Foggy bottom…

Foggy Tostat, January 1st 2019

I love a New Year.  All that fresh thinking, new ideas, new plants to try out, new projects simmering is one big energy rush.  But today rather let me down- we have been surrounded by fog for the last 3 days, not unusual in the winter as we are in a river valley- but winter has suddenly turned up and is making a rather glum job of it.  Having decided to risk some more on-the-tender-side things in the garden since we came back from Australia, I rushed out this afternoon with fleece and secateurs, cutting back luxurious growth and fleecing the riskier items.  I have a feeling that they will be just fine, and I was sad to cut back Salvia ‘Anthony Parker’ which has been magnificent since October probably, though we missed a large slice of it.

Only the merest hint of cold on the leaves, and all these fabulous flowerheads still going strong, Salvia ‘Anthony Parker’, Tostat, 1st January 2019

But he is a Californian, and so it was too much to expect that the show could go on- but I am hoping that staying in the ground might get him off to an earlier start this year.

Salvia ‘Amistad’, Tostat, January 1st, 2019

I am leaving Salvia ‘Amistad’ a bit longer as it is a good deal more tough than ‘Anthony Parker’.

These are isolated moments of flowering I hasten to add- 90% of the garden is looking brown and winter-worn, but the star of the moment is a real surprise.  I bought a rather spindly, much reduced specimen of Cestrum elegans rubrum last winter, and put it just underneath the great over-hang of the pine tree with a wall behind it for some warmth- figuring that the over-hang will give it some frost protection as it is not that robust.  But right now, it is covered with flowerheads, and looks really good from the foliage point of view.

Of course, this does reflect the warm temperatures we have been having, from 9-19C in the last month during the day, so we will see.  I don’t think it is a great looker from the foliage end of things, but the flowerheads are big, carmine, and long-lasting- very exotic-looking.

Cestrum elegans rubrum, Tostat, January 1st 2019

I have a bit of a thing about Abutilons.  Some might find them a bit rangy and straggly, I don’t, but I know what the decriers mean.  But I love the way that the flowering stems swag, and this year I mean to do more to give them support that will show them off better.  This unknown orange abutilon is more bushy than most and so gives a solid, but not dull, presence in a sunny, hot spot.  It is still covered with flowerheads.

Unknown orange abutilon, Tostat, January 1st 2019

There are more isolated flowerheads on Abutilon ‘Kentish Belle’ which is much more of a straggler.  But the flowerheads are like threads of party lanterns- and the bright yellow combined with the dark fuchsia pink is very pretty.  I need to get some more rebar to bend into supports for it this year.  And new to me last year was Abutilon ‘Red Trumpet’ which has produced a new flowerhead despite the fog.  It looks to me as if this variety will be more bushy in form.

Abutilon ‘Kentish Belle’, Tostat, January 1st 2019

Abutilon ‘Red Trumpet’, Tostat, January 1st 2019

So, with cuttings to settle in from ‘Anthony Parker’ and seeds coming in the post, there is plenty to look forward to.  Gardening is such a kind activity, it forgives your mistakes and let’s you start over.  That is a good thought to face the fog with.

Gardening where you are…the nature of acceptance

Chrysanthemum zawadski, Tostat, end November 2016

I think that I am a battler rather than an acccepter by nature. I do accept that I will never enjoy swimming or do it again, despite making myself learn at the age of 43, but I now know that I actually don’t like it- even though I probably did know that before!  In other respects, I am a battler by tendency.  So, when in response to my last blog, I got a comment from a reader in Italy, I felt her pain.  She was talking about gardening in Italy, and finding the August dead period depressing.  This dead period is exactly what happens in the Mediterranean garden, and in any garden, like mine in the last 2-3 years, which are winter-wet and summer-dry.

But I got a smart, and good, smack over the fingers from the website called summer-dry.com, which I stumbled over fortuitously.  In clear and crisp tones, Summer-Dry urges us to get wise, be sensible, live in the real world and ‘garden where we are’.  So, if where we are is summer-dry, then get with it, and discover a world of plants who thrive in cool/cold wet winters and hot-dry summers.  And the object of the site is to switch us onto that.  Absolutely gorgeous photographs taken by the Californian photographer, Saxon Holt, pepper the site and there is masses of useful information and many wise words. As part of the summer-dry project, a book has been written entitled ‘Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry climates (of the San Francisco Bay region)’ by Nora Harlow and published by EBMUD, East Bay Municipal Utility District.  It is really expensive outside of the US, but you never know, I might find it somewhere.

The best part is the idea of changing the aesthetic.  So many of us have toiled, or toil, to make gardens that remind us of our prevailing aesthetic of garden beauty.  If we can move to an acceptance of change in the aesthetic, we can garden more successfully where we are, reduce our frustration and be kinder to the planet.  We can learn to live with the August bald patch, knowing that weeks later, the garden will be refreshed and rejuvenated.  Nothing grows when temperatures are more than 30C and nothing grows without moisture.  So, summer-dry gardening is impatient with the term ‘drought tolerant’ as being, well, inaccurate.  Summer-dry does what it says on the tin, it is dry in the summer and those plants will hang on till the conditions change. So, it is the ability to hang on, rather than be tolerant of drought, that is what we are after.

A Californian summer-dry garden photographed by Saxon Holt credit: http://www.summer-dry.com

I like the cut of their gib, as we say.  I am following their site and learning from their words- altogether great.  If anyone reads this blog who could help me get a copy of the book, I would be ever so grateful, please get in touch.

Meantime, back in Tostat, I am looking out at the area of garden that I planted up last Spring and kept going through the summer with a spot of judicious watering, and I have a feeling of confidence about it. I had chosen the planting carefully for it’s ability to hang on without summer water, and I think next summer, it will be in good shape.  New growth has been happening in a serious way for almost all the plants- most of which I had grown from seed, and so I may be on the way with it.  Of course, nothing is guaranteed, we could get a killer winter for example, so I have taken cuttings of the Salvias, ‘Phyllis’ Fancy’, ‘Amistad’ and ‘Anthony Parker’.  The latter is still flowering and still outside in a pot, though I will bring it into the covered, but open, barn at the end of the week when colder nights are forecast.

The still gorgeous, if touched by frost, purple calyxes of Salvia ‘Anthony Parker’, Tostat, November 2016

I can feel a swing coming on- planting up seed indoors, taking cuttings, tidying up pots, ripping out old friends (plants) who have become too friendly…a swing towards next year, and another set of seasons in the garden.  Come on….

Chrysanthemum ‘Chelsea Physic Garden’ just touched by frost, Tostat, November 2016

Rosa ‘Jacqueline du Pre’, Tostat, November 2016