Late bulbs are useful in a dry summer

Press, 8 February 1985, Page 13

Late bulbs are useful in a dry summer

Hardener’s B diary

Derrick Rooney

Late-flowering bulbs (or early ones if you regard them as autumn flowers) are useful things to have in the garden. Two which have been flowering intermittently in my garden for the last week or two are the Cypellas — C. plumbea, which is blue, and C. herbertii, which is yellow. They come from South America, and though they are not often seen for sale in nurseries, they are easy to raise from seed. Members of the greater iris family, they have the typical six-petalled flowers of the family, with the three large lower petals lying flat and the upper ones reduced to mere bristle-like appendages round the eye of the flower.

Cypella plumbea is the larger of the two, and perhaps the more difficult. Its flowers are not the colour of lead, as the name suggests, but a good, clear blue, with yellow markings in the throat. Each flower lasts one day only, and there are never many out at a time, but they are produced in succession over many weeks.

This rather fussy plant grows about 60cm high. It has persisted about six years in my garden, untroubled by winter frosts (some leaves always remain evergreen), but has never really looked happy, though I have

tried it in several different sites. It seems to like sharp drainage, coupled with plenty of moisture in summer, and doesn’t mind shade part of the day plus a few lowly plants around its roots to keep them cool — but it can’t abide being overgrown. Unlike most bulbs, it doesn’t thrive in a container.

The smaller Cypella her-' bertii has deep yellow flowers (almost orange in one which I raised from seed), with a chocolatebronze eye, but despite its brilliant plumage it loses marks because the flowers open only during the afternoon, and by evening are dead. Thus a busy working gardener might grow it for years without* ever seeing it in flower. Such is not the case with Achillea serrata, a longflowering perennial which is just starting its second flush in my garden. Like others of its family, this is an excellent plant to grow for cut flowers.

Correctly, according to the latest intelligence from Europe, it ought to be called

Achillea decolorans, but it is known here under the other name.

In appearance, the foliage of this yarrow is halfway between the feathery fronds of the common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and the garden species, A. ptarmica, but unlike the other two, it has non-running roots.

A native of Switzerland, Achillea decolorans has been cultivated since the eighteenth century, and has several named forms, of which the best is probably “W. B. Child,” which has flat heads of pure white daisies, each one just a little smaller than a 10c piece. Two main flushes of flower usually occur, the first in early summer and the other in late summer, when the nights are cooling off. An old-fashioned perennial just coming into its own in the border is Echinacea purpurea. In some older gardening books it may be listed as "Rudbeckia purpurea.”

This is not the easiest of perennials to please in a dry climate, but the effort is worth while. It likes heavy soil and plenty of summer moisture (I have it where it catches some of the runoff from a downpipe) and when it is happy will grow about 1.2 metres high. In its native United States this plant is known as the “coneflower,” because of its

large, central brownish orange cone-shaped boss which, as this plant belongs in the daisy family, is actually the cluster of true flowers. Long, drooping, crimson-mauve petals surround the base of the “cone.”

“The King” is the bestknown variety; its branching stems carry many of these bold flowers over a long period. I grow it in association with a yellow Welsh poppy, but any yellow or cream-flowered perennial would associate happily with it.

Such a group might also include the richly-coloured purple Monarda “Prairie Night.”

This is a form or hybrid of the “purple bergamot,” Monarda fistulosa, an American herb which occurs wild over a wide area from Maine across to the Midwest and as far south as Florida.

“Prairie Night” has spindly bergamot heads, very richly coloured, and is more tolerant of dry weather than its cousin, the more common red “Oswego tea,” Monarda , didyma, which has rosy pink or scarlet flowers. Both have aromatic foliage, that of M. didyma being the more so (an oil extracted from it is the “mystery ingredient” of Earl Grey tea). Both grow between 60cm and one metre high, depending on soil and weather.