3 minute read
Gardening/Home & Garden
By Sally Gregson
IT often comes as a surprise that plants suffer the vagaries of fashion but it seems certain plants, genera, entire classes of plants can go out of fashion suddenly.
It happened to conifers about 30 years ago. Beds of ‘dwarf conifers’ and erica that had been so popular in the 1970s suddenly grew into conifer plantations with dead heathers at their feet.
And we had all heard of, if not grown, those green monsters, veritable triffids, called ‘Leyland Cypresses’. Every small garden, it seemed, was edged, if not surrounded, rather intimidatingly, by Leyland hedges. They grew at top speed to hide an eyesore, make a quick hedge, mark a boundary, and forgot to stop growing. They were bi-generic crosses that can often exhibit ‘hybrid vigour’. Leyland Cypresses very quickly became everyone’s nightmare.
And soon every innocent conifer was considered the same. Nobody trusted an entire
The fat globes of Pinus pungens ‘Globosa’ reach 45-75cm in height and 60-75cm spread over ten years.
division of plant-life. We threw the baby out with the bathwater.
Now it’s time for a re-think. There are a few, very slowgrowing conifers that take up to ten years to grow larger than a metre in all dimensions. And some of them are very pretty.
There are the fat globes of Pinus pungens ‘Globosa’, for example, that reach 45-75cm in height and 60-75cm spread over ten years. They have fat stems covered in pale blue needles that extend in spring with silvery-blue new shoots. They like sun and good drainage and would earn a place in everyone’s front garden underplanted with orange crocus or small species tulips.
Abies pinsapo ‘Aurea’ is another dwarf conifer that makes a golden mound. Over time its fat stems grow out in all directions like an anarchic pyramid. Each shoot resembling a large paw with fat fingers of green new growth in spring.
Then there’s Pinus strobus ‘Tiny Curls’ that looks as if it’s having a bad hair day. Its needles are blue-green, twisted and contorted in a fascinating way. It slowly makes a shrub up to 1m in ten years and would look good in a container by a sunny front door. It can also be top-worked as a standard tree.
It’s worth visiting a small nursery that specialises in conifers to discover your own new ‘must-have’ plant. You are guaranteed to go home with more than one.
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01258 881112 07900 431701 The ins and outs of sowing pelargoniums
By Sally Gregson
AFTER the pleasures and pains of Christmas are over and gone for another year, there is a hiatus, a lull, in festivities. It can come as a relief from the excesses to get out into the cold winter garden and spend a quiet time in the greenhouse.
Seed-raised pelargoniums, or ‘geraniums’, are a good way of filling summer pots and window-boxes with colourful flowers throughout the summer until the frosts.
A greenhouse that is heated to 4˚or 5˚c, so that it’s effectively frost-free, is ideal for raising ‘geraniums’. Lots of varieties are available to choose from such as ‘Black Magic Red’ that produces typically red flowers over a crown of black-hearted leaves, that can be grown from seed.
Sow the seed just after Christmas or early in January into 12cm shallow pots, or a half-tray filled with proprietary compost tamped down lightly. Sow the seed individually, widely spaced. Cover it with a fine layer of vermiculite or sharp sand and label the container with the name and date sown. Place the container in a tray of water to absorb the moisture before standing it down to drain, then put it in a covered propagator placed in a warm, sunny place.
Once the seed leaves have emerged, open the ventilators of the propagator to air for a few days, then gradually remove the seed tray from the propagator. Once the seedling roots are visible through the drainage holes, pot up the seedlings individually, placing them in a sunny, frost-free place and keeping them watered. A 9cm pot is ideal at first, potting them on throughout the coming spring, until they are big enough to leave the shelter of the greenhouse.
Once the frosts are past, harden off the young plants gradually – place them outside during the day, indoors at night for about a week. Keep the top growth pruned to shape the plants, encouraging them to make side shoots. And stand back and enjoy the success.
