We just spend 5 days there and of course, visited the wonderful gardens.
No, we didn't see an Embothrium in flower but plenty of other things were
rampant! Echiums were flowering well, though some were still biding their
time. The aeoniums were in flower and had come through the winter gales
amazingly well and I was intrigued by those which had seeded themselves into
the trunk of some tree ferns. We were very envious of Tresco's ability to
grow Geranium maderense as if it were some form of weed! It's all over the
island and its lovely zinging colour dazzles and delights at every turn. We
had been warned that the excessive winter storms had caused a lot of damage
to the shelter belt and that was certainly true but at the same time, the
belt had done its job and the more tender and delicate things seem to have
come through okay. We saw a lovely low-growing little argyranthemum (we
think) which we will have to identify later and of which Ray took cuttings
which we hope will take and a Bomarea was delightfully entangled with a
Clematis montana rubra at one end of a long stone wall.
We also managed to identify as Coleonema pulchrum a plant which Ray was
given some time ago. It's a very pretty little thing and there's lots of it
in flower now in Tresco, including a bright gold/green foliage one.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)