Postage : Seeds only $4 / Plants $20
Broad, pleated, fresh green leaves arch from erect stems emerging from crowded, white, subterranean bulbs and bearing elegant racemes of bright, purple-pink, orchid flowers.
One of the few orchids to thrive in the garden, anywhere well drained and a little sheltered will do with no special attention required but it would be best to avoid the lashings of manure, thick much and disturbance disliked by the mycorrhizal fungi on which it depends.
Summer growing, irrigation will be necessary in winter rainfall regions, and winter deciduous, I find the seedpods quite attractive left in situ.
Divisions from the most vigorous seedling from the nursery, its weak willed progenitor long since lost. Some variety can be expected in the future as successive generations display variations in colour and appear in ever more inappropriate places. Yes, these can be found freeloading in other purchases.
A selected pink form of the well known and scarlet flowered C. elatus and just as easily grown. An evergreen, South African bulb, excellent as a cut flower or pot subject to be brought indoors at flowering time. Stout stems bearing large, mid pink, open, trumpet shaped flowers sporadically appear throughout the warmer months from quickly clumping, strappy, leathery leaves.
Happy with short periods of dryness but better with regular water to imitate its natural habitat of stream sides and moist slopes. Good drainage is of course essential as is a little shelter from scorching summer sun, though too much shade will affect flowering.
A vigorous variety forming a sprawling mound of deeply incised, rounded, jagged edged, silvery satin, green leaves and bearing throughout spring and summer silver pink, saucer shaped, 2cm flowers just above.
Selected at Kew and one of the few of European origin to last more than a year or two here (inadequate vernalization is my favoured theory), indeed it often self sows, no doubt the influence of its part southern hemisphere heritage, G. traversii from the Chatham Islands, the rest is G. endressii. If it runs out of steam over our long growing season a quick cut down to its clustered rhizomes will see tidy renewed growth, flowers too if early on, otherwise wait until it naturally retreats to a reduced winter state, allowing it to recycle nutrients and build energy for the following season.
Easily grown in any well drained, not dry soil with morning sun or high shade.
Highly pettable, rounded, stem hugging, grey leaves are covered in soft cobwebby fur, more like a friendly garden pet than a plant. All summer long, stiff stems of gracefully pendant, tawny pink bracts disclose small, tubular, soft pink flowers above the low mounds of foliage.
If I was going to be stranded on a desert island this would be the oregano I would take, it would also probably be the most likely to succeed.
Summer drought, exposure and well drained alkaline soil preferred but will grow happily, if somewhat more slowly, in clay soils that aren't too wet.
Slow growing and hence almost maintenance free with removal of spent stems all that is necessary.
Can be used in the kitchen but the flavour is very similar to other much faster growing and less attractive oreganos. It otherwise has been used historically for healing, enhancing astral projection and as an aphrodisiac.
The Dittany of both Aristotle and Harry Potter.
A lovely low growing hybrid between P. cortusifolium and P. echinatum bearing small clusters of sugary pink flowers, each petal of which bears a small dark blotch, over a long period from mid winter until it eventually sheds its silvery, lobed leaves with the onset of summer heat. Does very well in a large pot where its cushion of bare, succulent, spiny looking stems can be shown off to best effect during summer dormancy, when it should be watered sparingly or if established in a sharply drained spot in the garden, not at all.
Elsewhere it might be a delicate hothouse flower, oh so desirable, here it is just another hardy garden plant well suited to a life on the road verge. Our favourable climate at work.
Highly recommended.
Rosettes of kidney shaped leaves that appear to be cut from grey velvet bear small clusters of brilliant magenta flowers year round.
Relaxed of habit and gently suckering, a colony lends itself to the company of other smaller plants of gorgeous foliage like succulents and grasses for the making of scrumptious compositions in large containers or tessellated over a greater garden area as hyperboles meadow. Otherwise just use it beside paths or to glam up the feet of shrubs as it's quite happy in partial shade.
From the Eastern Cape but hardier than many from the region. Easily grown in any well drained soil with some summer moisture.
Small mounds of elliptical, waxy blue leaves smother in clusters of palest pink flowers followed by attractive papery seed pods.
Essentially a small, shrubby, ridiculously drought hardy, self seeding, perennial Alyssum. What more could you want.
For any baking well drained position.
Trim hard when desired to remove spent stems.
A super tough South African that should need little introduction, though, where once its autumn spectacle was taken for granted through the South West it is now being increasingly displaced by fleeting makeover starlets.
Clusters of large. flaring, funnel shaped flowers, pale pink and deepening with age, are carried atop sturdy, fleshy stems. The strappy, dark green leaves emerge after flowering from the necks of large, papery, brown bulbs that are typically somewhat exposed, adjusting to their preferred depth with the aid of contractile roots. Becoming deciduous with rising temperatures in spring and then requiring zero water over summer.
Infallible in any soil, in any position except the densest shade. Usually takes several years to settle in and commence flowering for perpetuity.
For me, nothing heralds more the imminent return of cooler weather and rain than the sight of fat buds thrusting naked from parched ground. I imagine it is the same joy that gardeners in cold regions feel on seeing the first hint of spring in a shoot emerging from snow.