It is always exciting when a group of plants that has long been neglected begins to emerge from the shadows. Plectranthus (even the name sounds unfamiliar) were popular with the Victorians both as plants for bedding out in the summer and as year-round pot plants in conservatories and greenhouses. Valued for their patterned or marbled evergreen foliage and elegant flowers coupled with easy cultivation the family was the mainstay of many Victorian parks and gardens. The ebb and flow of garden fashions has meant that, until recently, plectranthus were seen mainly as trailing foliage in hanging baskets or as sad house plants in dull waiting rooms.
Plectranthus range in size from prostrate types barely a few inches high to giants that can reach several yards tall. The low, spreading forms tend to have heart-shaped leaves that are delicately marbled or veined. These will drape over the edges of containers or spread themselves around trees and shrubs to form an attractive groundcover. None of the genera is hardy in Britain, so needs to be treated as bedding plants or grown in a conservatory or greenhouse, at least during the winter. After a few years, plants can become woody and unattractive, so take cuttings to ensure you have fresh, healthy plants.
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Denne historien er fra September 01, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
