Plants that like where they are

4 months ago

last modified: 4 months ago

I was out this morning looking around the garden, seeing much beauty and if possible even more work, when, tempted by the bright yellow of the Foetidas, I went to have a look. This is a bed that we planted many--almost twenty??--years ago, and where nothing worked. We were still novices then. Several frustrated years of trying to make that bed a success later, we gave up on it and concentrated on other things.

Some plants are doing quite well. The Foetidas, the species and 'Persian Yellow', are alive and well, needing some dead growth pruned out, but suckering out nicely and full of blooms. They're lower growing than in some gardens, but disease-free. (I ought to get a plant of 'Austrian Copper' to add to them, but this variety has never done well for me. Is it fussier than the other two?) There's another rose, a low-growing, suckering once-bloomer, I believe a Moss, that's doing fine, too, and the clematis is thriving. I'd forgotten I'd planted what I think is 'Félicité Parmentier', which is alive and growing if not entirely happy. The locally common (not wild) Iris orientalis (I. ochroleuca) has made a nice clump, not but what it's almost unkillable, and there's a low-growing plant with blue lavender flowers, possibly a Nepeta. All these plants have been there for years, in near-perfect neglect, and they're doing fine.

The thing is, in spite of the weeds and the poor soil and the blazing sun and the periods of drought, these plants are basically growing in conditions that suit them. They're happy. Clematis are amazingly resilient all over the garden, and it takes an awful lot to kill herbaceous peonies. Sometimes I get the feeling that my garden is all struggle, but it certainly does help to plant plants that are suited here.

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Comments (4)

Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR
4 months ago
I love this Melissa. There is a plant for any condition of environment.

Our soil is cr*p here.
Melissa Northern Italy zone 8
Original Author
4 months ago
last modified: 4 months ago
Evidently your plants don't think so, or you've performed miracles of amendment. Do you find 'Austrian Copper' fussier than the other Foetidas?

I agree about there being a plant suitable for any place. It's part of what gives a garden its individuality, too.

Thanks.
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Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR
4 months ago
AC is not fussy here. Here in the States it is difficult to find species roses and scots roses. I got my AC from High Country Roses.
Melissa Northern Italy zone 8 thanked Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR
Melissa Northern Italy zone 8
Original Author
4 months ago
I was back out to that bed this afternoon and found a few more things. A very puny 'Alba Maxima' that I had fogotten was there. It used to be a fair-sized plant, and then shrank down to a nub: why? It's own root. 'Complicata' is still hanging on, not too brisk; there's a low-growing suckering Moss I forget the name of, but which I knew was there. No sign of 'William Lobb', which is however thriving in other parts of the garden, so no problem. A low-growing, suckering Gallica-ish rose with very cupped, warm pink blooms is a complete mystery: I don't remember every planting it, and I don't know what variety it is, either.

The bed needs an anchoring tree at one corner--a checker tree would be nice, if I could find one and then get it to grow--and a fair-sized shrub to go in the middle: I have no idea what. I cut out a good deal of wild plum (blackthorn) and sheared back grass to tidy and see what's happening. There are a number of young oaks, which is fine within limits. I don't know when I'll get around to adding planting to this bed, perhaps only in a few years, but at least I've had a look at it. I might have my helper spread a little sand over the bed, though that means carrying it from the other end of the garden. And it could certainly use more organic matter, in spite of its two decades of being allowed to grow and the generated organic debris being fed back into the soil.