useful plant list for potential mediterranean garden plants

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David Dickinson

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useful plant list for potential mediterranean garden plants
« on: August 29, 2020, 03:28:22 AM »
I came across this today. https://gardenoracle.com/plantlist.html#agw Each plant entry has a lot of information about cultivation and photographs too to give a good starting point for finding new, suitable plants for the garden. Might be useful.
I have a small garden in Rome, Italy. Some open soil, some concrete, some paved. Temperatures in winter occasionally down to 0°C. Summer temperatures up to 40°C in the shade. There are never watering restrictions but, of course, there is little natural water for much of June, July and August.

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Charithea

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Re: useful plant list for potential mediterranean garden plants
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2020, 05:30:29 PM »
Thank you David for your hard work.. I went on the site and check some of the plants that we have. Of course their weather conditions are not the same as ours but the information  is still useful. I dream of having a large Salvia clevelandiaii like the one on the site. Ours are surviving but not thriving. Maybe another year and they will settle down to our soil and weather conditions.
I garden in Cyprus, in a flat old farming field, alt. approx. 30 m asl.

David Dickinson

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Re: useful plant list for potential mediterranean garden plants
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2020, 08:50:59 PM »
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a S clevelandii that size and in such good health in the garden. I had the smallest of plants a few years back and stupidly over-watered it. The perfume from the leaves was heaven. And despite  its small size filled the garden. Now I have a S 'Allen Chickering' and it is in the ground and has had no water for 3 months. It still has leaves but I found S 'Allen Chickering' only gives off that wonderful perfume if the leaves are rubbed. I think I am going to get a couple of the real S clevlandii this autumn and liberate them "guerrilla-gardening" style in secret places near my home. Places where I can go undisturbed and treat myself to that wonderful smell. There are a few abandoned fields behind my house.

I have heard that in hot climates another Californian, ceanothus, is better off without water in summer. I have had no success in tubs and I presume that is because I had to water them. There seems to be no problem with summer rainfall in the UK but temperatures in summer there are more comparable with spring here. I read that fremontodendron, another Californian native is not to be watered in summer either. All these plants, it seems, are highly susceptible to fungal attacks if watered in hot weather.
I have a small garden in Rome, Italy. Some open soil, some concrete, some paved. Temperatures in winter occasionally down to 0°C. Summer temperatures up to 40°C in the shade. There are never watering restrictions but, of course, there is little natural water for much of June, July and August.

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John J

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Re: useful plant list for potential mediterranean garden plants
« Reply #3 on: August 30, 2020, 07:13:23 AM »
David, I know my wife has looked at the link you sent but I've only had time for a quick scan. What I saw looks interesting and I must find time to have a closer scrutiny.
Some years ago we grew a few Ceanothus from seed. They didn't survive, probably due to the fact that we watered them in hindsight, but as they grew well in UK with their wet summers I hadn't taken that into account.
As for the Fremontodendron, we haven't tried one here but I remember there being a large one growing against a wall at Capel Manor in Enfield, North London, and that coped well with English summer rain. Again, probably for the same reason you mention regarding the ceanothus.
Cyprus Branch Head. Gardens in a field 40 m above sea level with reasonably fertile clay soil.
"Aphrodite emerged from the sea and came ashore and at her feet all manner of plants sprang forth" John Deacon (13thC AD)