Nick wrote,

Most interesting. I stand corrected. I wonder why both of my books
on the subject regard it as being so 'tropical' in requirements?

So many books rely upon 'old philosophy' that takes no account of
hands on experience. - largely because so many garden writers
pontificate about plants that are unknown to them. Writers in the
18th. and 19th. centuries advised upon the basis of a plant's origins,
ignoring (or ignorant of) the subtleties of local climate and
elevation. Umpteen plants, shrubs and trees are supposedly 'tropical'
in origin, but so many are remarkably hardy in warm temperate
climates. Those plants which are lesser known tend to be lumped with
seeming geographic contemporaries and are often tarred with the same
brush and classified as being difficult or far too tender.

There are few if any existing authors who's writings I trust and I
tend to take the published word with a vast pinch of salt until
personal experience either bears it out or (more often than not),
condemns it to hearsay, myth and total ignorance. With rare
exception, garden authors merely plagiarise that which has gone before
and add nothing new to the collective modern knowledge. I suppose
much the same could be said of many TV 'gardeners', but I don't really
want to open up that can of worms again.


There aren't many plants that they classify like that which have
even a chance of producing much fruit in the UK

I suspect there would be far more if the incognoscenti weren't so
widely published!


Dave Poole
TORQUAY UK