plants that elude me

[AndyC]

Thanks again Paul, always good to receive information based on first hand experience and context rather than rely on the interweb. The RHS give it a hardiness rating of H1C, i.e. keep above 5C. :roll:

On the subject of plants that elude me, I too cannot succesfully grow Protea. Along with Grevillea they look happy in their fiirst year and are dead by the end of the second year.

[Paul S]

It is usually the end of the second week here :lol:

I'd don't suppose the oreopanax will ever be as hardy as a schefflera but it has taken -4C where it is without turning a hair. Lovely thing!

[LostInJapan]

For me the problem has been when I put plants into the garden. Something about the local environment just doesn't jibe well. The ones that come to mind are:

1. Zamia furfuracea - does great in a pot, but don't bother trying to overwinter it outside. Even with protection and out of the rain, it simply dies. Ditto Z. floridana. Zamia like heat!
2. Dicksonia species - do great in spring, the summer monsoon, fall and even winter, but suffer greatly in summer. Also, giving them adequate overhead shading in Japan is tough because yards here tend to be sunny, and they just can't take summer heat combined with sun. IF you had a mostly shaded, constantly moist place, they'd thrive, but that isn't where houses are here. Still, doable, but very imperfect.
3. Any other tree fern - you'd think this place would be tree fern heaven, and it is for around 9 months of the year. Then forget it. I can keep them going for around 3-4 seasons, then a bad year just takes them out. Need too much water too.
4. Non-native epiphytic orchids - all the native species seem to do just fine, but don't try ones from other places. They always eventually get hit by a cold spell. Frustrating. They thrive for years, then get hammered.
5. Deciduous azaleas from North America - I've grown many species from seed, including R. canescens, R. viscosum, R. alabamense, R. atlanticum, R. coelmanii, and R. flammeum. Grow reasonably well in pots, but put one in the ground and SAYONARA. They die at the roots, regardless of soil/bed preparation. The one exception is R. canescens which has thrived for me in a north facing wall. All others, forget it!
6. Woodland perennials - I'm thinking Trilliums, Anemone, Cyclamen (I know it's a bulb), Sanguinaria, Cypripediums, Houstonia, Erythronium... my god, the list goes on. Issues include too much summer heat, snails and other critters chewing them to pieces, and something in the soil that eventually just kills them ultimately, sometimes with lightning speed, sometimes slowly.

OK, that's enough. Now it's time to go hang my head in shame.

[Fukuoka Scott]

My old yard wasn't very sunny and was sheltered so the tree ferns did OK but in the new yard, which is a lot hotter and sunnier in summer AND gets more frost in winter, my Cyathea cooperi died outright and the Dicksonias had a very hard time with the hot sun last summer. One is holding on by a thread. My wife bought a German shepherd that apparently dug up my Asplenium antiquum. Needless to say, lots of challenges. It's nice having a lot of space for the dogs to run around I guess...

[LostInJapan]

Scott, your old yard in town was unique for this part of Japan, as you well know. It was "forested" enough to provide adequate shade, sheltered enough to protect from the worst winds (house on the sea facing side, the hill on the other) and it was within the coveted urban heat island. Get away from city center and all bets are off. Even here, in my relatively sheltered yard, I am just too far out from the heat island, and at the same time too proximal to the mountains to protect tender plants during harsh winter cold snaps. Add to that the lack of real tree cover, and August and September's heat quickly finishes off many less sturdy plants (I'm thinking anything that likes temperate climates, or needs consistent moisture and humidity such as tree ferns). Your new place is even more exposed and close to the mountains than mine, so I think tender stuff is gonna take a hit on either end of the spectrum - during cold snaps or in the oven of deep summer. If we want to grow the more tropical stuff I think we both need to be looking farther south, say coastal southern Kyushu, or better yet Amami Oshima or Okinawa!

[JohnH]

I have an embarrassingly long list of failures, but some of the most embarrassing are plants that should be easy to grow.

I have given up growing Hellebores completely due to relentless infestations of aphid in early May. I presume they are specific to Hellebores as they don't appear to spread to other plants. I have removed nearly all of them this year.

I spent almost 20 years searching for a replacement Kniphofia thompsonii var. thompsonii Sterns Trip only to eventually find one and lose it 2 years later. It flowered a couple of times and then just disappeared for no apparent reason. I am not spending another 20 years looking for one.

Aloiampelos striatula is so frustrating for me. I have grown various incarnations of this under different names and in different gardens for over 25 years, and never had a single flower. It has ultimately reached 2ft x 2ft and lasted up to 4 or 5 years old before being hammered to the ground by a dodgy winter or a run of nasty frosts, but no flowers. It keeps bouncing back and I am a sentimental old fool, it can stay.