Taking treasures home from holidays

Press, 30 December 1988, Page 15

Taking treasures home from holidays

You are on a ioliday, and since you are] a keen gardener, you have not been able to resist buying a few new treasires to take home for lata- planting. So how do fou get them there safely] Here is a method that I have used to get plants home in good condition from all sorts » odd places, and by a (variety of transport — eren the pannier bag on a bicycle. First, make sure that the root ball |n the planter bag or ipot is thoroughly moist The best way to do this is by dropping the whole plant into a bucket of water, to soak for several ] hours, overnight if possible. Leave the soaked plant sitting for half an hour or more on a gravel path or some other suitable place, so that all surplus moisture can drain away. This done, get a plastic bag big enough to enclose the container, put the plant in it, and seal the top with a bag-tie or rubber band around the base of the plant, so that/the

container, but not the plant is enclosed. Try to keep the plant in a cool, shady place until you get it home. A plant thus prepared will survive for some days in the boot of a car, and will not make a mess by dripping water or potting mix. When you get the plant home, give it another thorough soaking, then stand it for 24 hours in a cool, shady place before planting it. Puddle it in with plenty of water — up to 45 litres, depending on the size of the plant — and scrape some dry soil over the top of the rootball when the water has drained away. This will act as a mulch and keep the roots evenly moist for a week or more. Continue to water regularly until the plant is well established. A few week ago I wrote about some attractive shrubs, belonging to the erica family, named Enkianthus. Since nothing grows in a vacuum, these need suitable companions with complementary col-

Gardener’s l ! I DIARY

Derrick Rooney

ours and textures. So what can you grow with them? How about Tricyrtis, the so-called “toad lilies.” These all, with the exception of one albino form, which is rare, haved spotted flowers, hence the common name.

About half a dozen species are in cultivation, and most flower in the autumn. My first choice, though, would be T. latifolia, which. is flowering now; in fact, some clumps in my garden have finished, several weeks earlier than usual. The dry weather has brought them on prematurely. I like this plant: it has beauty and subtlety. The flowers are fleshy, and are greenish-yellow, with mahogany-red spots. Most of the others have

purple or purplish flowers, and are no less beautiful for it, but T. puberula, which will flower next month, has a ground colour of yellowish buff.

If you are feeling adventurous, you could add an alstroemeria (so-called “Andes lily”) or two to the. group; not one of the old kind with harsh yellow or orange flowers, but one of the newer strains, in pastel tones. “Walter Fleming” is a good one, in yellow and white. I grow, too, a strain in which the basic yellow is dominated by peach and apricot tones. These are good.

The misfortune of alstroemerias is that the aggressive seeding habits of some strains have led gardeners to regard them as invasive weeds. It ain’t necessarily so! In fact, they are quite useful garden perennials and if properly managed do not get in the way of anything. They are very deep rooted, with crowns up to 25cm below the ground, so you can grow other

things and top of them before or after they flower. The important point in managing alstroemerias in the garden is to prevent them from seeding. I go over all my clumpss of alstroemerias as soon as the flowers have faded, and pull the old stems right out. After a few minutes practice you learn how to give them a sharp tug so that a clean break occurs at the crown and no broken ends are left poking out of the ground. This apparently brutal treatment does not hurt the plants in the least. They soon refurnish themselves with new foliage, and the gardener is spared the misery of hundreds of unwanted seedlings. Dump or burn the spent stems, but whatever you do, keep them out of the compost heap. The seeds will ripen in the heap, and you will have alstroemeria seddlings everywhere you spread compost. I speak from experience!