvia patens) I started from seeds bought from Sweden are doing well, the flowers are much bigger than I have ever seen before, and they are intensely blue.
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Quite lovely, Jorun!
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Wow, terrific colour, Jorun!
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Do you grow your salvias as annuals or perennials, Alisdair? I would love to have S. patens in Greece, but I suppose it's too hot and dry.
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Here in the UK we grow them as "intended perennials" - that's to say, we hope they'll pull through the winter, but we have to keep our fingers crossed with the borderline ones. Some winters they make it, others they don't. Helena usually takes cuttings of those and keeps them rather dry under frost-free glass over winter, as a reserve.
We grow very few in Greece; apart from one plant of 'Bee's Bliss', only the abundant local S. fruticosa (syn. S. triloba) in the unwatered part of our hot dry garden there - we have tried one or two of the herbaceous ones in that part, but they don't like it. We do have a very few other shrubby ones in parts that get some irrigation.
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I'll try to lift them before the frost and store them in a frost-free place.