Cottage favourites grow well

Press, 20 September 1985, Page 15

Cottage favourites grow well

Gardener’s J DIARY

Derrick Rooney

Among the summer flowers which it is not too late to plant are hollyhocks, old cottage favourites notable for their towering spikes of single or double flowers. Nothing else is quite as pretty as a hollyhock against a warm, weathered brick wall — if you except roses, honeysuckle, yellow jasmin, fremontia, and maybe a few other climbers.

Hollyhocks in the traditional mould, with spikes of baroque double flowers more than two metres tall, are unsuitable for many modern gardens. They are too tall, and they are prone to rust disease. Nor’westers knock them about. Plant breeders have tried to adapt them to small gardens by developing dwarf, wind-re-sistant varieties which grow only a metre high, but a hollyhock without heieht : s

like — well, like cheese sauce without mustard.

In a small garden it might be better to go for one of the cousins — lavatera or sidalcea. Neither of these is as well known to New Zealand gardeners as each should be. The two genera include floriferous and brightly coloured garden flowers. Neither is any trouble to raise from seed.

Several years ago, confronted with a lacuna after the sudden enforced remonval of two diseased and enfeebled trees, I planted some “quickies” for rapid space-filling colour.

In the middle I had aromatic Monarda (also known as bergamot) in two colours, scarlet and rose; and at the back was the eccentric Inula hookeri, a rather strange dwarf elcampane with large, flat, daisy flowers whose insides are crammed with long hairs. In front was a casual group of Lavatera “Tangagra,” raised from seed.' At that time it was something new and startling. Startling was the word, all right. Raised from seed, the plants were flowering in about eight weeks and the show-off display of shocking pink continued on metrehigh stems until summer ended.

Opposite the group, and separated rrom it by a path, I put a cluster of coraltinted kniphofias, also raised from seed. It isn’t a colour grouping I’d care to revive but at the time it was a pretty, satisfying combination.

I don’t think anyone noticed the rest of the garden that year. “Tangagra” never seems to turn up in the little trays of bedding plants that garden centres sell but you can raise. it yourself without hassles. The seed is offered by Watkins.

The more recent ‘’Silver Cup,” a cooler pink, might be a good companion for it. Alongside the fluorescent Lavateras the Sidalceas seem positively refined. They are like little hollyhocks, but instead of crinkly, hairy leaves they have smooth, deeply indented ones. They are natives of North America, whereas hollyhocks are from the Old World. Sidalceas have been unfashionable in recent years and although Watkins Seeds listed them for many years I note they have been dropped, more’s the pity. The current vogue for “cottage” flowers may well bring back these troublefree perennials.

Some good named varieties, '{j-opagated by division,

used to be offered by nurseries but I haven’t seen any for years. “Wensleydale” was a good rosy red; I kept it going for some years, moving it to four different gardens, but eventually it tired of travelling and what I have now is, I suspect, not the thing itself but one of its seedlings.

Others used to be available — such as “Mrs Lindbergh,” reddish purple, “Scarlet Beauty,” amaranth despite the name, and “Sussex Beauty,” almost a clear pink. Some of these may survive in old gardens. Dicentra spectabilis, dubbed “bleeding heart” by Victorian gardeners, is a good companion for Sidalceas. These old flowers definitely give a garden the fashionable “cottagy” look (actually, a real cottage garden would be full of vegetables and fruit). “Bleeding heart” is the tallest and prettiest of the dicentras and is also the most civilised. It stays where you put it, whereas the smaller herbaceous kinds, known as “lady’s lockets,” often don’t. These are derived from crosses or selections of D. oregana, eximia, and formosa, closely-related North American species. They grow no more than 30cm high, whereas bleeding hearts can reach double that.

“Stuart Boothman,” dusky pink, is a good recent arrival; the sweet-scented “Bountiful” is an old faithful; and there is a lovely white form of D. eximia.

All these are moderately well behaved in heavy soils but if you garden on light soil you may be advised to look for an island to plant them on. Failing that, restrict their use to groundcover among shrubs, separated by a wide path or a lawn from borders which contain choice small plants. I have been trying for two years or more to eliminate dicentras from two of my borders. Don’t be fooled by the dainty, ferny foliage and the vulnerable’ look of the soft, semi-transparent roots. So far they have resisted attempts to eliminate them by digging over, and to smother them with taller, vigorous perennials (the discentras got up first and did the smothering). Spraying with Roundup weedkiller caused a temporary check — then increased their vigour. For the foreseeable future I have abandoned hope for reclaiming one border.