Garden Centre

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Still stuck indoors

And today’s weather suggests I should be building an ark, rather than a planter, but that’s what I’m doing. The reason? I ordered Romneya seeds.

Now Romneya is a bit of a love/hate plant. I, personally, cannot get enough of it. I first saw it in a Cambridge College garden, nodding gently slightly above my head, and giving off an intoxicating aroma of honeyed lemons in the late afternoon sun. It’s known to grow up to two metres tall, depending on climate, and has, as well as these astonishing saucer sized flowers, large grey leaves. It was not introduced to cultivation until 1875 and it first flowered in the Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin, in Dublin, which is one of my favourite places, and so it seems fitting that this plant should enter my garden.

So what’s the problem?

Romneya can spread widely by suckering, a habit which is described on one American site as ‘In sandy soils they can grow under your house and come out the other side, under driveways, or consume your entire yard.’ Hmm. Now my soil is not sandy, but I have had invasive plants before, notably Chinese Lanterns and I have no desire to go there again. On the other hand though, I do want this lovely big flowers in my garden. So the compromise is to build a nice big (very deep) wooden planter, with feet, paint it blue to really show off the colour of those flowers and that foliage and hold it in reserve against the day that my Romneya seeds turn into seedlings.

Romneya by scott.zona

Labels: container plants, growing plants from seed, romneya, seeds

The All Seasons Gardener at 2:20 AM 0 Comments

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