Hot Summers in a Lemnian Garden 2.

Hot Summers in a Lemnian Garden

2. Plant Survivors

Note: toughies and survivors are often poisonous or prickly, or have leathery and tough leaves. 

Greece has more species of flowers than any other European nation (6,000 species). This may in part be due to the fact that Greece became a crossroads for various migrations of flora as well as peoples. But it also has an extremely high number of endemic species (about 800). This may be explained by the changes in level of the Mediterranean Sea during its geological history, and to the fact that at various time certain species have been fragmented and isolated from the main land masses. (It is this same reason that has resulted in the uniqueness of Australian flora and fauna.)

You can plant the almost fool proof ‘toughies’ in a Mediterranean garden and get results, but there is a joy in trying to push the results a little towards your dream garden. That may include plants with more colourful flowers, or something from a different district, but even then you need to be careful to pick plants can deal with the continuous heat of the Mediterranean summer.

In many ways the garden here has been my project; one where I experiment and play out my ideas. In the same manner the house has been my husband’s grand retirement ‘play-project’. I have loved adapting my early designs and seeing what actually works best, in the same manner as my husband gets a buzz from adapting to the size of each new window or shutter he puts in place. And I have wanted to add to the ‘toughies’ a number of great plant ‘survivors’ that I knew would survive here with a bit of attention.  

Figs  Sika

Green Figs



Ripe Figs

Greek athletes ate figs constantly for strength and fitness. Plato called figs the philosophers’ friend’s because they ‘strengthened intelligence’, which is probably the case as sugar does give the brain a boost. In Greek myth Iris, the messenger of the gods, was offered dry figs, cakes of wheat and honey at her shrine in Delos. And the fig was said to be the creation of the goddess Demeter.

Our tree is quite tall for a fig, over ten feet, and it was nearly as wide until some of the side branches snapped. I think it might be time for me to plant another. I have found that fig trees in Australia bear fruit but the fruit is nowhere near as sweet as the figs we pick in Greece. Here I dry some for later use, or make fig jam. Actually ‘fruit’ is a misnomer for a fig, as what we eat are the fleshy receptacle of the flowers and seeds.

Rose Triandafola

Rose

The Greek name for roses is triandafola. This was an easy name for me to remember and one of the first Greek words I learnt. It means thirty petalled, though wild roses have only five petals. The five petals the flowers are sacred in many different religions. Roses bloom magnificently on Lemnos in May and June, so you need to be an early tourist to catch them at their best.

I have four bush roses lining the walk from the car turning area to the house. The walk goes under the ‘Parthenon’ which is covered with grape vines none of which have so far produced any fruit but which provide dappled shade for the two lining beds. The four rose bushes are vigorous, and I think they have done well in this situation because of the shade and because in this situation I remember to water them. However I’m surprised how well roses do in some of the surrounding gardens that seem to get very little water.

I’ve also got a couple of climbers and though I’ve been told they are full of blooms in spring but I always miss this flowering. Roses have been an important part of my gardening. They have all marked significant times and seasons in my life.  A Peace rose grew up the stone wall of the old house my first husband and I lived in when we were young parents. Julia is the name of a hybrid-tea rose that was given me by my step-daughter. It was not vigorous in its original position, and it has only bloomed after a move to another and garden, where the soil was better and the weather cooler. And I have white carpet roses that have survived a couple of moves and have quickly adapted to new flowerbeds and new soil.

Lantana



Butterflies on the Lantana



Lantana is poisonous and is a weed in eastern Australia. It grows well in full sun and average to dry soil, and tolerates wind and salt. It is a shrub with prickly stems and rough leaves – rough on the hands when you cut it back. It has round clusters of small bright, yellow or orange-red, or pink and white flowers and its berries that look like blackberries. Though it does not like the cold, and some very cold island winters have cut my bushes back, most recover and grow back the next year.

Bottlebrush,

Bottlebrush

 I had bottlebrush bushes in a sandy garden in Australia that I often did not water for six months. As these plants are found along water courses in the dry inland parts of Australia they prefer fairly moist soil to get started, thus I had to water them well to get them started in this sandy garden. However after a couple of years they rooted well enough to survive in the sand, whereas in another Australian garden, in clay, in damp mountainous conditions, the bottlebrushes I had grew so big they have to be often cut back drastically.

 In Lemnos, though frost tender in very cold areas my two plants have done well and now act as accent plants at the beginning of the walk to the terrace. Bottlebrushes come in a variety of hues though the pink and crimson varieties are the most popular. They are native to Australia and naturally have a weeping habit, needing to be cut back to keep ‘bushy’. I’ve only cut back my Lemnian bottlebrushes slowly over the years, to achieve a nice rounded shape. New leaves grow from the tips of the flower spikes, which are actually colourful stamens. These after flowering turn into woody seeds. In Australia they are great in a garden for attracting the honeyeaters that love the nectar they produce.

Honeysuckle Ayioklima



Honeysuckle

This plant, like the rose, had a name I could easily remember because it was so applicable, Ayioklima, meaning the ‘climbing saint’. There are about 180 species of Lonicera in the Northern Hemisphere. In my Lemnian garden I have one variety taken from a root stock in a neighbour’s garden. Whether it is Italian, Etruscan or Common I’m not sure, probably ‘common’. The first plant spread and covered a high screening fence outside the laundry. I have another on a high fence between the vegetable garden and the shade walk. Both of these plants need to be cut back quite severely as they will twine into nearby plants. I planted another on a wall near our outdoor dining area a – good place to get a waft of scent at breakfast time.

Iris

Iris

I’m not an iris specialist so I always grow the hardiest of irises in all my gardens. I put them in a border, mainly for their spiky leaves. This is because on the whole I miss their flowering which occurs in early spring. I have a garden friend in Australia who writes and tells me that the irises are blooming beautifully there after I’ve left, and when I return to the island Anestis and Vetta tell me the same about the irises I have just missed in this garden. A neighbour gave me a few rhizomes and they have quickly spread into a number of beds in Lemnos. I was told to leave the rhizomes partially exposed to the sun when planting them and the only work since then is to lift and divide the clumps now and then to improve the flowering.

I’ve nominated this a toughie as it is a plant that will grow in a variety of habitats all over the world, and there are varieties that will probably grow in most gardens, in a number of colours. The Greek myth of Iris may stem from the various colours of the flowers as Iris was not only a messenger of the gods but also the Goddess of the Rainbow. However I’ve not yet experimented with this aspect of the plant.

Geranium Pelargonium



Geranium

Zonal Pelargoniums are used in pots and in gardens. The plant has its origins on the hills of South Africa and is frost tender so that plants rarely survive a winter on the island. In England they are usually placed under cover if there is a danger of frosts.

However they do look very ‘Mediterranean’. Standing above the leaves the flowers are conspicuous, and though each is simple and five petalled the whole plant gives radiance. I once tried to paint a few and I wondered how I could capture that rich red? I did not have that red in my paint box. It was fluorescent. Probably an artist would juxtapose the red with other colours to emphasis and contrast. Just a few in a flower bed can add light and colour to a dark corner, and on a balcony in full sun they highlight and emphasise architectural features.

And I could rave on about just the leaves too; simple, five lobed, mid green and slightly ribbed, with their distinctive ‘horseshoe-mark’. The velvet fine hairs give the leaves a thicker texture. While this has developed for holding moisture and for protection, not just to please me, even the leaves are filled with sensuality. You pick just one leave and you feel this tender softness, and release some of its sweet acrid scent on the air.

I brought some cuttings of some magnificent ‘Geraniums’ back from the hotel we stayed in Rhodes. They ranged from all shades of red to pink and pure white.  But they did not survive winter in Lemnos. The best survivors on this island here are a bright pink variety. I also have some Pelargonium, graveo pens (with rose scented leaves) growing in the island garden. They too are quite vigorous and need cutting back hard if they are swamping nearby plants. The leaves of these can be added to some recipes.

However, the plants that are more correctly called geraniums are those smaller varieties commonly known as cranesbills (because of their beak-like seed pods). These are hardier than the Pelargoniums we usually see in gardens though they are native to the more temperate regions of Eurasia and North America and I doubt they would do well in this Lemnian garden.

Alyssum



Allysum

Alyssum is a typical Mediterranean plant, a low growing ‘cushion’ plant, coming from the mountains of Spain and France and from coastal districts of Central and Eastern Mediterranean. In England this plant is also known as Sweet Alice. The white variety, called Little Dorrit, is sweet scented and blooms profusely. It grows easily from seed and I think my fondness for this plant is because it was one of my first successes, planted when I was seven years old on a garden I made for myself on the roof the now disused wartime dugout that was at the bottom of our London garden.

Here in Lemnos they have spread from one packet of seed with me and planted it in the herb bed. Now it appears every year under a nectarine tree in the vegetable garden and along the pathway in the shade garden. It is a little gem of a plant. I just cut it back when it becomes straggly, and each year those plants scatter enough new plants throughout the garden to keep me happy.

Some more ‘great survivors’ that I’ve grown in our Mediterranean garden.

Apricot, Pear, Carnation, Zinnia, Thyme, Euphorbia, Plumbago, Magnolia.

 Questions for the agricultural students on Lemnos?

Why did some plants survive in some places better than others in the past?

How are the ones we have today managing to survive today’s climate change and human interference?