By John Warrington
Bougainvillea ‘Mary Palmer’ is attractive, sometimes stunningly so, but when variegated can be wayward and unpredictable. Nevertheless, I would not be without her. She is strictly speaking a chimera, like quite a few bougainvilleas I know. This means in simple terms that a single plant can produce two distinct ‘flower’ colours. In this case they are either pink or white or a mixture of the two colours on one ‘flower,’ and in various proportions. I use the inverted comma just as a reminder that the colour in bougainvillea is produced by the bracts. The true flowers are fairly insignificant. The foliage of the ordinary ‘Mary Palmer’ remains green throughout its life, but the variegated form produces attractive yellow and green leaves. In this latter form there is one small problem. There is a tendency for variegated leaves to revert to plain green leaves if you are not vigilant. When shoots are produced that have plain green leaves they must be cut out completely. All bougainvilleas look attractive when they are grown in large containers, and flower better when they are kept dry and short of fertilizer.
The heliconia, unlike the bougainvillea, prefers rather more moisture, and is less suited to container cultivation. Some grow to a considerable size and are plants for the larger landscape, an area where they can be allowed to develop to their full stature. I have two large heliconias (I really can’t afford the space for them). They are Heliconia chartacea, which has two colour forms, and Heliconia mariae, the beefsteak heliconia.
Heliconia chartacea ‘Sexy Scarlet’ and ‘Sexy pink’ will grow taller than ten feet, although the one I have is no higher than eight feet at present. The beefsteak heliconia will grow more than twenty feet high in ideal conditions and is more of a curiosity than a plant you’d give your eye teeth for. A dear friend gave me a plant of this some years ago, but it had to be replaced and the new one has started to grow away nicely. Even in a large garden the old flowering shoots of heliconia should be cut out as soon as they are finished or have started to go off, otherwise you’ll end up with a dense and rather unattractive mass of vegetation. In a small garden you’ll have to be prepared to dig up shoots which have been produced outside the area of ground you’ve allotted to it, otherwise they will start to take over. Then it becomes really hard work to dig them out. However heliconias are ideal if you wish to block out an unsightly view.
Green manuring used to be practised a lot when supplies of stable manure became difficult to get. It has much to recommend it if you have no chance to produce your own compost, and means simply digging in small young plants which you don’t need or which you grow especially for the purpose of digging into the ground to provide compost and improve the soil structure. In other words, plants which have not first been eaten by cows or horses. Any fast growing plants will do, and probably the easiest to grow and dig in is grass, and also the remains of crops like lettuces or cabbages or beans should not be wasted. Dig them in also.
Torenia fournieri is my plant of the week, no doubt about it. It is related to some large and small aristocrats of the garden like the Verbascum, foxglove, antirrhinum, Penstemon, Nemesia, Calceolaria and Russelia, the Antigua heath. One of the main characteristics of the family Scrophulariaceae is that the flowers of its members have deep throats. Torenia is no exception. It grows and seeds prolifically in the tropics, produces masses of blue/purple flowers, with a rich yellow pollen guide on the lower lip of the flower. Torenia and its close relative the Antigua heath are great favourites with my humming bird population which have become constant visitors. They are native to the West Indies and South America.
Look after yourselves and may your God go with you.
