Are you a list person? Whilst not fanatical about it, I admit I am and my longest runner is a wish list of plants I´d like to be able to offer for sale. I often add plants to that list but it´s rare that I am able to remove many and so it grows and grows! The plants on it are not botanical curiosities, as you might think, but good solid Mediterranean-garden-type plants. You might wonder why I don´t just buy them if they´re so good – I wish, hence a wish list.
Over the years, I´ve slowly managed to persuade some growers to give a plant a try. I remember when plants such as thunbergia grandiflora, phaserolus caracalla, hardenbergia violacea, melianthus major, alogyne huegelii, convolvulus cneorum and sabatius were on no-one´s listings but now I can get hold of them, though with some difficulty. But now especially many are feeling that now is perhaps not a time to be experimental, safer to stick to the ´old and trusted´. So I´ve gone another route and we are going to start bringing in plug plants from Northern Europe – for greater selection – and plug, of course, because they´re cheaper to transport. We´ll be offering them to you, for a brief period, as plug plants – ideal for bulk planting because the cost is low and plants establish quickly in their new home. And then we can grow them on under our own conditions instead of as hot-house plants.
So, after all these years, you might wonder which plants are at the top of my wish list, which are the most important to source. Well, of course, as a typical gardener, there are many but some that I have now ordered and should be with us when you read this article will, I hope, make your mouths water too!
Cytisus battandieri, Moroccan or pineapple broom. A lovely, and tough, large deciduous shrub or small tree which is drought tolerant and good in poor soils. It has distinctive sage-green silky and silvered leaves with bright yellow pea-like flowers with a potent smell of pineapple.
Sollya heterophylla, bluebell creeper. A gem of a plant with Australian origins. Particularly valuable as a smallish twining climber/trailer which can be grown in pots, reaching 3m. Nodding clusters of bluebell-like flowers contrast prettily with its dark green foliage and are followed by decorative purple berries.
Verbascum ´Helen Johnson´mullein. A perennial with large felted grey-green basal leaves and towering terracotta-apricot with deep purple centres to the flowering spikes, a lovely contrast. A tough sun-lover, good in gravel, to 1m. Helianthemum ´Bunbury´. The sun roses are ideal for our gardens, forming spreading mats of low-growing foliage, loving hot and sunny. Bright green foliage and brilliantly vivid deep pink flowers smother the plant. Try it in rock gardens, over gravel, trailing over rough banks and in pots.
Coreopsis ´Little Penny´ tickseed. A compact mounding coreopsis with numerous copper-sunset daisy-like flowers. Vigorous and free-flowering – deadhead for a long performance. Likes hot and sunny.
Digitalis Illumination ´Raspberry´The Illumination series won Plant of the Year at the 2012 Chelsea Flower Show and with reason. This one is a gorgeous mix of deep raspberry pink with an apricot speckled throat. Towering and long flowering (because it is seedless it flowers longer) it is loved by bees and butterflies too. Firmly perennial.
Erysimum Ápricot Twist´perennial wallflower. Grey-green leaves with striking apricot through to copper orange flowers, heavily and spicily scented. Long flowering, through spring and early summer and often repeating in autumn. Good in relatively poor soils.
Verbena bonariensis, Brazilian verbena. A must have butterfly plant with heads of bright purple flowers on rigid stems for many months. A stylish perennial, it is elegant and adds height without bulk. To 1.5m and self-seeds readily without becoming a nuisance!
We´ll be constantly adding to the range as either desirables become available throughout the season, so check with us or visit our web page to be kept up to date.
Lorraine Cavanagh owns the specialist garden centre Viveros Florena, Competa, Malaga (garden centre, designers & landscapers) and is author of the best-selling Mediterranean Garden Plants and Citrus, The Zest of Life. Both are on sale at the garden centre or on-line through our web page.-
NEW check our on-line shop for unusual plants, organic products and my books.
Keep checking the web page for latest news, stock etc. at the garden centre.
Join our mailing list to be kept informed.
Summer Hours:
June, July, September, 9 – 2,
closed for August.
Winter Hours:
October to May 10 – 4
Always closed Sundays and Mondays.
Tel: 689928201
See us on Facebook – Lorraine Cavanagh’s Garden Centre
Web page: www.viverosflorena.com Email: florenaspain@hotmail.com
