Wealden Times | WT171 | May 2016 | Restoration & New Build supplement inside
Wealden Times - The lifestyle magazine for the Weald
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SmallLoads<strong>WT171</strong>.indd 1 15/04/<strong>2016</strong> 15:43<br />
Garden Perfection<br />
City Escapes provide domestic & commercial garden solutions<br />
Every home should have a pot of lemon verbena to brush<br />
past in the summer and to snip to make a delicious herbal<br />
tea. Aloysia citrodora has strongly scented narrow leaves.<br />
This pot would definitely need to be under cover in the<br />
winter and the plant cut back either in the winter or early<br />
spring. It then comes back from the base. It doesn’t need<br />
much attention water wise but is worth feeding or top<br />
dressing each year before the season starts. This is such<br />
a bee friendly plant – another reason for growing it.<br />
It’s been a bit of a jungle in the greenhouse this winter<br />
and we almost needed a machete to create some space. I<br />
stuck a few cuttings of Helichrysum petiolare into a bucket<br />
of sharp sand a year or so ago and rather forgot about them<br />
and the whole thing took off and reached the height of the<br />
greenhouse. So another perfect silver leaved plant for dry<br />
conditions. I don’t remember watering them at all and what<br />
were tiny cuttings have been more than happy growing away<br />
for a couple of years. Another plant in there but which has<br />
outgrown its space and will have to be cut back dramatically<br />
any moment now is Sparmannia africana, or African Hemp.<br />
But if you like foliage plants with giant leaves and fragrant<br />
flowers – white with dramatic red and yellow stamens, this<br />
is quite a plant to try in a (very) large container. It’s not<br />
ideal in a greenhouse really, partly because it doesn’t leave<br />
much room for anything else but also because it has too<br />
much direct sunlight in there which causes a yellowing<br />
of the leaves. Coming from South Africa it is adapted<br />
to drought conditions and would be perfect as a large<br />
houseplant or specimen plant in a sheltered corner of a<br />
courtyard. And its huge leaves are ideally adapted to the<br />
plant’s native conditions, being both soft but hairy to the<br />
touch. I read that the stamens ‘bristle’ when they’re touched<br />
which we’ve never noticed so it’s out to the greenhouse right<br />
now to experiment and then, I’m afraid, the whole plant,<br />
giant that it is, really is going to be cut back so that we can<br />
actually get in there. It’s a good time to take some softwood<br />
cuttings so today might be perfect to try a few of those.<br />
Sue Whigham can be contacted on 07810 457948 for<br />
gardening advice as well as the sourcing and supply of<br />
interesting garden plants.<br />
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Tel: 01435 868211 | M: 07831 302107 | E: damian@cityescapes.co.uk<br />
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CityEscapesWT166.indd 1 30/10/2015 12:07
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