"Tom Atkinson" wrote in
:

hi Victoria
Noticed that you garden in S.East Cornwall.
Can you grow Lapageria there ?
Tom Atkinson


I fear my first reaction to this was 'yer what'? ;-)

Having looked it up, it's not a plant I've seen growing locally, but we are
quite high up here and north-facing: our climate is probably closer to the
hills bordering Dartmoor than it is to the warm coastal villages. Even
Plymouth is usually a lot hotter than here.

I'm always amazed when I go to, say, St Ives, to see the things they get
self-seeding themselves there!

But up here I can just about overwinter pelargoniums outside if it's a warm
winter and a tough variety. On the other hand, because we are on the Tamar
valley and it's soggy wet a lot of the time, it's a great place for ferns.

Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
--