Small tulip species and their hybrids are some of the most charming of garden plants, but they tend to get lost to view unless they are in the confinement of pockets in a rock garden or of pots or troughs, where their miniature beauty can be appreciated. Nearly all are natives of central Asia. They [...]
Sempervivums are plants for the collector, rather than the general gardener, but the specialist takes as much pride in his houseleeks as does the rosarian in his roses. They make an ideal pot or sink plant, being easy to grow and requiring little attention. They come from the mountains of central Europe. Semperivivum tectorum, the [...]
The cushion saxifrages are ideal dwarf plants for the trough garden, slowly forming tiny domes of green or silvery leaves with extremely pretty flowers on very short stalks in spring. One of the best is S. ‘Jenkinsii’, with masses of shell-pink flowers on red stalks; ‘Valerie Finnis’ is primrose yellow; S. burseriana is pure white [...]
The common rosemary is fully hardy in a sheltered place, a dense evergreen shrub from the Mediterranean with narrow, highly aromatic leaves which are glossy green above, white-felted below, and has light blue labiate flowers in late spring. Rosemary likes full sun and a well-drained, gritty compost. It is such an excellent culinary plant, especially [...]
Of all evergreen flowering shrubs, the dwarf rhododendrons are among the most rewarding for the town garden or terrace. This doll’s-house rhododendron makes a perfect rounded bush no more than 3 feet (90 cm) high. A hybrid of Himalayan and Chinese parentage, it is evergreen and flowers earlier than most rhododendrons, in mid-spring. The bell-shaped [...]
This evergreen perennial from New Zealand has such an exotic appearance that it looks more appropriate near a building than in the open garden. Pri-marily a foliage plant, the leaves grow in fan-shaped clumps at least 4 feet (1.2 m) tall, are leathery and swordlike and of a deepish green, though there are varieties with [...]
The window-box gardener, pondering how best to use his exiguous space, would get glorious value from a row of petunias grown as annuals. Their trumpet flowers come in all shades of pink and purple, in red, white, yellow or blue, single or double, frilled or plain, striped or bordered, with all the brilliance of circus [...]
The most graceful in habit of all pelargoniums, P. pelioLum, with its cascades of glossy, ivylike leaves, makes a garden in itself in a well-designed urn or pot. The trailing stems, which are rather brittle and must be carefully handled, can be as much as 3 feet (90 cm) long. There are many varieties, both [...]
A pelargonium in a pot with its dense heads of flower, beautiful leaves, and rare intensity of colour, makes a visual impact which is unique. Pelargoniums are tender sub-shrubs available in a bewildering range of hybrids, almost all from South African species. They are classified into several sections, of which only the zonal and regal [...]
Nothing is prettier in the mid-summer months than a trough filled with South African daisies, for the flowers are exciting in colour and have a slight sheen on the petals. They are white above and bluish-mauve beneath and when open reveal electric-blue centres. They have a behaviour of their own, for they always look towards [...]