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Category: Tips for Growing Series

Help with growing popular and interesting flowers and plants. Simple, easy guidelines for growing good plants.

Top Ten Violas to Grow

Top Ten Violas to Grow

Viola self sown

Violas are more than just small pansies in fact Pansies are just over blown Violas. They are both in the family that also includes many species of Violets, Violas and Violettas.

Benefits of Violas

  • Many varieties and colours to select from without being overwhelmed by choice.
  • Masses of small flowers from spring / summer that virtually cover the plant.
  • Sweet scent on many varieties particularly the blue and purples.
  • Perennial habit on most varieties but annual varieties also set viable seed.

Viola profusion

Top Ten Viola Selection.

  1. Viola Tiger Eye with deep yellow petals and black veins radiating from the centre.
  2. Viola Scentsation lives up to it’s name with bright yellow scented flowers.
  3. Viola hybrida Rose Shades is bushy, compact and free flowering in various rose shades. Each bloom has an attractive yellow eye and darker whiskers, plus the bonus of a sweet fragrance.
  4. Viola Meteor is a compact form suitable for hanging baskets and containers.
  5. Viola Friolina will trail for up to 3 feet and is available in yellow, blue, orange, white or bi-colours.
  6. Viola x williamsiana Singing the Blues is an annual in several shades of blue.
  7. Viola Amber Kiss looks great in the catalogue but I have yet to try grow this semi double golden Viola.
  8. Viola x wittrockiana Jolly Joker with purple outer petals and orange inner petals has become a firm favourite.
  9. Viola x wittrockiana Water Colours Mixed F1 is another popular variety in pastel shades.
  10. Viola sororia ‘Albiflora’ is hard to track down but is a small white flowering species with purple whiskered petals.

Many of these seed and plant varieties are available from Thompson & Morgan Other suppliers include Gardening Direct or your local nursery.

Yellow Violas

Growing From Seed

  • Germination is not easy and some experience is useful.
  • Sow December to March or July to September on the surface of lightly firmed, moist seed compost in pots or trays.
  • Exclude light by covering with paper for 2 weeks.
  • Germinate around 65-70 °F too high a temperature prevents germination .
  • Overwinter late sowings in a coldframe then plant out the following spring.
  • Easy to grow on and care for.

Viola profusion

Pansies Violas and Violettas The Complete Guide from Amazon.

Description of Violas

  • Half-hardy annual or hardy perennial
  • Flowers in  Spring and Summer.
  • Green fleshy, leaves are heart shaped with jagged edges.
  • Ideal for  border edges, containers, patios and hanging baskets
  • Height  3-10 inches dependant on variety

Wikipedia lists over 200 species of viola for further exploration.

A Viola odorata national collection is maintained at groves Nurseries in Dorset where this cultivation guide can be found.

More pictures from Google

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Book Cover

Viola Photographs and Species

Violas and Violettas

Ilkley 002

Viola palustris
Viola palustris by pastilletes CC BY-SA 2.0

Viola riviniana
Viola riviniana by Jörg Hempel CC BY-SA 2.0

Viola uliginosa_3
Viola uliginosa_3 by amadej2008 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Bog Violet

Viola ocellata Western Hearts-ease
Viola ocellata Western Hearts-ease by davidhofmann08 CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Viola purpurea ssp. quercetorum Mountain Violet
Viola purpurea ssp. quercetorum Mountain Violet by davidhofmann08 CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Growing Inula and Inula Varieties

Growing Inula and Inula Varieties

Big, bold and brassy 3 reasons to love growing Inula

Inula

What is Inula

  • This is a yellow flowering, herbaceous, perennial that grows 3-4 feet tall in my garden. The leaves are large, gently serrated and light green.
  • The flower stalks have up to seven daisy like flowers on firm stems. Support in high winds.
  • Inula is very attractive to bees and hoverflies.
  • The flowers go brown in the centre once they have been fertilized.

Inula Varieties

  • Inula magnifica grows in most soil conditions and is good near a pond.
  • The pygmy Inula acaulis has rosettes of narrow 1.5″ leaves and golden daisies 1″ or more across.
  • Inula hookeri is a clump-forming perennial with hairy self supporting stems and large, spidery, yellow, daisy flowers.

<b>Inula

Propagation and More

Growing Solanum Crispum Chile Potato Tree

Growing Solanum Crispum Chile Potato Tree

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My Solanum Crispum is now about 8 feet high but is covered in purpley-blue blossom most of summer. I prune it to keep it at that height or it would go on to 20+ feet tall.

Plant Characteristics of Solanum Crispum

  • This shrub is related to the nightshade and potato family.
  • It is aka Chilean Potato Tree.
  • The flowers have an attractive yellow centre surrounded by blue flowers similar to potato flowers.
  • The base of the shrub becomes a bit bare after several years.
  • In mild winters, even in Yorkshire, it is evergreen.
  • It has a lax habit and I tie in some branches to a nearby hedge.

Growing Tips

  • I give it no special treatment of any sort, although it’s location is sunny.
  • Theoretically it likes alkaline soil and a high potash feed.
  • Propagate by layering, pegging a lower stem to the ground, or by semi ripe 3″ cuttings taken in late summer.
  • Despite being related to Potato all parts are all poisonous.
  • The variety ‘Glasnevin’ is the one to grow for prolific flowers.

Pruning Solanum

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Growing Ferns

Growing Ferns

A Fernery can be a fine thing Evergreen Hart’s Tongue Fern

Asplenium scolopendriums or spleenworts are a good contrast plant in a shady fern border. The shape of the long evergreen fronds gave rise to the common name Hart’s Tongue Fern.

Growing Hart’s Tongue Ferns

  • They provide year round interest being ferns with simple, undivided fronds. The leaves are 4-24 ” long and 2-3″ broad.
  • Once planted, hart’s tongue fern grows slowly and needs little attention apart from annual mulching and tidying in spring.
  • Plants grow on lime-rich substrates including moist soil and damp crevices in old walls, most commonly in shaded situations.
  • In sunny sites the leaves turn a sickly yellow.
  • They are not suitable for growing in pots and containers.

Stream
Varieties of Asplenium

  • Crispum group have fronds with crimped margins making them appear plumose or feather like. Boltons Needle is one specific form.
  • Asplenium scolopendrium muricatum has narrow dark green fronds with raised wrinkly edges.
  • Asplenium trichomanes have glossy green oval, pinnae paired along the length of a purplish stem. Ideal for walls and crevices.
  • Asplenium scolopendriumLaceratum Kays is a form with wide open, ovate fronds with deeply cut margins and miniature crested tips.
  • See others at World of Ferns

In the Yorkshire Dales National Park the ferns make an important contribution to the local flora. Hart’s-tongue fern is shade-tolerant and prefers lime-rich soils and can be found in dark and damp environments including the grykes of limestone pavements.

Woodland

Bracken or Pteridium is a genus of large, coarse ferns in the family Dennstaedtiaceae. Historicallly bracken was used to produce thatch, animal bedding, compost and used in herbal medicine.

Living Stones – Growing Lithope

Living Stones – Growing Lithope

Lithrope

As a child I tried with seeds to grow stones – daft kid or what? Now I do not see the fun in growing Lithopes, due to the early aversion thereapy, but each to their own.

Lithopes are succulents often collected by Cactus growers. Plants consist of one or more pairs of bulbous leaves and hardly any stem. The slit between the leaves   produces white or yellow flowers and new leaves. During winter a new leaf pair grows inside the existing fused leaf pair. The old leaf pair parts to reveal the new leaves and the old leaves will then dry up

I can’t beat the full description, history notes and cultivation report on the BBC web pages. In case the page gets taken down in a cost cutting exercise I have repeated some of the key content.

‘Growing Lithops at Home …

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Chionodoxa – Glory of The Snow

Chionodoxa – Glory of The Snow

Chindoxia

Chionodoxa are beautiful, hardy spring flowering bulbs that are easy to grow. They grow 6inches tall from small bulbs and have pretty star-shaped flowers with long narrow leaves. (Also spelled Chinodoxa and common name Glory of the Snow). The blossom has a central line on each of 6 petals.

Cultivation 0f Chionodoxa

They do well in most garden soil. Plant 2-3″ deep.
Chinodoxa are most effective when planted in clumps and allowed to naturalise.
Suitable for rockeries and growing in pots.
Flowers lasts for 3-4 weeks, after which both the flowers and the foliage die back.

Chinodoxa Varieties

Chinodoxa Lucilliae is widely available and flowers bright blue
Chinodoxa Luciliae Alba is a clear white with star shaped flowers in March.
Chinodoxa  Forbesii Pink Giant produces a wealth of pink flowers.
Chinodoxa Forbesii is bright blue with a white centre.

Chinodoxia Alba

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Growing Aeonium Succulents

Growing Aeonium Succulents

This fine specimen Aeonium arboreum is growing outside in an area sheltered from wind  rain and frost. The variety is Schwarzkopf in honour of the deep purple leaves that look almost black. Others varieties of ‘Tree Aeoniums’ include Atropurpureum a dark red and Variegatum a creamy white with green is an indoor plant nicknamed ‘Youth and Old Age’.

Aeonium arboreum is a bushy perennial with stems crowned by a rosette 6-8″ across. It bears golden flowers in spring on 3 year old stems that then die. It can be grown in a large pot and brought into a conservatory during a hard winter.  Aeonium arboreum need a mineral rich soil so a mix of clay and sand is often used. Keep the plants on the dry side during winter and away from frost. Propagate by removing small rosettes with a piece of stem and potting up in sandy soil. Keep shaded whilst rooting.

They are also sold as houseplants and need a bright airy window sill where they will form a neat compact plant. For the rock garden you may want to try Aeonium haworthii ‘Pinwheel’ which bears rosettes of blueish green with red tinged edges. This grows 2′ high and spreads 3′ with freely branching stems.

 

It is March and my Aeoniums have survived the winter so far but snow is forecast! I left them outside in a home made cold frame to protect from the wet but now I am panicing.

Snapdragons aka Antirrhinum majus

Snapdragons aka Antirrhinum majus

Antirrhinum

Snapdragons or better known as Antirrhinum are an easy flower to grow and they provide lots of colour with a distinctive scent. Good F1 plants can grow more than 2′ tall and if pinched out they bush out quite well.
Available in a wide range of colours I try and grow the same colours together to enhance the effect.

Where to Grow Snapdragons

These plants are good border flowers and can be planted in blocks, lines or singly.
Snapdragons do not need special soil conditions but flower best in sunshine.
Smaller varieties can be grown in containers.

How to Grow Snapdragons

I plant plug plants from the end of April to get quick flowers.
For raising Antirrhinums from seed read these tips
 Pinch out the tallest growing shoot when it is about 3″ tall to encourage branching and thus more flowers.
Feed with a tomato fertilizer if you want extra blooms.
Water early in the day, plants should not be left wet overnight – distorted growth can result.

Snapdragons as Cut Flowers

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Growing Courgettes

Growing Courgettes

Courgettes
Courgettes

Courgettes are an easy crop to grow and well cared for will produce an excellent crop of tasty veg. Global warming in the UK, has made this crop even more successful and can be grown out of the greenhouse, even in the north of England.

Tips for Growing Courgettes

  • Sow from late March to May in pots to make easy planting out later. Make sure soil is well manured and fertilised, the plant is a heavy feed.
  • Early courgette plants should be grown in a warm greenhouse to protect against any frost and cold temperatures. They do well in full sun.
  • Courgettes do better in warmer climates, heat will give a bigger and faster crop.
  • Protect from slugs in the early stages of growth. But, once established they are fairly pest resistant.
  • Crop regularly when courgettes are 4-6 inches. Cropping encourages more vegetables to be made and stops them turning in to marrows.
  • When growing in the greenhouse be ruthless in removing any fungal leaves or fungal vegetables. This fungal disease can easily spread if not kept in check.
  • If you grown courgettes in the greenhouse you may find the leaves can become too big. If this is the case, you can remove some of the bigger leaves without much loss. It is important to ensure good airflow.
  • When vegetables are forming it is important to keep well watered and well fed. A proprietary tomato feed is an excellent food for the cropping vegetable.

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Growing and Floristry of – Peruvian Lily

Growing and Floristry of – Peruvian Lily

Alstroemeria is a beautiful flower also known as Peruvian Lily or Parrot Lily.

Cultivation of Peruvian Lilies

  • Alstromerias are tuberous perennial plants for the border and grow deeply in light soil.
  • If the conditions are dry when in flower give them a good watering to boost flower production.
  • Plant roots in the dormant season after November. They don’t like to be moved as the roots break easily, if you do transplant dig deeply as the roots are drawn down.
  • Propagate from finger length roots or with some skill grow from seed. Pull up old stalks to encourage growth from the roots.
  • Plants will grow in large deep pots and provide flowers for long periods.

Floristry

These stunning plants add an exotic touch to any flower arrangement with their elaborate blend of vividly coloured and intricately marked flowers. I like the red yellow and white varieties which are easy to grow once they get started forming a good clump in the border.

  • When picking for the vase pull the stalk up then cut to length as needed and they will last up to three weeks.
  • Remove all leaves as they yellow before the flowers die
  • Do not disbud
  • Many of the shop bought flowers are from Kenya and Chile but they are east to grow yourself

Varieties to Consider

·Alstroemeria pulchella the parrot lily and Alstroemeria aurantiacastrong orange shades and Alstroemeria aurea

·Alstroemeria Ligtu hybrids are shorter and may be used in containers. Also called the lily of the Nile

·Inca Hybrids are also on offer in some areas

·A. psittacina ‘Casablanca’ claims to being white, but the markings create a special effect.

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