PUSHING THE BORDERS

This tries to flower every year but by the time they are out the leaves are normally trashed!

Tetrapanex 006 by charliepridham, on Flickr

Every year this gets steadily better with the amount of fruit it carries, supposed to be edible , didn't taste that pleasant to me!

Sinofranchetia sinensis 013 by charliepridham, on Flickr

One of my favourite late summer shrubs

Senna corymbosa 004 by charliepridham, on Flickr

Nice dark flowered form of this easy perennial

Persicaria Blackfield 005 by charliepridham, on Flickr

Ilex maderiensis 010 by charliepridham, on Flickr

Becoming quite tree like now

Heptacodium 007 by charliepridham, on Flickr

Eryngium pandanifolium 012 by charliepridham, on Flickr

Cyclemen hederfolium 009 by charliepridham, on Flickr

Colutea Copper Beauty 015 by charliepridham, on Flickr

Very happy, after last year complaining I hardly got any flowers someone suggested maybe I was being too nice to it, this year it got turfed out of the conservatory due to the renovations and I forgot to bring it back in, its loving it!

Canarina canariensis 003 by charliepridham, on Flickr

Vitis Spetchley Red 011 by charliepridham, on Flickr

002 Cobaea pringlei by charliepridham, on Flickr

I like the look of the Colutea :idea:
Do you grow the Canarina outside?
A few miles makes quite a difference, my Tetrapanax has been flowering for a couple of weeks with lots of insects buzzing around them during sunny periods.

AndyC wrote:I like the look of the Colutea :idea:
Do you grow the Canarina outside?
A few miles makes quite a difference, my Tetrapanax has been flowering for a couple of weeks with lots of insects buzzing around them during sunny periods.

Canarina is outside at the moment but it can come in when the frost gets it I think. (its in a pot)

A few miles in any direction from here seems to make a big difference! indeed sometimes it feels you only have to move a couple of hundred yards in any direction to be out of the fridge!
I have to say though one of my last visits to what was Pine Lodge gardens I realised we were walking under Tetrapanax trees and I was completely under whelmed, much prefer it low down and leafy so I actually cut all my bigger stems back each year.

charlie wrote:

AndyC wrote:I realised we were walking under Tetrapanax trees and I was completely under whelmed, much prefer it low down and leafy so I actually cut all my bigger stems back each year.

I let a few suckers grow so that I have, say, three generations/sizes and then every few years take out the oldest ones and let the youngsters take over

Hedychium densiflorum 'Stephen' gone to seed
IMG_5154 by Andy Cowlishaw, on Flickr
Hedychium griffithianum
IMG_5156 by Andy Cowlishaw, on Flickr
Hedychium urophyllum
IMG_5155 by Andy Cowlishaw, on Flickr
Nicandra sp. Nova still flowering having topped out at about 2.5M tall
IMG_5157 by Andy Cowlishaw, on Flickr
I have will have about 10,000 spare seeds if anyone wants some.

Hedychium urophyllum is a new one on me - that is fabulous.

Andy, the Gingers seem to be loving your new garden :)

charlie wrote:Andy, the Gingers seem to be loving your new garden :)

They do seem to like the soil and climate here. I can leave them all in the ground permanently without fear of loosing them to cold winters.

The H. urophyllum is a favourite not just because of its looks (sadly very little scent) but because of how I obtained it.
About twelve years ago I went to collect a couple of other Hedychium plants from David Constantine (near Street in Somerset) and when I arrived he was potting up some rhizomes of H. urophyllum and gave me a good sized piece for free. At the time I had never heard of it and it hadn't been in David's possession for very long because it wasn't even on his website.
Some time later I discovered that he had sadly passed away just a few months after my visit. He was a very generous man, not just with what he gave me but also with the sharing of his knowledge. RIP.

Woke up to white grass on Wednesday 5th so spent the day dragging all the pots of tender stuff into its winter quarters, not coming in yet is the Canarina, its just loving being outside, this is the first time I have seen more than one flower for a whole season!

canarina canariensis 006 by charliepridham, on Flickr

This Pelargonium was a present from Rob Senior after one of his and Dawns trips years back, its pretty much summer dormant, he of course grew it outside!

pelargonium transvaalenses 008 by charliepridham, on Flickr

I don't expect frost here for another month.

The 'autumn' camellia have started;






Iris tuberosa is on the move;



Dermatobotrys saundersii looks like it may flower 'properly' for the first time. Usually I get only a few flowers in a head.



Chad