Pam Moore20/3/04 11:43

On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 23:07:59 +0000, Sacha
wrote:

But Pam, you're in Bristol! The original question came from someone in
Yorkshire. You are in the west country - they are not.

Reprimand accepted!

Well, it wasn't meant to be a reprimand, more of a heads up to all of us, me
included. I've been guilty of many such sins, I'm sure, e.g. recommending
Escallonia for hedging to people who couldn't hope to keep it, or so I'm
told! Virtually all my gardening life has been in the Channel Islands or
Devonshire, so my experience of climate is narrow and I have to remember
that!

I must read more carefully.
I've never had felicia last this long before, and we have had some
quite heavy frosts.

I've kept several things that are supposed to die at the first hint of a
breath of frost, through winters in Jersey but IME, such plants succumb if
there's prolonged frost, rather than frost that goes off quite quickly
during the day, if you see what I mean. For example I had Tibouchina and
Polygala and Leonotis in one garden for a few years until we had a very
unusual 3 or 4 days of continuous frost which finished them off.
We tried leaving a Polygala outside last year and it was killed off while
Leonotis survived.
I'll try to remember to leave some Felicia out this year to over winter and
see if it survives because we do like to experiment with things.
When I first moved to Devon, David Poole very kindly gave me a few choice
things for my garden, though acknowledging I was his 'experiment'! He lives
in Torquay and has a walled garden, I lived only 3 or 4 miles away back
then but I was in a frost pocket and a lot of what he gave me was wiped out
in one winter. It was interesting, if sad.
We've had some sharp frosts but only one day when the ice on the fish pond
didn't melt entirely. I think that day was down to -5 or -6. We were
worried about a few things but so far, so good. The Grevillea rosmarifolia
which some think tender is flowering its socks off now but I must remember
to inspect the Cytisus battandieri!
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)