Author Topic: November 2007 in the Southern Hemisphere (Read 33988 times)

Luc Gilgemyn · « **Reply #45 on:** November 11, 2007, 10:42:50 AM »

Beautiful shots Dave of a very beautiful garden !
As so many of us on this forum, seems your struggling with space...and using every square inch to cram in more plants...

A bit envious of your trough collection though... they look great ! (and not only the troughs)
Thanks a lot for showing us around.

fermi de Sousa · « **Reply #46 on:** November 12, 2007, 01:18:04 AM »

Dave,
a real pleasure to see your garden in pics - maybe one day in person! We don't have any lawn - just a lot of grass and weeds! That's why I can only show individual plants and small parts of the garden at any time!
cheers
fermi

t00lie · « **Reply #47 on:** November 12, 2007, 09:15:32 AM »

Rob --yes Hostas grow well here now after finally getting on top of a snail problem a year or two back.

Luc ---the front area especially needs to be thinned out/remodeled which i've started on ---I didn't show pics of another planted woodland area off to the side which i'm selectively clearing out at the moment to make room for Trilliums coming on from seed.
I'd love to build a very very large Czech style crevice garden with a ridge line say some 2 to 3 metres in height but that will have to wait until retirement and on another property with more sun.

Fermi --You are most welcome to visit any time --- of course despite the close planting we get weeds as well--one which i'm sure i'll never get rid of is that damn small ground covering oxalis --bronze foliage--yellow flowers--appears only to have a root or at least i've never found a bulb or corm --- introduced when in my early days it appeared beside a plant i'd purchased and i innocently thought i was getting two plants for the price of one ---aaah !!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers dave.

Luc Gilgemyn · « **Reply #48 on:** November 12, 2007, 09:24:15 AM »

I get the picture Dave - retirement should open new prospects (not only for you....

) and a huge crevice feature is something I'm also dreaming of.
As to the Oxalis you mention - it's not totally unknown out here either

in fact it has become a real pest - and same as you, we seem to owe it to our nurseries go give it for free... $:-\$

Paul T · « **Reply #49 on:** November 12, 2007, 10:40:28 AM »

Dave,

It's O. corniculata. Absolute pain in the posterior!! Prolific just doesn't do it justice.... invasive seems more apt here. And yet, when mentioned on the oxalis list recently I was actually asked for seeds of it. I don't think I could actually send seed of something like that to someone.... it's just TOO thuggish and I can't imagine it not surviving anywhere. Then again, given lack of bulbs it might die out if cold enough, heaven knows nothing ELSE kills it.

Maggi Young · « **Reply #50 on:** November 12, 2007, 11:08:15 AM »

Quote

it might die out if cold enough, heaven knows nothing ELSE kills it.

Well, it can survive minus 19c to my knowledge.

$:-\$

Paul T · « **Reply #51 on:** November 12, 2007, 11:11:19 AM »

Well that isn't exactly warm then. Even a worse weed than I thought!

Casalima · « **Reply #52 on:** November 12, 2007, 11:20:23 AM »

I also have the same darn weed invading my pots

fermi de Sousa · « **Reply #53 on:** November 12, 2007, 10:37:57 PM »

Here's a pic I took in Goa, India in 2005, mainly because - there it was - the ubiquitous oxalis!

We also have a green leaf form which isn't quite as bad, but the red/brown leaf one comes up frequently in pots bought from outside sources!
cheers
fermi

fermi de Sousa · « **Reply #54 on:** November 14, 2007, 05:03:12 AM »

Here's another look at the Campanula aucheri, but after seeing Otto's plant I wonder if mine is actually another in the "Tridentata Group" perhaps C. anomala or C. tridentata?

Also flowering in the Shadehouse last week was Stachys candida

I say "was flowering" because I no longer have it .....I gave it to Viv to see if she has better luck propagating it!

cheers
fermi

Paddy Tobin · « **Reply #55 on:** November 14, 2007, 11:28:04 AM »

Dave,

Great to see your garden, a delightful collection of plants and wonderfully created planting areas, troughs etc. in abundance. Also, a lovely setting, great background of good sized trees and shrubs to enclose the garden giving a wonderful atmosphere.

Is that a large 'tank' for collecting rainwater I see?

Also, glad to see you seem to have a very nicely arranged and productive vegetable plot - it's a shame that more gardeners don't use their horticultural skills to grow good quality food rather than buy from the supermarket/shop/even farmer's market where quality is so much poorer. What are you growing? I was in Italy earlier in the year and was so jealous to see a man tending his vegetable garden where he had rows of aubergine, peppers, chillis and tomatoes which I can only manage here under glass. Is the (the word won't come to me) plastic covered glasshouse-like thingy redundant?

Could you identify the Aciphylla in the photographs entitled: "Another view of the front garden. This time looking west."

It seems to me to be the same as one I grow here on a rockery but whose name I have long lost. I have it about 20 years, never a flower but it is now about the same size as yours though the lower leaves have to be regularly taken off; they seem to drop quite easily. It's a beast of a plant to work around, deadly dangerous and many a time my arms have been pierced by the vicious points on the tips of the leaves.

Paddy

Lesley Cox · « **Reply #56 on:** November 14, 2007, 07:56:38 PM »

Fermi, the only reliable way to propagate Stachys candida is by seed. I've just lost mine - swamped by a pulsatilla - but I've grown it for several years in both pink and white flowered forms. I've rooted cuttings but they are difficult because of having to keep them damp which their woolliness doesn't like. Stachys saxicola is even worse but at least it makes a reasonable amount of seed. S. candida is rather parsimonious with it.

I don't think your campanula is C. tridentata. How about C. saxifraga?

Lesley Cox · « **Reply #57 on:** November 14, 2007, 08:07:36 PM »

Welcome back to the Forum Paddy. It seems a long time since we had your somewhat acerbic comments to ponder on. I must take you up on one though. I agree that it's a shame many people don't grow their own vegetables. Living conditions of most people would prevent that, even if inclination didn't, but while homegrown is undoubtedly best, a good Farmers' Market is very close and I can't agree that fruit and vegetables from one such, is "so much poorer." Ever so slightly poorer maybe, in that the produce was harvested yesterday instead of today, but properly stored and packed, as it is here, by the vendors at my Market, it comes very close to "just out of the garden."

For the record, "my" Market isn't owned by me, just managed. It is owned by (or originated with) a charitable Trust which employs me.

Lesley Cox · « **Reply #58 on:** November 14, 2007, 08:10:27 PM »

Dave's Aciphylla looks like A. aurea. Vicious indeed.

fermi de Sousa · « **Reply #59 on:** November 15, 2007, 02:00:25 AM »

Hi Lesley,
have you heard of the term "like a red rag to a bull"? I bet Paddy has!
we're just about into summer here despite being a few weeks off the "official" start.
Clematis are doing well, especially "Polish Spirit"