Mediterranean Plants: Adapting and Selecting

 

 

Mediterranean Plants: Adapting and Selecting

In some of my blogs I’ve referred to ‘my gardens’ in plural, even though this site is really mostly about returning and living in Greece. This is because we still have a home and garden in Australia, and, I often think of other previous gardens I’ve made. This back referencing is often because the plants I’ve used in Lemnos I’ve also grown somewhere else.

Even if they are designated ‘Mediterranean Plants’ that does not mean each Med. garden has the same conditions.  In this blog I’m thinking about some of the adaptation that plants make as I’ve decided to use same plant I’ve used before. For instance, in my sandy seaside garden Plumbago used to grow 2m high and I used it as a front hedge. I had to cut it back after first spring flowering to get another flowering later. It is drought tolerant and did well in that garden. In my present Australian garden I have Plumbago on the front fence though it does not do nearly as well and it grows more leaves than flowers. This plant also grows in Lemnos but after I lost one plant I looked around to see how others managed to keep it through the cold winters. I noticed it is rarely used as a hedge plant and is often planted it as a pot plant in large pots. I’m now trying this.

Some of these plants in Loch Sport

Acanthus

In my Australian garden this plant is not very vigorous and I’m carefully encouraging the one small plant I have.

In Lemnos though I dug up one plant along the roadsides and planted at the back of the garden and I was immediately warned by a visiting cousin that it would become so vigorous I’d soon have to remove it, and all its progeny. In fact this happened as I had planted it in its favoured site – in shade in fairly good soil. It has quickly spread but though it is not easy to pull out the unwanted ones I don’t mind having it there. I like its sculptured addition to the rounded shapes of santolina and creeping rosemary. The tall flower heads add drama to flower bed – they can also be used in flower arrangements and even the seed heads are attractive. By mid-summer in Lemnos the plant dies down and I cut off the left over flower spikes, knowing it, and many other plants, will reappear next spring!

Apple

The garden I have in Australia is in just the right place to grow apple trees and how satisfyingly productive and various the trees are each variety with a different purpose. One apple is good for sauce, another for pies and another for eating raw.  
Lemnos is not really a suitable place for apple trees but it was my first real vegetable garden so wanted to try to grow them. They have grown, but need their feet kept cool with mulch, and to be watered well. I have had one crop but they do not have the flavour of Australian apples.

Bottlebrush

I had bottlebrush bushes in a sandy garden that I had in Australia. Here I often did not water for six months and they survived. However as these plants are found along water courses in the dry inland parts of Australia they prefer some moisture to get started.  In my present Australian garden, in damp mountainous conditions, the bottlebrushes grows very ‘leggy’ and often have to be cut back drastically.

 In Lemnos my two bottlebrushes were doing well, producing glorious flowers and coping with my trimming, until this last winter. One has died and it appears this is because of the strong winter winds shaking the root system.

Box

Clipped box is often my first choice for a clipped hedge or for a formally clipped pot plant. It is slow growing and it can take a severe pruning in spring with several light cutbacks in summer. I like some formality in a garden and Lemnos I have four ‘balls’ of box in tubs, and in Australia two tubs. I have a small hedge of box in Australia and once started using it as a hedge around the vegetable garden. However a box hedge did not work well in Lemnos being weakened by the climate, and then attacked by aphids and from die back.

Some of these plants in Emerald

Bouganvillia

This is a South American plant with vivid bracts and I’ve grown it in several gardens. In my beach house garden in Loch Sport I had a variety called Tango Supreme (light blue) and planted it over a trellis by the back door. It grew slowly but did well. In Emerald I found the common purple-mauve variety (bougainvillea glabra) growing on a fence between us and our neighbours. This variety is more cold tolerant than other species and though it dies back each winter it blooms all spring-summer long, and having grown very large it acts as a useful screen. In Lemnos I bought a pretty pink variety and planted it next to Takis’ workroom. It gets knocked back each winter by the cold but survives and re-grows. I have just planted a glabra by the front gate and it has survived this past winter, so I’m hoping the shelter it gets between a pine and a wall will continue to keep it from the cold winds and winter snows.

Chrysanthemums

These seem to be amazingly tolerant of all kinds of weather as they do well in all my gardens. In Lemnos the small variety seems to be the toughest and the taller ones prone to attack by a parasitic plant. In Emerald they get a bit too much water and have to be seriously cut back a couple of times a year.  I just love the scent of chrysanthemums and their bright colours, particularly the yellow and rust coloured ones.

Day Lily

I was given a few by a neighbour in Lemnos and now I have two beds full. They provide wonderful hiding place for many snails! It’s a plant that tolerates a wide range of climates and while preferring full sun it will grow in partial shade. In Australia I’ve got one plant, but in this garden it’s hard to find full sun, so I’ll have to move it around to find the right spot.

Geranium/ Pelargonium

In Australia I have a bright orange red variety of geranium that grows very vigorously and adds great colour to the borders.  Zonal Pelargoniums in England are usually placed under cover if there is a danger of frosts and in Lemnos I’ve tried a number of varieties and found that the winters here usually kill these plants, though a couple have survived in the ground some winters. I also have the  Pelargonium with rose scented leaves in Lemnos, though they need cutting back hard when they begin to swamp nearby plants. The leaves of these can be added to some recipes. I’m just adding a few of these to my garden in Australia.

Some of these plants in Lemnos

Early days on the back walk

Back walk mid-summer

The remaining bottlebrush in flower next to the white roses

Honeysuckle (Lonicera, Ayioklima)

In my Lemnos garden I began with a root I took from a neighbour’s garden, but whether it is Italian, Etruscan or Common I’m not sure! It spread and covered a high screen outside the laundry, plus I have another spreading plant on a high fence between the vegetable garden and the shade walk. Both of these now need to be radically cut back twice a year. They are also weed-like in my Australian garden, climbing fences between my garden and the neighbour, hard to get rid of though I’m not sure that I want to entirely banish them as their scent is addictive and a small piece in a bunch in the house scents the whole room.

Bay (Laurus nobilis, Dafni)

This is another plant that can easily be pruned to add some formality to herb gardens. I have ‘lollypop’ bay trees in my Lemnos and Emerald gardens. They are slow growers and only need a light trip twice a year. Left to itself it would grow into a 5-6 ft tree. It can stand salty winds but its leaves may ‘burn’ in a very cold wind.

Rosemary

Rosemary is a small Mediterranean shrub, quick and easy to grow from cuttings, and also easy to care for. It looks great as neatly shaped low hedge and I have used it in this manner in Emerald pruning it a couple of time a year. However it does not take as kindly to shaping in the Lemnos garden and so I just roughly cut it back. It does benefits from some pruning, to prevent it becoming woody. There is also a prostrate variety which looks wonderful growing over the edge of a stone wall.  

Iris

I’m not an iris specialist but I’ve grown the hardiest of irises in all my gardens. I put them in a border mainly for their spiky leaves. Usually I’m not ‘at home’ for when these plants flower as we’ve been away from both gardens in early spring for some years now.  I have to hear about them from my garden friend in Australia who writes and tells me that the irises bloomed beautifully, and on the island Anestis tells me the same about the irises there. Though this year we came early and I actually saw them. Also I’m hoping to catch the irises in Australia too this year!  The clumps get very large after a number of years and need lifting and dividing.

Hard to see but there is Plumbago on the front fence.