Feast of foliage all year

Press, 2 November 1984, Page 11

Feast of foliage all year

Veronicas also belong to this family. Those speccies which are cultivated are mostly grown for their flowers in borders or rock garden, but a few have interesting foliage. Veronica cinerea, from Greece, is a mini-mini shrub with erect branches and tiny, stiff leaves whose colour is halfway between silver and ash. In summer it bursts out at every branch tip with little spikes of clear blue flowers.

It needs a warm, sunny, well-drained site, and if you don’t have a sunny rock garden and don’t live on the north side of a hill, a raised bed is essential to grow this plant and its cousin, Veronica incana.

The latter is herbaceous, but nearly evergreen, and has longish, strap-shaped, silver leaves on short stems which like to lie on the ground. Veronica cinerea has a marked tendency to disappear during winter, probably as a result of damp rather than cold, but V. incana is good for sev-

eral years residence in the rock garden. In summer it has long, erect spikes of deep blue flowers. Veronica gentianodis, another for the rock garden, has small rosettes of glossy leaves rather like those of a spring-flowering gentian, hence the name.

It is unusually seen in its variegated form, one of the few variegated plants which look appropriate in the rock garden. The flowers, biggish by the standards of the genus, are misty lavender-blue and appear in mdsummer in spikes which sometimes seem too tall for the plant On a bigger scale, Veronica virginica is a herbaceous perennial which scored high marks for both flowers and foliage. It comes from North America, grows up to 1.5 m tall, and likes a rich soil.

The bold serrated leaves appear in whorls up the stems and in summer are topped off by spires of mid-' blue flowers. Veronica exaltata is similar.

Little grasses are invalu-

able in the rock garden, both for contrast with harsher foliage around them and for adding authenticity to the imitation of a mountain turf. Festuca glauca?, the European “sheep’s fescue,” is often advocated for rock gardens, and is certainly one of the bluest foliage plants, but unless you frequently divide and replant it, it grows too big after a few years. Koeleria galuca, another European, is a better bet More compact than the sheep’s fescue, is has shorter, broader, coarser foliage and is almost as blue.

Propagation is by division in spring, and is essential; if not pulled to bits and replanted about every three years, this grass seems to

Derrick Rooney continues his column on plants that enchance a rock garden as much for their foliage as their flowers.

lose its vigour, and may die. Grass grubs may be one of the reasons for this. The ornamental fescues don’t, on the whole, suffer too much from grass grub. But beware of unknown fescues; many of them are weeds.

Festuca scoparia is safe, and highly desirable. Though not as blue as the sheep’s fescue, it is blue enough to satisfy most rock gardeners and small enough for the smallest rock garden.

It wouldn’t be out of place in a trough. Spiky little leaves and dense, tufted growth give it a genuinely “alpine” look. Similar, but smaller and tighter, if that were possible, is a New Zealander, Agrostis muscosa. This, if grown in full exposure, makes an abnormally neat blue cushion only a centimetre or two high. Watch for grass grub.

For the more expansiveparts of the rock garden, or for a border in the semishade of deciduous trees, it would be hard to find a plant which provides a longer-lasting and brighter patch of colour than ’‘Bowles’ golden grass.” A form of the European Millium effusum, known officially as “aureum,” it grows up to 40cm tall, and is evergreen. Both flowers, such as they are, and foliage are yellow, the latter begins the spring in butter-yellow tones, fades to greenish yellow when the weather heats up, and turns gamboge yellow in late autumn and winter.

It comes true from seed, and, if its situation suits it, will make a little colony. A more cheerful sight in winter would be hard to find. Yet, nurserymen tell me, they seldom bother to propagate it because people won’t buy it. Strange, that.