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Canberra Today 14°/17° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Winter’s warm bloomers

A stunning Garrya elliptica with its tassles draped in splendour.
BEYOND Camellias, which I highlighted in an earlier column, other plants offering winter flowers include Garrya elliptica or tassle bush.

An evergreen shrub between 2-3 metres, at this time of the year it has male catkins of striking grey-green leathery tassles up to 20cm long. These mature into a honey colour before shedding.

Similarly, Corylus avellana “Contorta” or Witch Hazel is mainly grown for its sculptural contorted stems with its honey-coloured catkins in winter.

In this group we should include Chimonanthus praecox or Winter Sweet. Many regard the small, starry, yellow winter flowers, which appear on bare stems with its strong, sweet perfume, as unrivalled amongst plants. This deciduous shrub grows to about two metres.

FOR smaller shrubs, one cannot go past Ericas, the flower colours depending on the variety. These can be grown as a low-growing, evergreen hedge or planted in a bold group of three to five.

It is impossible to mention all but a few, as my Hillier’s “Manual of Trees and Shrubs” lists no fewer than 140 varieties of Erica.

Erica x darleyensis pink is one of the hardiest, from winter frosts to hot, dry summers. This is unsurprising when looking at where they originate. For example, Erica mediterranea is native to the south of France, Spain and, interestingly, Ireland. Is this another of those plants introduced to the Emerald Isle from the Mediterranean by the early missionaries such as St. Patrick?

Other varieties generally available include E. “D.R.Maxwell”, E. malanthera improved, E. “White Delight” and E. melanthera “Ruby Shephard”. They are all suited to Canberra, from our frosts to hot summers.

THEN, to delight us all with its early blossoms in winter is Prunus mume, the flowering apricot seen in bloom about town at this time. This is the first of a succession of blossom trees that will delight us for the next five months. The two select varieties are Prunus mume “Splendens”, growing to 4m x 3m and ideally suited to most gardens, has deep-pink, double-fragrant flowers with yellow stamens. Equally superb is P. mume “Rosebud”, of a similar size with large, semi-double, soft-pink flowers. The flowers are produced on one-year-old wood. To encourage flowers each year, it is advisable to prune quite heavily after flowering, it can even be pollarded. This has been grown as street trees and in suburban parks in Canberra and definitely should be used more widely.

ONE of the most popular winter flowering shrubs usually referred to as “japonica” is flowering quince, Chaenomeles japonica. It is one of those common names that can get one into trouble when ordering a specific plant. “Japonica” merely indicates it originates in Japan or China.

This is a favourite for flower arrangers with the brilliant red or white flowers on bare stems. However, a word of warning, this plant can sucker like mad. We had the shoots constantly appearing in a gravel driveway in our old nursery at Yass. Even undiluted glyphosate applied to cut stems had no effect on it and after 10 years we still had it growing!

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Winter jobs in the garden

  • CHECK on stored bulbs, corms and tubers such as Dahlia and Canna regularly, discard any showing signs of rot.
  • Look for plants that have layered and carefully remove from the soil for potting up in premium-grade potting mix. Water in with Maxicrop Seaweed Plant Nutrient to encourage new roots.
  • While the ground is soft, it is an ideal time to get rid of persistent weeds.
  • Leave old flower heads on Hydrangea as added frost protection for the emerging new buds. Prune back in spring when the worst of the frosts are over.
  • Ensure indoor plants are in good light in winter. Do not place too close to air conditioners, ducted heating vents under floor or overhead. Check they are not suffering from drying out with winter heating.

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Cedric Bryant

Cedric Bryant

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