Plants with pizzazz for sunny spots
Words: Phil Clayton, Features Editor of The Garden
In the last 10 or so years I’ve noticed a growing range of Protea, Banksia and Leucodendron has been offered by specialist nurseries - particularly evident at RHS flower shows. They are usually sold as fairly young plants and are certainly tempting - I grew a plant of Banksia marginata fairly well for several years, in a raised sunny, well-drained border at my old garden in Surrey, and it did pretty well, surviving winters and producing the odd flower.
Other plants from the same family, such as Grevillea ‘Canberra Gem’ and Embothrium I have tried in the open ground, but none stood the alkaline soil. However, in areas with acid soil they are really spectacular. When I worked as a landscaper I remember visiting a garden in Esher with a tall but slender Embothrium, growing in the shelter of a house wall in full flower, a pillar of flame.
Matthew Pottage, the new Garden Manager at RHS Garden Wisley showed me well-established flowering plants of Banksia marginata last summer; flourishing on the Mediterranean garden, facing the Trials Field; sadly they died this March, having seemingly survived the bitter December weather.
The solution to bitter winters and alkaline soil seems to be to grow these plants in containers; a friend in Peterborough recently flowered a Protea cynaroides he grew in a pot on his balcony - protecting it overwinter in a conservatory.