Shrubs n Bulbs

Nobody would call a Peony delicate. Multi-tiered flowers a foot across that make you dizzy with their rich scent can’t be described as subtle.  Peonies are the flamboyant show-offs in the spring garden, but they are awfully messy, especially the double ones flopping about all over the floor. Enter the Tree Peony.

Tree Peonies have a woody framework and don’t flop. If anything, the flowers are larger than the herbaceous ones, with a slightly different range of colours including yellow. The hybrid forms are usually grafted onto a herbaceous peony rootstock but with time they will grow their own roots. Tree Peonies tend to flower a little earlier than the herbaceous ones. There are also several species Tree Peonies which are usually found on their own roots, some of them very early to start flowering.

This cultivar is called variously Rinpo, Rimpo, Rimpoh, and no doubt other variations on how to write a Japanese word in English. It has an extremely strong sweet heady scent that is noticeable even before the flowers open. The foliage is very attractive in spring but gradually deteriorates during summer. A trouble-free plant, drought tolerant in summer, I just give it a couple of inches of compost each spring.

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And for Meconopsis, these things love the wet. England really isn’t half wet enough and my garden especially but they’re worth a bit of extra effort. I noticed the first buds opening last night and this morning they are revelling in the rain.

The flowers are naturally nodding, part of these plants supreme adaptation to coping in the rain, but its worth taking a look inside to see mass of yellow stamens against the pure blue petals. Colours range from pale sky blue to intense violet blues. Part of the variation is down to soil conditions, but different species and hybrids have different shades of flowers.

There are other Meconopsis species with red, yellow, and white flowers, but the blue ones are my favourites. I should have some yellow and red flowers later this spring, but I think my white cultivar has bitten the dust.

The main species with large blue flowers are M. betonificfolia and M. grandis, although there are at least two other species with blue flowers. By far the majority of blue Meconopsis in cultivation are hybrids involving M. betonicifolia and M. grandis although they are often sold with a species name. Some of the hybrids are sterile and these are usually sold with a cultivar name. For obvious reasons they have to be propagated vegetatively and so they have more reliable names but are not so widespread. Other hybrids are fertile, they are promiscuous, names are unreliable and in many ways it is best just to consider them as a variable group.

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Today (Saturday) was a surprise pleasant day despite the forecast for patchy drizzle. I was out so I may have missed some flowers, but I managed to catch these in the morning.

I know it was a hot day in the greenhouse because this evening some mesembs opened their nocturnal flowers, always strongly scented.

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This is rapidly starting to sound like Rocky all over again. Hopefully, I’m not getting worse with each follow-up. Something a little different today. The shrub is Rosemary, celebrating with its small silvery blue flowers along the stems. Here it blends in against the backdrop of other blue flowers and silver leaves, but from other angles it stands as a single specimen.

The bulb is a species tulip called ‘Little Princess’, said to be a hybrid. I don’t generally like the species tulips so much as their larger cousins but this one is such an intense colour I can’t resist its charms. It flowers along with the Darwins, which is later than most species tulips.

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One of my favourite shrubs are the Daphnes. There are big ones and small ones, deciduous ones and evergreen ones, temperamental alpines and robust garden stalwarts, one in flower nearly every month of the year. The one thing they all have in common is deliciously scented clusters of flowers. The best scent is probably from D. odora which flowers here from January to April, although the scent doesn’t really come to its best until it feels a little spring warmth. It is just coming to an end now, but D. tangutica is taking over. D. tangutica has a lighter scent, not quite so strong or maybe just fewer flowers on a smaller shrub, but it has very attractive dark green foliage.

And just for good measure, Anenome coronaria is starting to push up flowers. This one counts as a bulb I think.

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This is my most successful tulip. It is a single bulb which accidentally got into my succulent bed. The location is against a south-facing wall, extremely dry in summer and the soil is about half limestone. That might give you some ideas for how to cultivate your own tulips. Others in the dry stony front garden do OK and clump up slowly. Any tulips in the richer soil in the back garden tend to stop flowering after a few years, although they occasionally stage comeback appearances.

Here’s a full shot of that Berberis darwinii. It is an imposing shrub, nearly twice my height and painfully spiny. The orange flowers will be followed by interesting blue berries but they are not especially showy. Its easy to care for, and you can prune it after flowering if you are brave enough. Occasionally removing old stems to the base keeps the plant vigorous and flowering freely right down to the base.

And Chaenomeles, the Flowering Quince, is doing its spring thing. This is a double-flowered spineless cultivar called ‘Cameo’. It is usually called Chaenomeles japonica but is almost certainly a hybrid between C. japonica and C. speciosa. These hybrids are collectively known as Chaenomeles x. superba. They are very tough shrubs but also a little ungainly, sprouting stems in all directions until they form a big tangled mass.

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Except my potting shed is the greenhouse

I spotted some roots trying to escape from pots and ended up repotting a few dozen plants by the time I was finished. Some of those Copiapoas need a lot of root space.

And not just the Copiapoas.

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Kato wanted to see shrubs and bulbs. Well here’s a shrub at least, just coming into flower. Daphne odora is still in full flower but my smell-o-vision module hasn’t arrived yet so you can’t share the experience. The Forsythias are finished, the bulbs are having a hiatus after looking great in February, just Cyclamen coum and the odd Daffodil braving the snow and gales.

There is masses of greenery poking out of the ground, buds everywhere, Tulips and Tree Peonies are getting ready. The weather forecast is warmer for the weekend, blustery spring showers and hopefully a little sun in between.

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My Mesa Garden seed is now sown and that should be it for the year. This was a chance to pick up some varieties that are very hard to find in Europe. Also, I have tried ‘Hammeruby’ seed from various European sources and got very poor results. On the plus side, I have lots of grey L. meyeri plants! I have heard that suitably pollinated seed from the correct strains will give a reasonable percentage of red plant, so fingers crossed.

Conophytum stephanii ‘helmutii’
Delosperma dyeri
Gibbaeum johnstonii
Gibbaeum nebrownii
Gibbaeum pubescens
Lithops dinteri ssp frederi
Lithops divergens ex PVB
Lithops divergens
Lithops gracilidelineata
Lithops meyeri ‘Hammeruby’
Lithops otzeniana SH531
Lithops pseudotruncatella ssp dendritica “pulmonuncula”
Lithops pseudotruncatella ssp groendrayensis
Lithops ruschiorum “nelii”
Lithops vallis-mariae “maragrethae”

So that was my excuse to get some of last year’s seed out of the way and repotted. Who would have thought that four 2″ pots could make so many plants. I may need a bigger greenhouse …

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Dinteranthus vanzijlii and Conophytum burgeri could be twins! Dinteranthus pole-evansii is also germinating, but more slowly so they are still really tiny.

The Lithops seed from the Mesemb Study Group is really excellent. Much of this came direct from the Coles’ plants this year. I thought I’d only sown 20 seeds per pot but every one now has more than 20 seedlings.

The main Lithops collection is now outside in the greenhouse, they should like more daytime heat and cooler nights. Pray we don’t get any more hard freezes!

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