Snow!

Well spring still seems to be on hold in the UK as we are battered by the "Beast from The East" and Storm Emma.  Somehow the two names don't really go hand in hand, I mean The Beast is a good description of the snow and cold weather we are getting but Emma? sounds a little more tame. However for parts of the UK bearing the brunt the weather is anything but tame.

 

Fortunately in our little corner the weather is not too bad, we have had a few drops o snow but nothing too significant. Roads and Travel has some disruptions but main routes are open, trains are running and most flights from the local airport are still running.

 



 

 

But with snow and tropical plants comes some interesting photo opportunities, the picture above is pretty much from the doors of the conservatory, most of the plants in the garden should be unaffected by the weather (the lowest temperature has been -7C / 19f, so cold but not too bad. The more tender plants are mostly tucked up in greenhouses, although theres the odd one that we had hoped would be fine still out. Lets see what happens when it warms up.

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The Tropical Dream

Given the opportunity, would you want to live in the tropics? Not just for a few weeks or months but actually move, take residence, and live there permanently.

Would you?

Where it's warm and humid all year round with no winter to contend with. Where you can potentially garden all year round.

Has the tropical dream ever crossed your mind?

Had a wonderful holiday in a tropical location before and would love to live there or somewhere similar one day?

Southeast Asia, Central and Southern America, Africa, India, Northern Australia, The Pacific Islands. The Caribbean....

Having an exotic and tropical inspired garden, we get asked this all the time, especially me, if we want to or would move eventually to the tropics. It's a question that I personally find tricky to answer but before I even start to answer often I would hear the one who asked me say first...

Wouldn't it be nice to live in the tropics?

I would love to live in the tropics one day. 

I would move to the tropics if it was easy/possible (and variations thereof...)

Really? 

Now I'm curious, given the chance and practicalities aside, if it were to be easy, would you want to live in the tropics?

Mark :-)

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Colocasia gaoligongensis

One plant that has really come into its own for us this year is Colocasia gaoligongensis, which despite the tongue twister of a name really is an essential hardy plant for an exotic garden. It is often reported to be the hardiest Colocasia available, and can survive temperatures as low as -10C. It dies back to the ground in winter, only to re-emerge in the spring. We had one survive through the spate of bad winters the UK had from between 2009 and 2011. To be safe it is worth giving it a thick layer of mulch over winter. It likes to be in a moist soil with some shade. We actually lost a plant to drought that had survived the bad winters but was in a very dry spot.

This plant is in the raised bed next to the filter house, and as a very small plant in a pot survived being frozen solid last winter. It really is quite a tough plant.

Colocasia gaoligongensis in our garden

As you can see the leaves are quite a bright green with an almost black dot in the centre of the leaf plus quite a pronounced veining to them. It produces surface runners (stolons) that will spread out quite some distance from the mother plant that will grow "pups" (new plants) at the end when they anchor themselves into the soil. We have had it flower but somehow have managed to not take any photos of it before, however it produces a fairly typical aroid flower. 

Colocasia gaoligongensis flower illustrated on http://www.hort.net

Colocasia gaoligongensis can also be propagated by cutting off the stolons, these can be cut into sections between the nodes. Once cut they should be allowed to dry off slightly, for about a day before placing them horizontally in seed trays with a good quality multi purpose compost. They should be given a light covering of compost and kept moist but not waterlogged. If you can give them a little bit of bottom heat them they will respond well.  Once the plants sprout, allow them to grow on until late the following spring when they can be divided and potted on. It will grow reasonably quickly so small new plants will get to a good size quite quickly if kept moist and well fed. 

I'm really hoping this bulks up nicely next year and gives us a number of spare plants to put in other places in the garden.

Gaz

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It is July... Honest

The breakfast host on our local radio station the other day started the show by saying what a lovely autumnal morning it was, great for September... Although he then had to spoil it by reminding us that its early July, and not autumn yet! The summer so far this year seems to be a bit of a wash out, with regular reports of a months rain being dropped in 24 hours in various places around the country, with devastating results in some towns.

So whilst the wet weather is annoying for us, at least it hasn't caused any damage. That said it has caused some delays with the pond project, rain and cement don't mix well, rain and painting don't mix well, rain and... well you get the picture.

However the garden itself is looking great, lush growth all over and fantastic new culms on the bamboos. There has been enough warm spells recently to get things moving. With that in mind its a good opportunity to check whats looking good at the moment in the garden.

I'm glad to see some of the small statues in the garden finally going green!

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Building the Veranda

Before work had begun.

Just over half way down the garden is a large wooden outbuilding. This had been used by a former owner of the property as a carpenters workshop. We are fortunate that this building, as well as having an electrical supply, is well insulated and doubled glazed - a real benefit in the British climate and allows us to overwinter some of our more borderline hardy plants away from the cold and snow we would often expect.

The area in front of this building had been towards the end of the list of jobs to undertake, and we finally got started in the summer of 2009. This meant clearing the existing shrubs and removing roughly a ton of old gravel.

Due to over commitments the work to build an extension to the building was delayed until the Autumn. The following photographs tell the tale the work undertaken.

    

  

  

The finished result has created a relaxing place to sit and wile away a few hours surrounded by exotic plants.

 

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