Mix and match for effect

Press, 20 December 1985, Page 12

Mix and match for effect

A very satisfactory (to my eye) combination in my garden this week groups roses, thistles, gladiolus, and an elderberry. It might sound eccentric, but it works. The thistle is the giant “cotton thistle” from Morocco, Onopordon acanthium. I introduced two or three seedlings deliberately two or three years ago for the sake of its hugee, silverwhite leaves and ghostly white stems. Since then, self-sown seedlings have kept it going (this thistle is monocarpic — that is, it grows, for two or perhaps three years, then flowers, seeds and dies). The cotton thistle is naturalised in a few place, but as far as I know it isn’t on the noxious list anywhere.

Seedlings which appear in the garden have a habit of putting themselves in appropriate places, and those which aren’t wanted are easily pulled out. I can’t have enough of its impressive, ghostly stems and I leave as many as possible.

Alongside, and almost leaning on, the group of thistles is a Centifolia rose, The Bishop. This nineteenthcentury relic has bright red flowers, flat across the top and tightly crammed with petals. The fragance is heady. The Bishop flowers for about a month in midsummer, and does not repeat later. The foliage remains healthy throughout the season, and both it and the young shoots have a reddish tinge which contrasts nicely with the white-stemmed thistles and the yellowish tones of the cut-leaved elder nearby. On the other side of the rose Gladiolus convillei — the originaal hybrid earlyflowering gladiolus with bright red, white-blotched flowers — is the link to the

WARDENER’S! W DIARY y Derrick Rooney

velvety red rose, Tuscany Superb. There are other, shrubs and herbaceous plants around and about, but they have either finished flowering or not yet started, and needn’t be considered at this stage. Prominent in the background, however, is the elder mentioned above, Sambucus racemosa Plumosa Aurea. This superb but little known foliage shrub has shaggy, pinnate leaves which are tinged red in spring, yellowish green in summer, and butter yellow just before they drop in autumn.

It really should be grown more often in gardens where it can be given the slight protection that it needs from wind, and from the strongest sunshine. It can be difficult to es-

tablish, but once you get it away it goes from strength to strength. Because I grow it for its foliage, I prune the cutleaved elder severely every winter, to inhibit flowering (the flowers appear on the previous autumn’s wood) and promote vigorous, leafy growth. The primings can be used as hardwood cuttings to grow more specimens, but better plants are obtained from half-ripe cuttings in late summer or autumn, at

which time cuttings of most members of the elderberry tribe root fairly readily. Tuscany Superb can also be propagated from cuttings. This is a Gallica rose, with two rows of petals and a big central boss of yellow stamens; it is very old, having been grown since at least the eighteenth century, when it was known as the Velvet Double rose. It is still available commercially from at least two specialist growers, who supply it budded on rootstocks. My plant is on its own roots, and is vigorous and healthy. It suckers a little, but I

don’t mind because any unwanted suckers can be spaded out in winter, at which time I also cut right out all the stems which have flowered. This, with annual mulching, helps to keep it healthy. Tucked away somewhere in the middle of this group is a self-introduced seedling of the evergreen shrub Vestia foetida, which has restrained yellow flowers and glossy, dark green leaves which smell pungently when bruised.

It belongs to the potato family. Several years ago I had a large specimen nearby, but frost killed it (this is one of those borderline shrubs which become less hardy as 3 grow older) and I was out it for a year or two.

Last year, however, I noticed several seedlings, and retained one, which is now more than a metre tall, and has flowered. . To add further interest to the group I planted, last

year, at the feet of The. Bishop, a rather strange and aptly named clematis. Medley, which has large, semidouble flowers in a weird mixture of subdued colours from coffee to purplish-red. The thistles, winch have shot up since the clematis was planted, are obsuring it at present, so that you have to crane your neck to see the flowers, but the clematis will soon reach the top of the rose, and its flowers will be in full view. It may not be among the showiest clematis, but it is certainly one of the most interesting. Across the lawn, and carrying the colour link to a group of mostly mauve and purple flowers (these are wonderfully cool colours for summer) is another selfintroduction. This is the Argentinian Mutisia spinosa, a climbing daisy with pink flowers that have just a touch of mauve — an interesting plant all round, with whippy stems that, can almost be tied in knots and dark green leaves which are crinkly like holly leaves, but not prickly. At the leaf tips are long tendrils, by which the plant clings to various supports as it climbs.

Like many climbers, Mutisia spinosa likes to have its feet in cool, moist, shaded soil and its head in the sun. It dislikes dry air, and has thrived in this cool, rainy summer, unfortunately it isn’t always so easy to satisfy. I had plaints about five years ago, raised from seed which came from Argentina, but all died except one

■ ' >?x ■ A which I had put la some of my best soil, where it ramped outrageously, over bushes and an almond tree. Eventually I had to curb it by pruning back its main shoots quite severely, and it showed its dislike of this treatment by promptly expiring. Fortunately it had shed some seed, and a couple of seedlings came up in places where I could leave them to their own devices. One of these seedlings is flowering now, for the first time, dangling from a crinodendron which will not produce its white bells until later. . ! < The effect, against ths dark, leathery leaves of the shrub, is very pleasing, rd like tQ have more of this pretty climber but unfortunately cuttings are almost impossible to strike and although it sets plenty of seed which germinates well, the seedlings -are difficult to grow on to flowering size. Nine out of 10 die when transplanted. In South America there are numerous species of Mutisia, including some with bright orange flowers which sound spectacular, but unfortunately seed of these is'not readily obtainable. By now observant readers will have noticed that in this group I have been describing the colour and texture of stems and leaves are i just as important as the flowers.

This is a point that too many gardeners overlook. I will say more 1 about it next week, when I describe other combinations which, by accident or design, are rather special