Something for the library

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Plant Profiles: Lotus Berthelotii

Although this year spring is not quite willing to install itself in many parts of Europe and winter  seems not to loose its grip, we all are already thinking about our summer plantings and can't wait to assault the local nurseries, planting schemes at hand, in search for the new plants.

Well, if you like me, are not into pot geraniums and plain daisies there is a plant worth knowing : the Lotus Berthelotii, also known as Coral Gem, Parrot's Beak, Cat Claw and Pigeon Beak.... In spite of all this animal related names, the Lotus B. ( no relationship whatsoever with the Nelumbo - water Lotus) is a very interesting plant originate from the Canary Islands, Tenerife and Cabo Verde.

A member of the Fabaceae Family, the Lotus is not fully hardy and stays green only in mild Mediterranean areas. In colder climates it is grown as an annual. It has a trailing growing habit and if it pleases itself in a spot, it can grow to impressive dimensions.

Parrot's beak is a trailing tender perennial or warm weather annual vine that grows to 8" tall but spreads to 2-3' wide or more. Where not winter hardy, it is grown as an annual in containers or hanging baskets. It features soft silver-gray leaves and sharply-contrasting, pea-like, crimson flowers. Leaves are divided into needle-like leaflets (each to 1" long) that are spaced along the stems in attractive whorls (3-7 leaflets per whorl). Stems will spread to 2-3' long or more. 

Its claw like flowers come in two colourings a orange yellow or deep velvety red ( which I prefer). Foliage is very light, a nice glaucous and mate blue grey. This was actually the main reason I bought it a couple of years ago. I came across a tiny plant which looked not very impressive at all. But since I was looking for a silvery leaved plant - I decided to give it a try. And boy, what a surprise!

Tiny and frail it seemed at the beginning, but once comfortably installed in a generous pot at the feet of a very young bougainvillea, my Lotus took it very serious and in one season covered the entire container, draping itself graciously over the borders. Mind you this was only one plant!

The grayish leaves were pretty on their own but quite early in the season it covered itself entirely with blooms! It went on blooming for month to end, demanding not more than a sunny spot and generous watering - but this was quite acceptable since it was performing in a pot.

All I can say is that my Lotus was a very hard working plant, easy to live and healthy as a fish. No bugs, no fungus, nothing to be bothered with. 

When it eventully started to sprawl on the terrace floor, I gave it a nice trim and it all started again. 

So I did after the first winter, when it started to look a bit raggy, but the lotus does not seem to mind the scissors either.

I kept my first lotus for three years, after that it started to battle with the Bougainvilea for living space...

Growing conditions:

Full sun, well drained soil ( the Lotus dreads heavy, soggy soil in wich case it my rot), moderate watering ( remember it grows on the Canary Islands) and an occasional organic fertiliser will perfectly do the game.

It is a great and unfuzzy plant for covering ugly walls or balcony borders and is an interesting solution as an original ground cover.

Welcome Spring

It's official: Spring is here!

Sandro Botticelli
Primavera ( Spring)
1482
Gallleria degli Uffizi, Firenze

 

 

Plant Profiles: The Caviar Lime

Oh dear, we thought we have seen (and grown) it all... the Buddha Hand Citrus( Citrus Medica Digitata), the Kaffir Limes ( citrus Hystrix) and the fashionable Meyer's Lemons! But alas there is a charming little newcomer trying to get into our botanical homes. The Caviar Lime or Finger Lime, Citrus australasica (syn. Microcitrus australasica).

Totally unknown to most gardeners and fruit lovers, this citrus species starts to make its timid entry on the European and US market.

We are talking about a relatively tiny, very thorny shrub or small tree of lowland subtropical rain forest and dry rain forest in the coastal border region of Queensland and NSW in Australia.

The plant is 2–7 metres in height. Leaves are small and glabrous, 1–6 cm long and 3–25 mm wide. Flowers are white, flushed with purple, with 6–9 mm long petals and not very showy. 

 

"The seven species of Citrus previously known as Microcitrus are the result of millions of years of slow evolution from a primitive ancestral types. This type may have resembled C. warburgiana, the New Guinea species, which has small leaves and small, nearly spherical fruits. From such an ancestral form, one line of evolution produced the so-called native orange, round lime, or Dooja (C. australis), that grows to a large tree and has subglobose fruits much larger than those of C. warburgiana, with long, slender, pointed, more or less twisted pulp-vesicles. Another line of evolution culminated in C. inodora and C. maideniana, highly specialized forms showing adaptations to tropical rain forests, with large leaves and paired spines; a third line of evolution led to the small-leaved species C. australasica and C. garrawayae, both with long-ovoid or very elongated cylindric fruits.

Distribution

These remarkable citrus fruits are extremely interesting, in that they show how evolution has proceeded in regions isolated as Australia and New Guinea have been during the last twenty or thirty million years since they were cut off from all other land masses. The evolution of other citrus fruits is not so easily followed, since Citrus, Fortunella, and Poncirus did not originate in regions that were geographically isolated in definitely dated geologic eras. The group contains seven species, five of which are native to Australia with the other two found in New Guinea. The Australian species occur in rainforests and their margins from Cape York Peninsula south to the northern rivers of New South Wales. They produce small, round or finger-shaped fruit, with a pleasant but very acid juice. 

Uses

They have a close relationship with conventional citrus fruit in the genus Citrus. Australian native citrus species are able to hybridise with a range of other citrus species. This ability, along with  drought and salinity tolerance and disease resistance, has long attracted the interest of citrus researchers and breeders. Improved selections and hybrids of native citrus also have potential in their own right for commercial production. Fruit is used in a range of sweet and savoury processed products, such as marmalades and sauces, and is in demand by chefs producing ‘Australian Native Cuisine’ dishes. Traditionally most fruit has been harvested from the wild. Commercial orchard production  began in the last decades of the twentieth century ."

 

source: http://users.kymp.net/citruspages/australian.html#finger

 

The fruits though are real fun! Cylindrical, 4–10 cm long, sometimes slightly curved, coming in different colours and they look like fingers or tiny sausages.The skin can be green, orange, yellow or purplish red, depending on the type and has a distinctive bush aroma.

The fun comes when you cut the fruit  and discover the juicy, round pearls which are similar to caviar in size and texture. The colour of these pearls ranges from white to pink, lime green and yellow. When you bite into the finger lime pearls, they burst in your mouth, releasing their tangy lime flavour.

For more information about the Microcitrus and other types of citrus trees you can browse these excellent pages: 
Vivaio Oscar Tintori: http://www.oscartintori.it/
Pepinieres Bache: http://site.plantes-web.fr/baches/1292/boutique/49819/citrus_australasica.htm
Jardin Botanico Mundani from Mallorca: http://jardin-mundani.com/

Citrus Pages: http://users.kymp.net/citruspages/home.html
                        http://users.kymp.net/citruspages/australian.html#finger

Why don't you: Spring preparations

Decades ago, the fabulous and frivolous Diana Vreeland (fashion editor for Bazaar and US Vogue - yesss there have been fashion geniuses looong before AW!) inaugurated a funny and quite bizarre column called Why don't you. Hopping Mrs Vreeland doesn't mind I will borrow her title and open a new rubric for gardening tips.

Do you feel the same itching and tickling in your gardening fingers? I guess you too can't wait any longer to get out there and poke at the green tips of tulips and daffs and crocuses, huh?

Well, we're getting there - the yearly mystery of the spring awakening is slowly taking control of our gardens and terraces again! And boy, is that a nice feeling!

But before we jump again into the glorious dirt, let us still calm a little and recapitulate some nice and useful tips that might come handy one day!

1. Transform your long handled garden tools into measuring sticks by writing/etching/painting (whatever you feel like) a measuring tape on the handle. Might spare you the second way back into the tool shed when you will need to measure something...

2. Put coffee filters, even used ones, into your small pots in order to keep the soil from leaking out. That's a smart one, hm? Thank you Pinterest...

3. Use coffee grounds and finely broiled egg shells as slug protection around plants. It is not 100% infallible, but it is ecological and provides some organic food as well.

4. Make rooting booster solution for cuttings by macerating willow branches in water, those furry pussy willow branches you put in your vase or any other type of willow you prune. Haven't tried that out yet, but given the price of rooting hormones it's worth a try.

5. Create a double mulching barrier with wetted old newspapers (guess the roses and larks won't mind the old headlines) before you cover everything nicely with bark or any other mulching material you use.

6. Do please remember to sterilise your scissors before pruning those beloved and often pricey roses, since some carry viruses which can infect other roses... I learned this on my own expenses... and nothing saddens me more than to see a sick and lingering rose.

7. Use the resulting branches of the spring pruning to create protective cages or supports for other sprouting plants. Keep in mind that some plants ( willows and hazel) root very easily, so control before you get lost in a willow forest...

8. If the lucky you happens to own a garden shed, try using a funnel attached to the wall to prevent all the cords and wires from tangling.

9. Use an old and cheap lamp cage as a climbing support for fast growing plants like ivy and small growing clematis. It would not be a bad idea to use a pot with water reserve in order to make watering easy and more effective. You can make quick "fake" but very effective topiary while you wait for those boxes to grow.

10. If anything else fails, give your plants a little moral encouragement...

The depicted images are not mine (courtesy of Pinterest again), but are lovely and you can easily find the sources on my pinterest board "Chlorophyll & Co"

Homage to Peter Beals

With deep sadness I have read the news that Peter Beals has quited us on January 26th...

A big tribute and heartfelt thank you for the magnificent roses he gave us!  His work will ever guide rosarians all over the world.
RIP

 Adam Rose

Highgrove Rose

Queen's Jubilee Rose

http://www.classicroses.co.uk/

Plant profiles: The Grass Tree

Call me weird, but I have never fancied garden sculptures... I mean anything besides really antique ones in historical gardens. I love old fountains and really withered urns, but this is it.

In change I really like plants with a very sculptural, plastic shape. A huge blue agave can make a real statement and so do giant cactus - provided you can afford and grow them!

Another such a sculptural thing is the Australian native Xanthorrhoea australis or Grass Tree.

The origin of the name is Greek - xanthos meaning yellow and rheo  flow, a reference to the resin that is obtained from these plants.

Particularly sculptural and perfectly trimmed Grass Tree - Australia

Grass Trees are related to the lilies, but are placed in the separate family of Xanthorrhoeaceae ( now that is a spelling challenge!). They are close relatives with the sagg (Lomandra longifolia). 

They are very slow growing, with some elderly specimens being amongst the oldest living plants on a worldwide scale, surviving for many hundreds of years.

In their natural, wild habitat old examples are survivors of wild fires and develop into architectural masterpieces. Wild fire can cause their blackened trunk (1 to 2 metres) to branch into two or even more heads. These consist of thick, rough corky bark, surrounded by long, wiry leaves of green silvery colour - especially the Xanthorrhoea glauca spp angustifolia . The leaves form a round "crown" or mop which is very decorative.

 Grass Trees at the Botanical Garden, Barcelona

Being an Australian native, the Grass Tree is extremely drought tolerant and hence a real value for a dry garden in hot climates. It can survive occasional minus temperatures but should be protected from frost and yes,it stays a plant for warm climates. Apart that it is a tough boy which does not require any care or treatment.

The individual flowers are white or cream and very small. They are clustered together in a spear-like spike which can tower 2 metres or more above the top of the trunk.  Flowering occurs in spring but it may not occur annually.The flowers are followed by fruits containing a few hard, black seeds.

 Grass Trees in their natural habitat

The Grass Tree, like the Cycas has a reputation of being a real slow grower, but although I have never grown a Grass Tree I did grow Cycas and can tell you that given a minimum of care, mine produced to splendid rows of leaves per year! So everything is relative in the garden too!

If there is something negative about the Grass Tree is the fact that you can only seldom find it for sale and if you do find it, you might be scared of the price!

Yet if you are a patient and experimental gardener you might try to grow it from seed. It germinates reasonably well without pretreatment, although growth is slow and seedlings take many years to develop into large specimens. They do, however, form attractive small garden plants in 3-4 years.