Time for a splash of festive colour

Grass Roots/column Getting the chop: prune tall impatiens to a uniform 10cm hedge height and you will be rewarded with flowers in late summer.

Grass Roots/column Getting the chop: prune tall impatiens to a uniform 10cm hedge height and you will be rewarded with flowers in late summer.

Published Dec 22, 2014

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“What a desolate place would be a world without flowers! It would be a face without a smile, a feast without a welcome.” – Clara Balfour.

 

Pansies and violas are among my favourite flowers, not only for their bright cheerfulness and delicate perfume, but for their resilience and wonderful value. I was given several for my birthday in early May, which are still blooming, more than six months later!

Now, however, it is time to plant replacements in the traditional festive season colours of green, red and white. Green is already plentifully supplied by foliage, and many summer flowers appear in white or red. There are impatiens, begonia, verbena, phlox and pelargonium, to name a few.

“Bishop of Llandaff” is a handsome red dahlia with bronze foliage for added effect, while nicotianas offer extra value with their delicious evening fragrance. If you like both red and white combined on one flower, you will find them among some fuchsias and striped petunias.

For height, pick a rich red bougainvillea or dipladenia to give you flowers for months on end.

Both will need some support, however.

But you should also have some blue tones, to provide a serene contrast to hot reds. Here, numerous species of agapanthus, in a variety of sizes, as well as lobelias, would fit the bill admirably. Blue hydrangeas, which were so popular in Christmases past, now have become rather scarce and expensive.

Indeed, flowers, like clothes, seem to go out of fashion, like the tamarisk I was seeking to act as a screen. One species is an insipid pink, while another has a deeper, more attractive hue.

At one nursery, I was told the tamarisk had not been stocked for ages. At another, the assistant had not even heard of this useful coastal plant, which the cheeky spotted prinia regards as its playground.

Fortunately, slips of tamarisk can be grown relatively easily.

The fiddlewood (Citharexylum quadrangulare) is another hard-to-find plant these days. “Why on earth would you want a fiddlewood?” exclaimed the youngest member of my garden club. Why would I not!

For the foliage of this small tree turns a striking apricot in early summer, followed by sprays of fragrant white flowers which attract tiny insects for sunbirds to feast upon.

Finally, here is a morsel of good news for plant lovers: botanical rules have been relaxed in the last two years, allowing the specific names of new species to be given in Latin or English.

The first to be so treated was a solanum from South Africa.

Recently, on our local mountain, I came across a rather rare erica with the awkward specific name of “halicacaba”, which means “like a Cape gooseberry”. How much nicer had it been given a short, English descriptive title instead.

l This is Hilary Mauve’s last gardening column for the Cape Argus

Cape Argus

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