The shrubs that twine themselves round a garden’s heart-strings

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 14

The shrubs that twine themselves round a garden’s heart-strings

GARDENER’S DIARY

By

Derrick Rooney

An exciting newcomer in my garden this week is a revised version of the old standby holy flax (santolina), a tough-as-nails grey shrub which is better known by its common name, lavender cotton.

There are several santplinas, all with yellow flowers, and all but one with grey leaves. They are tough shrubs, withstanding a wide range of climates and soils, and if they sometimes look disordered after a long, hard winter th-y are quick to bounce back when the weather warms up.

The common santolina S. chamaecyparissias, a plant with a jawbreaking name meaning that it resembles one of the “false cypresses. It DOESN’t. I Drefer the closely related Santolina pectinatus, which is rather neater, rather whiter, and, with its deeply indented leaves, almost has a touch of elegance.

But the new plant is a form of S. chamecyparissias, with its name happily foreshortened to “Weston.” The “type” plant makes a billowing cloud of grey in summer if pruned hard in spring (this prevents it from flowering, which is no loss because the small yeU low flowers have no petals and are dull, but is far too rumbustious for the rock garden.

On the other hand, “Weston, according to the catalogue description, is “a bare 15 cm of densely packed, woolly white leaves. I shall give it a year’s trial, because if it performs within the stated limits it will be a very useful addition to the limited number of silver shrubs that can be liber-

ated on the rock garden without fear of smothering tiny treasures in all directions.

"Weston” is not yet generally available: it is newly imported, “just out of quarantine,” according to my supplier, and not yet “bulked up.” But we will hear more of it in the future. Several other new grey shrubs, mostly raised from

seed, have been admitted to my rock garden this year. B a 1 1 o t t a pseudodictamnus is one of the most interesting among these. Why this is not stocked by nurseries is a mystery, because it grows easily from cuttings, is hardy, and makes a superb cooling accent against purples and lilacs. It comes from the Mediterranean, as does santolina, and belongs to the sage family, the Labiatae, but superficially is no more like sage than chalk is like cheese. And on a hot, sunny day, its leaves are nearly the colour of chalk.

Leaves, stems, and flower buds are all covered densely with a layer of whitish wool, and the whole plant exudes a baccanalian air of sun workship. A hot, dry spot is what it demands, but it is surprisingly resistant to winter wet, and although it can be turned to sludge by frost and rain it recovers in summer. The flower buds are one

of the striking features of ballota, because they are shaped like buttons, with scalloped edges. They just grow, like Topsy, larger and larger and woollier and woollier, until one day they go “Pop,” and out come the long, purple, hooded flowers.

My young plant has reached half-way to my knees in a season, and I expect it to reach my waist eventually, by which time a youngster will be ready to replace it.

Another new silver shrub in my rock garden, though it is tiny yet at only a few centimetres after a season’s growth, is Potentilla appennina, from the Yugoslavian mountains.

This little plant is quite common in the mountains in all parts of southern Europe, but the western forms, which have been in cultivation, are less silvery and so the species has been downgraded as a garden plant. The seed of the form I have just planted was gathered in the Pirin Mountains, and only a few lucky recipients in the seed exchange have it as yet, though one of these days it may become more widely available. As photographed in the mountains, it grows only an inch or two high, making a close, twiggy mat of silver. A bonus is that at the appropriate time it becomes smothered in relatively large, rosy pink flowers. Another southern European showing big promise as a mini-silver is Teucrium ackermanii, a scree lover that demands the maximum dose of sunshine and very sharp drainage around the collar. It makes a low, furry

mat with very whiteleaves and rosy purple flowers, and does not mind a little lime. In wet weather it looks somewhat bedraggled, but it withstands considerable drought, as my plant ; proved while in transit : during summer — it was f in a box of plants which ; was accidentally sent from»; Tauranga by bus instead ■ of by airmail, eventually ; got on a train in Welling- ; ton, kicked around the railway network for a ; while.‘and finally reached , me after more than a fort- i night in transit. 'Half of the plants in the , box were dead, but the teucrium came up smiling, i and has never looked b’ack.

Teucrium is closely related to ballota. and most ‘ of the time looks rather i like a much reduced version, though without the I buttony buds.

Another close relative is • Teucrium polium, which ; has even woollier white 1 stems and leaves, grows , hardly as high as a finger, and has yellow flowers. It | is not so easy as the ■ others, and perhaps is best reserved for use as a pot ; plant in an alpine house, . or as a trough plant. Cuttings strike readily. ! but damp off equally read? ily if kept too moist, as I have found to my cost.