With the Summer Solstice beckoning as I write and temperatures soaring at last, irrigation, once again, becomes the topic of the day. We've noticed from talking to a lot of you at Viveros Florena that water – or lack of it – is becoming a really important issue and, even if your supply is reliable, no-one wants to waste it.
Many holiday home owners especially don´t want big water bills but they do want a garden that looks attractive, especially if they are letting. The answer is, of course, to use native and Mediterranean-style plants and cacti and succulents. These are all perfectly happy in our generally alkaline, rocky or sandy and nutrient-poor soil. At the garden centre, we have always concentrated heavily on Mediterranean style plantings and we have now set up a dedicated cactus/succulent corner which we hope will give you further inspiration for tough plantings.
These desert type plants have adapted to the extremes of heat and aridity often by changing their physical structure; they are called xerophytes. They usually have special means of storing water and often have few or no leaves to reduce transpiration. Some are also phreatophytes – plants which adapt to arid environments by growing extremely long roots to seek out water. Cacti are xerophytes adapted from the rose family and they are some of our most drought-resistant plants. They rarely have leaves, they have wide-spreading radial root systems which allow them to take up large quantities of rainwater or condensation; they store water in their stems, have spines to create shade and protect themselves from grazing animals and they are often coated in a wax or woolly covering to reflect sunlight and seal in water. The ribs of the golden barrel cactus, echinocactus grusonii, or mother-in-law's cushion, for instance, expand and contract like an accordion as water is pumped into its body during a rainstorm.
Desert or near-desert conditions are not as bleak as you may imagine, uniformly hot, dry and arid; just as each desert has its own characteristics, so they also have tiny micro-climates and enclaves where different species thrive. When desert soils are closely examined, each fistful can contain dozens of seeds of perennial and annual or ephemeral seeds. Believe it or not, the world record for this vast desert seed bank is in the Sonoran Desert, U.S.A. where 200,000 seeds have been counted per square metre. Desert perennials will survive by remaining dormant during dry periods; annuals, more correctly in this case described as ephemerals, germinate after heavy seasonal rain, bloom prodigiously giving us an explosion of colour, and scatter their seeds within a very short time. These seeds remain dormant in the soil until the following year's cycle but, if rains are scant, the seeds can wait for another year or two. There are hundreds of species of these ephemerals to bring short-term colour.
Gardening more naturally means that we imitate nature more closely using plants that will adapt to the limitations. And desert-style gardens can look stunning; you can even incorporate an arroyo or dry steam bed lined with river rocks and gravel and plants alongside, just as in nature.
Whilst some cacti and succulents may seem expensive to buy initially, remember that they can represent years of growth and you certainly need less of them than in lusher styles of gardening. Many will quietly reproduce to help you build up stocks and extend your planting scheme.
Agaves and aloes are some of the easiest succulents to buy when first setting up your garden. There are around 200 species of agaves and some 450 of aloes. Agaves nearly all die when they flower whereas aloes don´t. But some agaves can take decades to flower and will always reproduce in some way before death so that you have new supplies. So when your mother plant starts to send up a flower shoot, signalling that it is near the end of its life, don´t feel too sad – there's all the excitement of a new birth to come, multiple births in fact!
Most agaves, from the Greek agauos meaning illustrious or noble, consist of rosettes of thick, rigid but succulent leaves often toothed along the margins and usually with a lethally sharp terminal spike. They come in many leaf colours, lots being striped, and range from just a few centimetres tall to 2.5m high. Aloes, from the Greek alsos meaning bitter, again range from a few centimetres tall to towering tree aloes, perhaps 15m tall. They flower in clusters of yellow, orange or red tubular flowers and, once they reach flowering size, will then do so annually for many years.
If you're looking for something more columnar, the cereus family way suit you. They are best known for their stunningly beautiful night-time flowering but they are also very statuesque plantings and give stature to desert scenes.
The crassulaceae family is huge and contains many of our favourite succulents; echeveria, sempervivum, kalanchoe, aeonium and sedum to name just a few. Echeverias are some of the easiest and considered by many to be the most beautiful. They are natives of Mexico and Central America forming attractive rosettes of fleshy leaves resembling full-blown roses or ruffled lettuces in a great range of colours. From the diverse euphorbia family comes the prickly and floriferous Crown of Thorns, euphorbia milii. And, if prickles are your thing, go for the opuntia family (our beleaguered prickly pear is just one).
And remember that cacti make up one of our most beleaguered and under threat plant groups – so let's hold out a hand to them, as long as they're not too prickly!
Our Sizzling Summer Sale runs for two weeks in July with most plants at half price!
From 17th July until 28th July, between 9am and 2pm, closed Sundays and Mondays.
You can't afford to miss it!
Keep checking our web page for latest news and exciting new stock arriving at the garden centre. Join our mailing list to keep in constant touch. Shop on-line with us for unusual plants, scented roses, bulbs, coloured iris, organic products, neem oil and my books. We are also now stockists of natural soap nut products. Our Florena Food Market takes place every Wednesday morning. Come and visit our Shabby Shed Shop with a constantly changing array of desirables with style!
Summer Hours
June, July & September: 9 – 2, Closed Sundays & Mondays and August.
Winter Hours
October – May: 10 – 4
Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Viveros Florena, Ctra. Algarrobo/Cómpeta, km 2, Cómpeta, 29754, Málaga
Tel: 689928201 Web: www.viverosflorena.com Email: florenaspain@hotmail.com
And see us on Facebook – Lorraine Cavanagh's Garden Centre
