We’ve each chosen two we consider ‘hits’ and, very frankly … one that’s a ‘miss’.
HIT – I can’t get enough of lilies. What a range of colour and form, from towering tree lilies to dainty little Turk’s Caps! They have a ‘presence’ that few other plants can offer. The early Asiatic types aren’t scented, but the later-flowering Oriental have a swooningly delicious perfume.
Okay, so there are certainly some downsides to lilies: They are very toxic to cats and dogs, blasted red lily beetles will make a black sticky mess of them (the charming grubs hide in their own poo), their pollen is a nightmare to scrub off a white blouse, and rodents love digging up the bulbs and chomping them. But we love a challenge, don’t we?
I’ve found that growing them in pots rather than borders gives me much more chance of success against these problems, though I have to be more diligent about supporting those with heavy trumpeted flowerheads.
HIT – Eucomis (pineapple lily) – Not a lily actually, but a bulbous perennial for South Africa with strappy leaves and wonderfully detailed pineapple-shaped flowers. Looks exotic but it’s easy to grow. Grow it in pots of fertile compost on a sunny patio, and wow your friends.
MISS – I’ve given up with freesias. Their scent is one of my all-time favourites, but for goodness’ sake, they are such a pain to grow from corms!
They demand light sandy or gritty free-draining soil BUT must have consistent moisture. Except not too much or they’ll rot. They don’t like the cold (not hardy almost anywhere in the UK) BUT if the temperature is a degree or so over ‘cool’, their leaves elongate and flop about nastily and their flowers fade quicker than a Snapchat post. Oh yes, and aphids, slugs, snails and spider mites all love ’em. Honestly, Victoria Beckham would be less demanding. I’ll buy them as cut flowers from now on, thank you.
Yes, have to agree with Elaine here – the only successful pot of freesia bulbs I have ever ‘grown’ were bought at the point of flowering from one of Lidl’s random plant promotions (although I might not have admitted this to my sisters at the time ..)
HIT – Agapanthus. It’s rare to find a genus in which every species and cultivar passes my eagle and critical eye, but I can honestly say that I’ve never seen an agapanthus that I didn’t like. My personal favourites are the tall elegant pure white ones but even my initial scepticism about a new repeat flowering cultivar (that Elaine typically was raving about) ‘Poppin’ Purple’ was unfounded, as it turns out to be a real winner.
HIT – Acidanthera. It’s your duty as a gardener to have a go at something rare and unusual from time to time. Although neither of my sisters have managed to get Acidanthera murielae, the peacock orchid, to perform properly it doesn’t mean you can’t, if you follow my advice. Grow it in a big pot. It sprouts very late for a summer bulb, early June, but then grows like billio, at which point you start watering every time you pass it, and feed it once a month. Stake the pot and place it somewhere enclosed and warm in September. It will throw tall pendulous flowers, pure white with a purple blotch, with a delicious scent for several weeks and will be the talking point of your
MISS – Gladioli. Elaine wasn’t fessing up to it but Caroline and I both know that she is a secret gladioli addict, and is already amassing a stock of these horrors to dot around her summer beds. I’m afraid I can’t get past their ungainly stance, ghastly colours, and their subliminal associations with Dame Edna Everidge.
Yup, I’m thoroughly on board with the ‘tiresome’ rating of both freesias and gladioli. Anything that isn’t stout and self-supporting is a no-no here in the Highlands. I will make an exception for Gladioli byzantinus, by the way, it’s a superb perennial corm that rightly has the RHS’s Croix de Guerre (AGM) and reappears every year , against all the odds, in all its magenta glory .
HIT – Along with my biggest incredulity (that so many people, including my own family, love eating at Macdonalds) is my disbelief that Galtonia candicans isn’t grown in every UK
To prove how easy they are, I grew mine from seed – yes, me…. Caroline, but they’re easily available to buy and plant now as bulbs. Every year their spear-like leaves thrust up through the soil with great gusto, in inverse proportion to one’s own energy levels, and in late summer produce cascades of beautiful, pure white waxy bells – a debutante among the late summer old-timers.
Apparently they’re only hardy to H4 but they survive reliably here in the Scottish Highlands (-4 this week, and a capricious -12 occasionally). Five stars all-round!
HIT – Dahlias, more tubers than bulbs, but they are just as magical viz-a-viz pent-up delight. If the pom-pom ones are a bit too ‘buttoned-up’ for you, try something like the Bishop of Llanduff – lovely open petals and chocolatey foliage – pretty yummy!
Best of all even I have managed to make more dahlias by taking root cuttings during their transition from their winter quarters in my broom cupboard to my sunny front border.
Slugs love a juvenile dahlia, so personally I’d keep them in pots until they’re a bit bigger and more able to hold their own against the slimey foe.
MISS – However my own personal ‘bête noire’ is a nerine.
Laura’s love for nerines is incomprehensible to me – especially when she despises my Diascia personata (look – which is the more pleasing hue?),
Nerines flower in early autumn when their bubble-gum pink clashes spectacularly with the season’s russets and yellows and although Laura is beguiled by their reputation for being upper class (remember she can be a bit of a snob), their frilly petal arrangement looks simply tawdry to me – and I actually like a bit of bling.
The only posh thing about nerines in my view is the price. You’ll have to look for a good deal because if you pay the £5 a bulb asked by many outlets, a Macdonalds will be the only restaurant within your budget for the rest of the year!
What do you think of our choices? Are there other summer bulbs you love – or loathe? We’d love to hear about them…..
Forced to defend her penchant for them Laura has produced a short video about why she loves nerines.
A short-lived but happily self-seeding stately evergreen perennial which ‘perfectly suits the austerity of winter’ is Louise’s Great Plant this Month’
Let’s get vertical
Every wall, fence obelisk or even tree has potential to add interest to your
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