Decisions, decisions, decisions

Euphorbia mellifera is one of the mainstays of the exotic garden here in the UK.  It rapidly forms a  large, rounded shrub with attractive linear foliage with a white central vein and long lasting, late spring heads of honey scented flowers.

Euphorbia mellifera with Cordyline 'Coffee Cream in 2005

Euphorbia mellifera flower heads and foliage

Euphorbia mellifera flower head close up

As a fast growing plant it can get out of hand fairly quickly.  2-3ft / 60-90 cm of growth per year is a fairly conservative estimate.  In the eight years I grew it I cut it down to ground level once myself to keep it in bounds and had it cut down twice by harsh winters - the last time producing such a mess that I removed the remains.  I've now filled in the space with a red Ensete banana and an hydrangea.

Doing a bit of weeding in the garden yesterday I found a couple of seedlings of the euphorbia.  Nothing unusual in that - I often find seedlings of the various plants I grow.  Hardy geraniums, crocosmia, Freesia laxa, Libertia, Begonia grandis var evansiana, hellebores, even ferns - all pop up regularly amongst the rather more common garden weeds.  Some I pot up, others join the compost heap on the allotment (and, yes, if it likes you, even the treasured and desirable hardy begonia can become a weed).  OK, the euphorbia seedlings are a little unusual in being 20 feet / 6 metres from the site of the parent - entirely due to the exploding seed pods of the plant.  I remember a hot day in 2007 and the garden being peppered with the seeds as they were flung at fair velocity across the plot - probably the origin of the current seedlings.

But it all  leaves me with a problem.  I can, and will, pot up the seedlings.  I'd rather like to grow it in the garden again.  But I now simply don't have the room in the ground.  This plant takes up a lot of space - and doesn't wait around to do it.  So, if I want to keep it and enjoy that lovely honey scent, it will have to go permanently in a pot.  Which probably won't produce the best results.  Still, knowing my taste for tender plants I'm bound to have gaps if when we have more bad winters.  And maybe then it can go back in the ground to produce the next generation of seedlings.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day August 2011

Another 15th of the month and another chance to illustrate what is flowering in my Plymouth garden.  As always, visiting May Dreams Garden blog will give you access to all the other gardens linking today.

As before, I'm including some of the more interesting plants and, while the photos have not all been taken today, the plants are all in flower today.  

Roscoea beesiana - another pretty little ginger for semi shade

Agapanthus 'Northern Star' - a robust deciduous type with large heads of dark blue flowers

Japanese anemone - Anemone x hybrida 'Honorine Jobert'

Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora - a bit weedy but good for bright colour in shade

Geranium 'Buxton's Blue' - a nice clump forming hardy geranium

Geranium wlassovianum - another good clump former

Lobelia 'Fan Scarlet' - short lived but very pretty perennials

Rosa 'Graham Thomas' - one of the English shrub roses

Tillandsia cyanea - in my little shade house

Clematis texensis 'Princess of Wales' - providing secondary colour on my winter jasmine

Trachelospermum jasminoides - beautifully scented evergreen climber growing by the rear garden gate

Begonia boliviensis 'Bonfire' - a summer visitor dying back to a tuber for overwintering

12 previously unillustrated plants for August.  A lot of the plants I've previously illustrated are still flowering - Passiflora edulis, Abutilon 'Patrick Synge', Freesia laxa, Iochroma grandiflora, Brugmansia, Hydrangeas and many others.  I wonder if I'll have 12 new ones to illustrate in September?

An August evening

Just been outside in preparation for locking up for the night.  It's dusk, the air still after the earlier breezes, reasonably warm but just beginning to dip below shirt sleeve levels of comfort.  There is a wonderful sweet scent hanging in the calm of the evening.  My one and only Brugmansia has opened a single trumpet flower and is wafting its perfume throughout the garden.

It's an apricot coloured form that I bought from Hill House nursery earlier this year.  50cm tall when I bought it, a planting hole filled with manure and regular liquid feeding has got it to nearly 2 metres tall.  It produced a couple of flowers earlier in the summer but is now gearing up to produce rather more.  The flowers are beautiful - but the scent is divine, an evening and night aroma designed to attract night flying pollinators.

Brugmansia 'Apricot'

From earlier experience an individual flower will last for about four days - but I've got others developing so I'll have some continuity.  With luck they'll scent the garden till October. 

Despite overwintering one outside a few years back most winters are too cold for the top growth to survive so I'll need to dig it up and, hopefully, overwinter it as a fairly dry skeleton in my shed before reviving it next spring.  It's worth the effort - the bigger the plant the greater the flowering display.  Though I may have to site it in a slightly better location.  My local snail population have wrecked havoc with the foliage - which rather destroys the effect of the big, softly textured leaves. 

No matter, the scent remains, encouraging me to linger outside as the light gradually fades and the garden becomes less and less visible.  Meanwhile, overhead, a single bat is patrolling.  It might, or might not enjoy the scent - but will enjoy the moths attracted to the blossom.