Back in Tostat, with a huge and, at the beginning, largely empty garden to make and fill, seed production in the spring and summer was almost industrial in scale. Growing from seed is a pleasure unparalleled. Cuttings are fun, rooting plants is a grand occupation- but nothing gives you the same up close and personal feeling about a plant and how it grows, as growing from seed. Of course, it can be wildly productive, ending up with 30 baby plants of something- and it can result in nothing except slight frustration. I mostly try again in that case.
Dianthus cruentus is a plant that got inside my head in 2011. Blood red, wiry, strong whilst also being wafty, I grew lots from seed for the Tostat garden- and then my mind moved on. This year, I found myself yearning for it again, bought seed, and despite a tricky Spring, I have 7 small plants coming along nicely. They will spend the next 9 months or so over the winter, bulking up and being potted on, before finding a good spot for them in the garrigue garden at the front. They work best as pops of colour, so good, not tall, but the colour is the thing, and it’s great to have an old friend in the garden again.
New to me this year, from the MGS Seed List, is Geum trifolium. This, unusually for me, is a tiddler of a plant, only about 20 cms tall, and I think I will plant my 3 baby plants, after their 9 months getting bigger, into a shallow bowl, and keep them in the courtyard garden. I haven’t grown this before, and so I don’t want my rougher customer plants lording it over the Geums.
Above is another plant from the past. Morina longifolia was a big presence for a while in Tostat, but despite apparent perfect conditions, it didn’t last and didn’t self seed. So I have had another go here in Oloron. It has those unrivalled icecream coloured flowers and good, thistly leaves and is really striking. I have only one survivor from my sowing, so maybe me and it are not meant to be together.
Now here’s a success. Seed from the MGS Seed List is always massively tempting, mainly because you just think ‘I can do this’, so whereas I have almost conquered my need to buy plants, seeds are very hard to resist! Euphorbia bivonae is not well-known, but I liked the sound of it. And as the seedlings have come along, they look to me to be in the same vein as my favourite Euphorbia, Euphorbia seguieriana, which I bought at Beth Chatto’s nursery and smuggled home many years ago. Slim leaves and an elegant shape, without too much wulfenii world domination, is what I am after.
Now below is something I can claim no credit for. I did grow the original plant from seed maybe 8 years ago, but what’s happened this year is just the result of a happy plant doing it’s thing. Peltboykinia wattanabei is a lovely Japanese woodlander, beautiful, emerald green incised leaves and a lovely upright form, it does need moisture though and plenty of shade, so it’s always been in a pot next to my other solo success from seed, Astilboides tabularis. But, on spring time examination of the state of my pots, I discovered that the Peltboykinia had seeded itself all over its’s neighbours, and now I have 9 vigorous little plants potted up. Result!
As for the Astilboides, it has flowered, and in the spirit of ‘onwards and upwards’, I will sow the seed and cross my fingers.
But sowing perennial seed does required patience and waiting. Probably why Monty Don doesn’t demonstrate it much on Gardeners World. Below is a Euphorbia mellifera plant, grown from seed last summer, and it’s maybe 15cms tall now. It’s a sturdy plant, well rooted in those deep rooting pots which are so good for dry conditions plants, but I won’t be putting it out in the garrigue garden probably for another 6 months or so. It needs to be tough enough to fight back against the other plants, so it’s out in the open, but a bit protected, until then.
And here’s another plant of the same vintage. Senna artemisioides started out as one of four seedlings that came through germination last summer. The other three are lagging behind a bit, but will be fine in time. It is suprisingly robust, despite looking like a very delicate lace curtain with holes in it. So, for me, perennials are way more exciting than anything that you can grow from the annuals list, but you have got to be willing to wait. But then, that’s the excitement of it, the daily examination of what’s happening in that pot.
And as a slight diversion, here is another survivor. This Alcathea suffrutescens ‘Parkallee’ was part of my cull of the Barn Garden last Autumn, after our ghastly roasting summer. I dug it out, brutally shoved it in a pot with spent compost and left it. This year, it qualifies for a medal, flowering all the same, though a bit on the weedy side otherwise. So it is owed a restorative Autumn in a better setting. It is the perfect late summer plant, tall, stately, will bush out rather than just being a stick, and the flowers are exquisite, starting out apricot pink with a splash of raspberry and fading to a very pretty cream.
That’s it.
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