Cottage gardens are all about plants.

So often the cottage garden tends to be glorified, as if it stepped out of the pages of a fairy tale or a Thomas Kinkade painting. In reality, along with being beautiful, it is a highly useful style of garden. It can be, and has been, adapted to fit our modern life styles and its appeal is truly global.

Cottage gardens reflect your own personal mix of plants — whether flowers, fruit or vegetables. The emphasis is on the year-round pleasure of enjoying their form, flowers and scent - not to mention picking your own salads, herbs, fruit and vegetables.

I am currently working on a new section for my website that will deal with concepts for cottage gardens, the plants that are most appropriate, the use of hard and soft landscaping and so on. Looking back at the many plant profiles I have posted on the site, I suddenly realised how many of the plants are suited to cottage gardens. I have subconsciously gravitated towards writing about the plants of my childhood, the plants that my own father favoured in the garden.

Two of my most recent posts to my website deal with what are quintessential cottage garden flowers — Hollyhocks and Delphiniums. What gloriously reliable plants these are.

You can never have too many delphiniums. They are glorious plants with flower spikes that can grow up to 180cm tall. Normally, they are a range of blues, but are also available in white, pinks, and purple. They are standouts as background plants.

Hybridisation of delphiniums has resulted in many new colours and attractive flower forms and growing heights. Flower colours range in shades of blue from palest sky, through to gentian and indigo; rich purple, lavender, pink to purest white.

The resurgence in Hollyhock popularity comes from several factors. Renewed interest in cottage gardens, a desire for drought and heat tolerance in garden flowers and the introduction of many new varieties are all helping fuel their new popularity.

Hollyhock plants are a fun and easy to grow flowering plant. It’s an old time favourite. Hollyhocks are a large plant with big leaves and big blossoms. They produce a profusion of big flowers from summer through autumn. They are perfect to fill large areas, and the back of a flowerbed. Hollyhocks can be used in perennial, biennial and annual applications depending on the type and treatment.

If you would like to know more about these venerable cottage garden plants visit http://tinyurl.com/y88ljd3 for information about hollyhocks and http://tinyurl.com/yfgops4 for the low-down on Delphiniums. It really will be worth the effort!

Strelitzia — the Bird of Paradise or Crane Flower

Although my personal tastes in gardening lean towards cottage gardens, here on the Highveld (South Africa’s central plateau that is mainly a grassland biome), indigenous South African plants are my preference — because they tolerate the rugged environment, are more drought and frost tolerant, appeal to local birds and butterflies and lend themselves to appropriate landscaping for this environment.

The fascinating blooms of Strelitzia reginae are sold as cut flowers by the million. In Los Angeles strelitzias are so extensively planted that it is regarded as the emblem of the city. Strelitzia reginae is, however, indigenous to South Africa where it grows wild in the Eastern Cape. Here the strelitzias grow in rocky grassland and between other shrubs along the riverbanks and in clearings in the coastal bush.

Strelitzia reginae is a bold structural plant, which forms large evergreen clumps of stiff leaves growing up from the base. The grey-green banana-like leaves grow about 1,5 m in height and the flowers stand above the foliage at the tips of long stalks. Mature plants are very floriferous with flowers in autumn, winter and spring. These produce abundant nectar that lures insects, and birds which (in South Africa) include White-bellied, Black, Grey, Collared, Malachite and Marico Sunbirds and the Cape White‑eye.

Popular with landscapers, this architecturally pleasing plant is ideal for modern landscapes, creating an impact not only in home gardens, but also in office complex gardens, schools and large parks. This Strelitzia can form an impressive groundcover when mass‑planted in very light partial shade.

For detailed information about growing Strelizia reginae and the other Strelizia species visit http://tinyurl.com/yabvvau I am sure you will find the content very useful.

And now for Anemones . . .

My father had a great love for Anemones, and their cousin Ranunculus, and while I always recall his spring garden awash with colour, it was the Anemones that fascinated me.

Anemones have rich bright colours that are great for mass colour in garden beds in sunny positions. Anemones are also great cut flowers and produce successions of flowers over a long period.

The Anemone family is a large one (over 120 species), but it is Anemone coronaria, which is the gem of the Autumn planting selection. Best known and generally sold as a 'bulb' the 'bulbs' are more correctly described as tubers.

Anemone coronaria is an excellent subject for container gardening and is a reliable performer. For Autumn planting fun and great container charm, Anemone Coronaria remains a winner.

If you would like to know more about growing Anemones, visit http://tinyurl.com/y8lhbhb. You will find some very useful information

You can never have too many delphiniums

I am currently working on a feature for my website on Cottage gardens, and today I posted a piece on growing Delphiniums. In my view, you can never have too many delphiniums in a cottage garden.

Delphiniums are glorious plants with flower spikes that can grow up to 180cm tall. Normally, they are a range of blues, but are also available in white, pinks, and purple. They are standouts as background plants.

The delphinium is a genus of fully to half-hardy perennials, biennials and annuals so much admired particularly in the cottage garden setting. When grown in warm zones they are generally treated as annuals while in cool zones they can be successful as perennials. Delphiniums are tall, majestic plants with showy open flowers on branching spikes.

Another name for Delphinium is ‘Larkspur’. These beautiful blooms add a touch of grace to any garden and make a wonderful bouquet of cut flowers that will last about seven days in a vase. The modern delphinium is one of the most spectacular and popular of garden flowers. There are wide ranges of colours, several flower forms, and varieties of different heights.

The modern delphinium is the result of hybridisation of delphinium species from wide and varied parts of the world. Crosses made by growers keen to improve specimens they were able to acquire have resulted in the modern plants, which are truly spectacular. Many are varieties that are disease resistant, offering protection against both powdery mildew and black spot.

If you are interested in knowing more about growing Delphiniums go to http://tinyurl.com/yfgops4 I am sure you will find the post interesting!

An apology

Hi everyone.

No, I did not fall off the end of the earth during my travels. I have been battling with eye problem for months, that limited my use of the computer and I simply couldn't keep the blog going. I did manage to keep posting to my website and some of you have probably read those posts.

Everything is much better now, so from today I will attempt to play catchup with some new posts that I hope you will find interesting. I am looking forward to sharing with you again!

Easy-growing Gerberas

I planted some vividly coloured Gerberas (also known as Barberton daisy or Transvaal Daisy) a couple of years ago and am starting to see great results as the plants clump and produce lots of blooms.

The species is indigenous to South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province and its common name arose from the old gold‑rush town of Barberton, where it grows in great profusion. In its natural environment Gerbera jamesonii grows in well‑drained soil in grassland areas.

If grown in the right conditions, the plants will flower for many months through summer and into winter. Although these daisies grow best in sheltered, frost‑free positions, they will tolerate some frost. The soil should be well drained, and mixed with plenty of organic material. If the soil in your garden is heavy, compensate by raising the beds 15‑30 cm above ground level and mixing some river sand into the soil.

Gerbera daisies are among the best and most attractive flowers for cutting, but they should be cut a day or two before they are to be displayed, because the flowers tend to close up the night after they are cut. To make the flowers last longer you should dip the ends of their stems in boiling water after cutting.

There is a full profile on Gerbera daisies with good growing tips on my website http://tinyurl.com/yesg4sy. Drop by now to find out just how easy it is to grow these magnificent plants.

Make ground covers your friend

Ground covers can be among the most attractive and useful plant groupings in your home landscape.

We’ve been getting lots of rain and the ground covers are thriving. Some have needed some radical trimming, but they do add a lushness to the garden. I have been thinking about some of the gardens I have visited that absolutely cry out for the addition of ground covers. And others where gardeners have simply planted the wrong groundcovers in the wrong places, ending up with strangled flower beds or shrivelled ground cover plants in shady areas.

Ground covering plants are just that — they spread or creep over the ground to form a dense, living carpet of foliage which can take the place of a lawn or fulfil many other useful purposes in the garden.

They include plants that propagate quickly to form a dense, lawn‑like carpet of greenery, plants that have coloured foliage or which flower profusely, and others that are really small, spreading shrubs. There is a large variety of texture and leaf form too, and there are ground covers to suit varying soil types and virtually any terrain, whether a rocky, steep bank or a damp, shady corner.

Ground covers are particularly well suited to informal gardens, and areas that are difficult to landscape in a conventional way. It is often difficult, or impossible, to grow a lawn on steep, rocky blocks of land, and even if a lawn can be established, mowing and maintenance could be a problem. Choose the right plant for the right place.

I have now added the first in a new series dealing with Ground Covers to my website http://tinyurl.com/yl5txaq. Head over there now for the lowdown. Future posts will deal with Propagation of ground covers, Planting and Caring for ground covers, and profiles of a number of popular ground covers.