On 2014-06-29 15:15:48 +0000, Indigo said:

On 29/06/2014 14:44, sacha wrote:
On 2014-06-29 12:34:41 +0000, Indigo said:
Lavenders here do much better, keep a neater shape, have a stronger
scent and survive our Norfolk winters when grown pretty hard. It
wouldn't surprise me to learn that soil and climate affects the depth
of flower colour too. Interesting topic.

I think that pretty much clinches it, then. My hollyhock comment in
another thread also applies to those we saw in Norfolk a few years
back. They were practically weeds! As a matter of curiosity, do you
manage to grow lily of the valley? I've never succeeded with it and
those I know who do tell me that it loves poor soil and a friend of
ours has great masses of it in gravel.

Yes lots of Hollyhocks in cottage gardens round about here. They remind
me of my early childhood home where they used to come up year after
year against the wall of an old brick and clay-lump shed - I remember
them towering above me. Mine always seem to get rust whenever I've
tried to grow them though.

We were staying in Blakeney and every house/cottage/pub seemed to have
them bursting out everywhere. Here, I think it's just too wet and muggy
and we're too far from the sea for the cleansing sea breezes to blow
them into good health!

I do have some lily of the valley that was given to me by M-i-L. She
had a lovely healthy patch which flowered every year and was planted up
against the wall near her back door, in shade part of the day. I'd have
said their soil was quite a reasonable loam but there was solid chalk
further down, so it would be well drained. Her topsoil was better than
mine is.

My plant runs about in the shade of shrubs at one side of our garden,
popping up through Hellebores and Dicentra formosa. It did seem to take
quite a few seasons to get going and never looks quite so robust or
flowers so well as MiL's used to! I've put a couple of pieces in a pot
this year to see if it'll flower better (it hasn't so far) but
annoyingly something seems to have been eating chunks out of the
leaves. I suspect vine weevils but haven't yet caught any of the little
blighters in the act.

Turn out the pots time! But I'm envious of the description of lotv
'running about'! I got so paranoid about not succeeding with it that I
asked someone else to plant it for me. Still no success. My former mil
had it in tons in her garden in Jersey - I couldn't grow it at all -
she gave me some of the pink one long before anyone had it for sale. It
never reappeared for me. The friend who has it all over the gravel
lives about 10 minutes away from us. I'm almost resigned to the fact
that I'm never going to be able to grow one of my favourite flowers.

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon