talinum, calandrina, cistanthe, portulaca

last year

I realise that I am growing 4 of these (which is what comes from uncoordinated seed buying sprees). I have grown cistanthe way back in the misty past, and have had a couple of go-rounds with talinums (snail fails) and have a few delosperma and various sedums. I am going all out with the new gravel gardens and plant stall...and it occurred to me that nifty little doers such as lewisias, fameflowers, dianthus etc. would be a good start to fit both categories. However, I have no idea how these will do over time, how they work in a garden, whether they resent transplanting...in short, pretty much everything. So, I know these are all a mite tender and niminy-piminy for the robust perennial forum but am grateful for all and any advice.

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rosaprimula
Original Author

last year

Ah, thank you for your response Jay. O Danny - I have grown quite a few fleeting pretties - some of which are fairly straightforward, precocious bloomers, flowering in their first year. Venus's Looking Glass (triodanis, specularia), Fairy flax (lnum cathcarticum) vaccaria, silene coeli-rosa and other flimsy, mimsy specimens. That ephemeral nature is part of the charm. Fairly easy to grow, and I don't mind too much if they come to a sticky end. I like gazanias too..I have one with hot pink petals with an emerald green centre.

https://www.shallowmead.co.uk/our-plants/gazania-christopher-lloyd/

I had a sort of South African daisy craze for a while (ursinia, gortaderia, dimorpotheca, arctotis, heliophila, felicia and so on. And an imaginary Californian landscape. And a foray into Mediterranean gardens.

I would definitely have a go-round with palafoxa.

The orange thread reminded me of mimulus aurantiacus...another of those 'water under the bridge' plants which I haven't seen for ages and are due a revival. I am going to look for this, as well as other short and mannerly climbers to disguise the lower (drearier) branches of ceonothus and indigofera.

I have no idea what the soil is like at a 10 foot depth, but local geological soil surveys does reveal freely draining floodplain (stony, silty) on the chalk spine which bisects the south eastern part of the UK.. I have a lot of callirhoe involucrata currently sprouting in the greenhouse (to my joy) and am waiting on ruellia humilis.

I have had quite a spree this year with seed buying...and a number of plants are entirely new tome. I am doing something of an allotment overhaul though.

O yeah, yucca. I do NOT like these one bit, having dealt with them in customers gardens. Bad- mannered, unpleasant things. Sadly, my old agave (americana) has died this winter...and a few of the agapanthus are looking dodgy.

My gravel garden is something of a mishmash - patches of pea shingle, but mostly 10mm , interspered with the many, many stones I have dug out, river cobbles, flint and sea-brick. Not any sort of garden as such, just a lot of plants...but I am on a mission this year, to get it all in hand.

And sell some plants, maybe.

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Comments (9)

Jay 6a Chicago
last year
last modified: last year
Hello rosaprimula, What kind of gravel are you using? Is it round like pea gravel or sharp like chicken grit? All Ive grown is Talinum/Phemeranthus calycinum. Mine is growing in fast draining soil that is about 70% ammended sand. I have no memory of how this fameflower came to me? It will bloom the first year from seed. I thought it was annual and then noticed that the tubers will overwinter. I don't get many because I think I disturb the surface soil too much with my constant weeding, transplanting and fidgiting. I really like it. It's a little jewel when it blooms. The bright flowers look like they are suspended in the air and are from another planet. It's growing amongst a couple different oramental Plantago, P. aristata and P. wrightiana, Eryngium yuccifolium, Anaphalis margaritaceae, Crotalaria sagitalis, Amorpha canescens, Baptisia alba, Asclepias, amplexicaulis, pumila, hirtella, engelmanniana, stenophylla, ovalifolia. Chamaecrista fasciculata, Monarda punctata, Helenium amarum, Viola saggitata, Dalea foliosa, Gentiana andrewsii, Palafoxia callosa, and Glandularia bipinnatifida. I've never grown calandrina or cistanthe. They are California species. Callirhoe species have similar flowers and there are several species. One species might be more drought resistant than another? I had a hanging ivy geranium with pea gravel below it, and vollunteers would ocasionally pop up in the gravel. I have no idea how you feel about ivy geraniums in your gravel beds Lol. Out of curiosity, what is your bed soil structure like down to 10 feet? Amorpha species have deep roots that can go down 30 feet. We have black soil on top of bedrock. I don't know if all of UK is on top of chalk or what?🤣 I've grown the 'fancier'😒 Portulaca in hanging pots, but there are so many of the weedy ones everywhere that I have lost my interest in them. The closest thing that I have to a double Portulaca is my Opuntia humifusa that's also in the sandy bed. Is your gravel going to be mixed with compost and soil?

Callirhoe involucrata. They have soft tubers like Geranium and Heuchera. That doesn't seem to stop ivy geraniums. The ones that are native here have soft tubers anyways. Firm but soft.

Yucca filamintosa never needs watering

Ruellia humilis can handle dry. 6 varieties. They love to grow in between the stones that border the beds. I like using stones, but they sink over time and need to be re-excavavated.

Phemeranthus/Talinum calycinum, Palafoxia callosa, Eryngium yuccifolium, Mimosa sensative briar, Cosmos tinctoria. The flower stems are barely visible to the right. It looks like the flowers are blooming out of the Palafoxia leaves. Not a great picture, can't see the foliage.

Glandularia bipinnatifida, Anaphalis margaritacea, Dalea foliosa

My current goal is to build up a nice colony of fame flowers. I should order more seeds? How do you feel about Gazania?🤣 It's funny you have such strong feelings towards plants you probably loathe them Lol. They do better in pots than in the sandy bed, so they must like it very dry. I won't be hurt if you hate Gazania.
dbarron
last year
Our native fameflowers are all 'flower of an hour' type (as far as I know) and thus hardly worthy except as a curiosity. They're also very small and grow in glade environments where they have no competition.

Look elsewhere unless you just like the curiosity.
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Hey, me too, GG. Shrubs and evergreens. My god, the word 'low maintenance' might be spilling out of my mouth soon. Can't shake the seed habit though, as it keeps me sane over winter and is the only way to try out new plants. Yep, I had d,nudicaule a couple of years ago but I had it crammed into a pot with an orange calceolaria, which turned out to be more vigorous and shrubby than I expected. This time, I am going to grow a bunch of them, with other small, but hopefully rugged flowers -tufted poppies, blazing star, eritrichium and callirhoe...but grief, the potential colour clashes in that lot! You are an adventurous gardener, mxk3, and not above doing some radical zone-pushing, so I am always keen to hear from you. And GG cos she is the very definition of 'pro' of course. Thanks both. Ruellia has made it onto the seed list several times but usually falls after the first couple of budgetry winnowings, while I have, over the years, grown several pinkified, succulent-y small flowers - purslanes, calandrina, cistanthe. All do well...for a season, but often fail to survive over winter...but as I grow so many annuals anyway, I never minded the short-lived aspect.
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Ha, oenothera sinuata (I think, wavy leaved beeblossom) is on order for autumn planting because yes, all the gaura and oenothera seem to do very well indeed. I would also be mortified if you permanently decamped to Facebook Jay...so don't. What has been the tenor of the past few seasons has been a fabulous spring and early summer...because tulips absolutely adore the sunny sandy soil I have...a sort of mini Iran or Tashkent. I grow dozens of species tulips and have been collecting more cos they are easy from seed. It was a stellar year for anemone coronaria, early primulas and early flowering hardy annuals.It seems that anything with a huge taproot like winecups, baptisia, platycodons, some of the umbels) (but by no means all) do very well indeed whereas all those lush prairie type plants are utterly hopeless - I have neither depth nor richness.I am going to have a good look at summer bulbs such as habranthus, rhodohypoxis, triltieas, galtonia and homeria. Silver leaved or tormentose plants are also really good...as I have been struggling with keeping the colours going into July/August September (thank you, salvias).. Also, bindweed has exploded exponentially and is disastrous in perennial gardens so I am girding myself for a whole day of 'sock of death' to start the killing. I have it in mind to turn the whole site into a dry garden...which does mean losing out on the many annuals I grow...and holding my nerve for another coupla years until plants are established but honestly, we are moving into an El Nino phase so hoping for mild winters and getting hardy cactus going. It is not going to get any wetter in East Anglia, that's for sure. Lots and lots of gravel and pea shingle I was going to take pics but truly, the allotment is a mess as I am trying to consolidate the many, often ridiculously experimental beds and losing the weed battle. It looks NOTHING like the gardens we see on here - no mulch, no visible soil and, because I am hopeless about staking, lots of collapsed plants growing sideways. I love viper's bugloss (or viper's bloodlust as my offspring call them) - along with evening primrose, they are naturalised in my area, growing all along the highways. And yes, echinops - I grew this years ago but it got so huge, I chopped it down (mind, I had it in a bed with onopordum, eryngium pandanifolium, giant fennel and berkheya...a prickly seething chaos). If I can find a shorter, more mannerly variety, I really don't mind doing that silvery thistle thing again, with eryngiums and verbascums. Again, I thank you all so much... I get sidetracked and go off into imaginary fantasies of bad collecting such as the recent, largely failed Chile obsession...one of so very many attempts to grow far too many (often inappropriate) plants. Apols for long rambling but I had a brainstorm re.geums. I can and do grow pulsatilla...which do that lovely seedhead thing not terribl;y unlike geum triflorum. There are usually alternates we can pick from, with a little contemplation.
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Jay 6a Chicago
last year
last modified: last year
Danny is right about the Talinum not liking competition. They don't have the ability to grow taller above nearby plants, and I had to weed around them so they wouldn't get shaded to death. However, as fussy as they are, they are still little jewels that are a rare surprise. I like the pink Gazania. I only have the 1 Yucca. I used to have 3. They are indestructable, and they bloom annually, so it slightly makes up for not having luck, with the more beautiful liloids like Stenanthium and Melanthium. Maybe I can get Melanthium bare root? Yucca are a lot of work tidying up the dead stalks and leaves. Removing them comepletely isn't easy either. It's a good arm work out. Maybe those yucca fibers can be made into fabric and crafted? I use them with sticks to mend broken stems in triage situations, (when a table collapses or some such thing). I have a few Agave americana. They can handle extreme cold. I wish the flowers were more coloful. Why would your Agave die? Couldn't have been drought right? I want to grow American pennyroyal. It likes part shade, and gravely soil. You can use the leaves as a bug repellent. Are their any biting insects in the UK? I hear there are some horrible midges in Ireland?
rosaprimula
Original Author
last year
Oh aye - we get our share of biting, stinging beasties...but nothing like Australia, for example...or South America.

The agave had been in a huge pot and had blocked the drainage holes (as they do) with questing roots. Consequently, the month of endless rain, followed by a really unusual winter freeze (for the UK), did for it in 2 weeks what a whole decade of neglect had somehow avoided. Might be hardy regarding cold...but sitting around in wet cold - nope.

I have been making a couple.of hypertufa troughs (despite my efforts to get rid of containerised plants) so I will probably try the talinums in one of the troughs...not least because I can raise them up to waist level by placing them on the wall copings. Should provide an environment suited for teeny jewels, without rampant competitive thuggery, and I won't have to grovel about on the floor in order to see the wee blooms. I had to do the same with the dainty centaury erthraea which were also getting lost underneath an enthusiastic hyssop. Not that there has been a sniff of germination yet. This next month will be busy with pricking out, potting on, potting up and so on - pleasures rather than toil although there will, inevitably be space issues. Even assuming only half the seeds germinate, there is going to be a squash.

I am about to repurpose my old 'Free Library' board with signwriter's enamel - 'Plants For Sale'. I am very nervous about this. Does anyone else do kerb sales, market stalls, table outside the gate sort of thing? Maybe I should make another thread?
dbarron
last year
Well then I can say that Phemeranthus calcaricus is quite easy (and relatively fast) from seed. I think it flowers in it's second season.
Jay 6a Chicago
last year
last modified: last year
I just now saw the comment you made on my thread rosa. It's 2 months old. I apoligize for missing it. I think I was having a rough patch for a few days around then. I had lost my wallet and whoever found it was using my credit card and I was upset and possibly over medicating Lol. The fact that it was New Years made it all that much worse. To answer your question by all means you are welcome to participate. You can learn about our natives which you do use. I can learn about your plants. I also like to talk about botanical names and their meanings. Botanical and taxonomic history, English botanical history, plant provenence, invasive plants, etc. Linnaeus and his aposles. All the stories of sea merchants discovering and introducing plants for the first time... Growing natives and exotics, can lead to a lot of experimentation, in order to achieve the perfect conditions, that some fussy plants need, and there are paralells to be drawn.

My crazy plantings and things are always escaping and migrating. A mish-mash of colors and textures.

Callihoe bushii grows taller than C. involucrata

Callirhoe bushii and our native Ceanothus americana.

Anise hyssup, Royal catchfly, Purple coneflower, Partridge pea.

Carolina Elephant's foot walking across the flagstone path.

Trillium grandiflorum

Clematis pitcheri

My favorite umellifer, Harbinger of Spring, Erigenia bulbosa. An ephemeral.

Stealth guerilla gardening.
rosaprimula
Original Author
last year
Not surprised you didn't see my post, Jay - that thread is an absolute swine to find...I think I had to follow some obscure link on someone else's post...and I can't find it again. I really dislike Houzz. Another thing, I can't seem to turn off notifications so my inbox is stuffed with rubbish from Houzz, every time anyone posts anything at all, on any thread, as far as I can tell.

Obviously, I am also more than happy to chat sh*t about pretty much anything plant related. Tell me how to get to the native plants thread and I won't have to filthy up the threads on here (perennials) with the contents of my brain. You know when you get the feeling you are annoying people, but are not sure why and anyway, can't really help yourself? Forums often do that, I find...probably cos I am antisocial and have bored my family beyond endurance...but you know...thoughts and that.

I had a rubbish new year too. Youngest and partner were about to be evicted cos landlord was selling up and we are in the middle of an absolute housing crisis - artificially suppressed supply, gouging landlords, and a huge transient, well-paid influx of tech workers (silicon fen FFS!).

Andmedication (ahem) was in short supply too. Did you get your $$$ back at all? Feels like an especially harsh world, these days.
Jay 6a Chicago
last year
Misery loves company. I feel closer to you now that I know we both had s*^#y new years. Your current national problems seem to be mirroring ours more and more. Royal scandels and corrupt politicians. I have a samsung galaxy s21 ultra phone, and I do all my internet on it. It's much easier to access, than my desk and laptop computers were. In the past I've had a dell desktop and an apple macbook. My macbook isn't working. I don't want to spend a lot fixing it when I'd rather use my phone anyway. I've been a citibank cardholder for decades, so I didn't get charged for the $400 in charges the low-life rang up. Luckilly that's all the amount I was allowed to charge. Still have to pay a lot off on cumpulsive ordering of absolutely necessary plants. I've had my credit card electronically hacked a couple/few times. There are so many scammers and scams these days. Anyway, if I want to visit a forum at gw, I google the forum name with the word gardenweb after it and the link pops up. I get buttons to click on, in my browser with shortcuts to the forums that I visit the most. Once I reach the forum, I want, I can add it to my home screen, and use it as a shortcut. In the past, I've had an issue, with the houzz side of gardenweb, and the gardenweb side of gardenweb. I can see now, that I'm able to comment, and I see that I'm currently on houzz, so they may have resolved that issue, but I can only comment, if I have my predictive text turned off. Unfortunately my autocorrect is the thing that remembers all the plant names, which saves time. Link here.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6213925/growing-native-plants-for-wildlife#n=914