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kevinscottgardens · 7 years ago

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20 November to 22 December 2017

Sorry it’s been a while. I was without broadband at home for two weeks which prevented me from staying up-to-date, then Thanksgiving and two weekends out of London, I am only now catching up! I’ll add a few plants of the week soon...

Last weekend ended on a hight with bamboo broom making, our Friday assignment, and it was great fun and educational.

We finished making the raised beds in the useful garden on Wednesday, to everyone’s great delight. That gave us time to start some much needed winter pruning along the Embankment. By end of Thursday, it looked completely unrecognisable and everyone liked what was accomplished.

We even countersunk the corner screws and covered with dowelling.

Plant of week 51

Leguminosae Vigna caracalla (L.) Verdc.

common name(s) - “corkscrew flower”, “corkscrew vine”, “snail flower”, “snail bean” synonym(s) - Caracalla pulcherrima Tod.; Phaseolus bertonii Bertoni; P. caracalla L.; P. caracallensis St.-Lag.; P. cochleatus Vell.; P. longirostratus Ducke conservation rating - none native to - tropical areas of Central and South America location - Tropical Corridor, accession 2016-0238 leaves - semi-evergreen; 3-palmate green leaves flowers - spirally twisted, white and lilac-purple (sometimes marked with yellow and cream) spirally flowers on erect racemes from July to October; each flower has a unique structure consisting of a broad-oval backward-curled upper petal (the standard) plus two coiled, fused and elongated central petals (the keel) and two side petals (the wings); highly fragrant; occur mid-summer to frost, followed by slender, dangling, bean-like pods containing rounded brown seeds.; pollination by ants habit - rapid-growing twining perennial vine; evergreen in frost free climates habitat - tropics pests - usually pest free disease - usually disease free hardiness - to -5ºC (H3) soil - moist, fertile, well-drained soils sun - full sun propagation - seed in moist, slightly acidic soil, in full sun; cuttings cultivation - once this vine has matured to cover the area it is meant to cover, cut back the leaves and tendrils to trigger the onset of significant flowering nomenclature - Leguminosae - legumen - from Latin for pulse; Vigna - for Dominicus Vigna (1581-1647), Italian scientist/professor and botanist at Pisa; caracalla - can be interpreted as spiralled; or to do with charcoal; usually for Emperor Caracalla (Marcus Aurelius Severus Antonius Augustus) (188-217), who gave Roman citizenship to all free people of the then empire, in AD212

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Rough week... started building and installing raised beds in the useful garden. Colette and I were charged with building and the rest of the team was responsible for installing and back-filling the soil. It was muddy and stressful at times. They were finally going in without too many hitches by the end of the week, though every bed presented a new challenge. I am enjoying using a circular saw and re-learning my carpentry skills from decades ago when I worked with my father in the summers when I was in school.

Next week’s plant ident - pharmaceutical

Arecaceae Serenoa repens

Asteraceae Cynara scolymus

Caprifoliaceae Valeriana officinalis

Geraniaceae Pelargonium sidoides

Ginkgoaceae Ginkgo biloba

Hypericaceae Hypericum perforatum

Lamiaceae Rosmarinus officinalis

Myrtaceae Melaleuca alternifolia

Rosaceae Crataegus monogyna

Urticaceae Urtica dioica

I went to Lyons to visit Bruno and Stéphane for a fancy-dress Christmas party. It was a lot of fun and some fantastic costumes. The theme was “toutes les étoiles” and I went as the universe, dressed in a black body suit and lots of lights around me. My monthly visits to the continent continue...

Plant of week 50

Euphorbiaceae Jatropha podagrica Hook.

common name(s) - “gouty-stalked jatropha”, “purging-nut”, “Guatemalan rhubarb”, “goutystalk nettlespurge”, “white rhubarb”, “physicnut”, “podagrica”, “Bali gout plant”, “tartogo nut”, “petit baobab”, “gouty foot”, “bottle plant shrub”, “gut plant”, “bottleplant shrub”, “gout stick”, “gout stalk”, “gout plant”, “coral plant”, “Australian bottle plant”, “Buddha belly plant”; Chinese (中文): fo du shu, 珊瑚油桐; German (Deutsch): Rhabarber von Guatemala; Finnish (Suomi): pullukkajatropa, pullukka; Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia): jarak, jarak Bali; Lithuanian (Lietuvių): Vaistinis braivėlis; Malay (بهاس ملاي /Bahasa Melayu ): jatrofa buncit; Portuguese (português): ruibarbo-da-Guatemala; tartago; Spanish (español): Tinaja (Puerto Rico), pansona, tartogo, ruibarbo; Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt): dầu lai lá sen, ngô đồng cảnh, sen lục bình, dầu lai có củ synonym(s) - none found conservation rating - none native to - Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua location - Tropical Corridor, accession 2017-0351 leaves - large, long petioled, shallowly lobed leaves are arranged at the end of the branches flowers - throughout the year it produces small, red-orange flowers, in clusters like a coral, at the tip of a long red stalk; produces green fruit which are explosively dehiscent habit - small, erect succulent, or sub-woody shrub, with a singularly distorted stem and branches much swollen at their bases; semi-evergreen, it may go dormant in cool weather; to 1m tall and 600mm wide habitat - tropical pests - aphids, mealy bugs, scale, white fly disease - none found hardiness - to -5ºC (H3) soil - very well-draining sun - can grow in full sun or part shade water - needs almost no water; grow as you would a cactus: in very well-draining soil, and let it dry out between waterings; fertilize once a month when the plant is in active growth; let the plant enter dormancy in the short days of autumn; it will often drop its leaves, and will retain any active flowering stalks; withhold water until the plant responds to longer days in late winter and spring by starting to produce new leaves; even so, never try to push the plant along by more frequent watering, which will only cause rot - practice "leading from behind," watering and fertilizing only in response to increased growth, not in advance of it propagation - seed, stem cuttings cultivation - only pot-up when the plant is clearly about to burst through the current one, or has become so top-heavy that it's difficult to keep the plant upright; a prematurely-large pot would only increase the likelihood of the soil's remaining moist for too long nomenclature - Euphorbiaceae - euphorbia - for Euphorbus, physician to a king of Mauritania, who used the latex of a spurge for medicinal purposes; Jatropha - physician’s food, ιατρος τροφη (medicinal use) (the signature of the swollen stem base of Jatropa podagrica confers its name of gout plant); podagrica - snare, of gout (the apothecaries’ herba podagraria, or goutweed, was used to treat gout) NB - all parts, especially the seeds, of the plant contain the toxic curcin, making it poisonous

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Galanthus sp. are already starting to bloom, the first being G. elwesii.

Next week’s plant ident - succulents, another one I pulled together.

Apocynaceae Adenium obesum

Cactaceae Austrocylindropuntia subulata

Cactaceae Echinopsis pachanoi

Cactaceae Hylocereus undatus

Cactaceae Opuntia ficus-indica

Cactaceae Rhipsalis cereuscula

Crassulaceae Cotyledon orbiculata var. oblonga

Cucurbitaceae Kedrostis africana

Euphorbiaceae Euphorbia ammak

Xanthorrhoeaceae Gasteria croucheri

Susie had me over for a relaxing and delicious Christmas lunch, which went on so long we also had dinner, on Sunday. She pulled out all the stops, including arranging it to snow all day long! It was a beautiful day.

Plant of week 49

Asteraceae Petasites fragrans (Vill.) C.Presl

common name(s) - “winter heliotrope”, “fragrant colt's foot” synonym(s) - Cacalia alliariifolia Poir. conservation rating - none native to - Italy to North Africa location - Henry Moore bed and along the Embankment, accession 1977-0100 leaves - large, up to 200mm across and stalked with small regular teeth; kidney-shaped, bright green leaves, which are hairless above and hairy on their undersides flowers - dioecious; erect flower-heads grow in short racemes on stems up to 250mm long with a few scale-leaves; florets are pinkish-mauve and appear in December with vanilla-like scent habit - evergreen perennial grows from deep rhizomes; habitat - streamsides, banks, rough ground, roadsides pests - no information found disease - no information found hardiness - to -20ºC (H6) soil - moist, fertile sun - part sun to full shade propagation - division (only male flowers are produced in the British Isles, so the plant cannot spread by seed) nomenclature - Asteraceae - star; Petasites - wide-brimmed hat (Dioscorides’ name refers to the large leaves); fragrans - sweet-scented, odorous, fragrant NB - can be invasive

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It snowed briefly on 30 November. I didn’t realise what was falling from the sky at first, it is so rare to see snow in central London. Friday I was introduced to the wood shredder and it was a lot of fun! We use some for a woody mulch and we also use it to cover the ground in the boat yard which can become very muddy.

Next week’s plant ident - winter interest

Adoxaceae Sambucus nigra

Betulaceae Betula pendula

Betulaceae Carpinus betulus

Betulaceae Corylus avellana

Cornaceae Cornus sanguinea

Fagaceae Castanea sativa

Fagaceae Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck’

Rosaceae Prunus avium

Salicaceae Populus alba ‘Pyramidalis’

Sapindaceae Aesculus hippocastanum

I went north, into the countryside near Oxford, with Steve for a nice weekend getaway.

Plant of week 48

Vitaceae Vitis coignetiae Pulliat ex Planch.

common name(s) - “crimson glory vine”, 머루 meoru in Korean, ヤマブドウ yama-budo in Japanese synonym(s) - Vitis amurensis var. coignetiae (Pulliat ex Planch.) Nakai; V. kaempferi K. Koch conservation rating - none native to - Japan, Korea location - dicotyledon order beds, accession 1946-0017 leaves - slightly lobed, broad-ovate leaves to 300mm in length, deep green during the summer, turning scarlet and crimson in autumn flowers - insignificant with small, black berries habit - a very strong-growing, large deciduous tendril-climber to more than 12m tall and to 4m wide; wild vines can be male, female or hermaphrodite habitat - grows into trees in temperate forests pests - brown scale , glasshouse red spider mite disease - powdery mildew hardiness - to -15ºC (H5) soil - alkaline to neutral; well-drained sun - full sun to part shade, can suffer from wind scorch if they are too exposed pruning - best done in the winter propagation - layering, hardwood cuttings nomenclature - Vitaceae - vitis - the Latin name for the grapevine; coignetiae - for Mr. and Mrs. Coignet who reportedly brought seeds back from their trip to Japan in 1875; seeds collected in 1875 by Mme Coignet, daughter of the French rosarian Jean Sisley, who was travelling in Japan with her husband; apparently first introduced, however, to Anthony Waterer's Knap Hill nursery through Messrs Jardine and Matheson, East India merchants NB - AGM; used to produce wines in Korea and Japan, at first bitter, then softened with the addition of sugar

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This week we finished lining the ceiling of the tropical corridor with bubble wrap as extra insulation. It is quite an exercise and many of the plants get a bit of a rough pruning. Susyn visited this week and we had a major catch-up, over five pages of changes to be made on the database.

I decided that with the help of Claire and Mari, my volunteers, we will try to get the blooming time for all the Galanthus sp. in the garden and do a proper audit this year.

The fern list was done twice because it was a difficult one.

This weekend I co-hosted Thanksgiving with Elizabeth; it went off without a hitch and we tried several new recipes. Jody and Steve came over from Antwerpen for the occasion.

Plant of week 47

Asteraceae Dahlia imperialis Roezl ex Ortgies

common name(s) - “tree dahlia" synonym(s) - none found conservation rating - none native to - Colombia to México location - dicotyledon order beds, accession 2007-0398 leaves - brittle, cane-like, 4-angled stems with swollen nodes and large tripinnate leaves, those near the ground soon being shed flowers - pendant or nodding flowerheads are 75mm to 150mm across with ray florets lavender or mauvish-pink in colour; usually comes into flower in autumn before the first frost habit - to 10m tall; a tuberous, herbaceous perennial, rapidly growing from the base after a dormant winter period; fast-growing, the growth spurt being linked to shorter daylight hours habitat - uplands and mountains, occurring at elevations of 1,500m to 1,700m pests - spider mites, aphids, leaf-miners, snails, slugs disease - none found hardiness - to -5ºC (H3) if well mulched soil - rich and well-draining sun - part to full sun; sheltered if possible pruning - after flowering, cut back to the ground, new growth will shoot up in spring propagation - seed; stem cuttings 300mm long with at least two nodes, laid horizontally below the soil nomenclature - Asteraceae - star; Dahlia - for Andreas Dahl (1751-89), Swedish student under Linnaeus; imperialis - very noble, imperial, of nobility NB - leaves are used as a dietary supplement by the Q'eqchi' people of San Pedro Carchá in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala; stems were used by the ancient Aztecs as pipes to carry drinking water

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