Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Remembering Gary'

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Remembering Gary'

Not a terrific photo. This was taken using the installed iPad camera and uploading it direct to blogger via the app. I didn't have my camera with me so I thought I would see what the quality was like. Not enough detail can be seen in the flower.  Up close this Hibiscus has a biscuit coloured edge to the petals and they are nicely crimped. Summer photos from other sources show that the edge may become more of a distinct band of yellow. Time will tell. The centre of this large cartwheel variety (200mm) is pale pink and changes to orange towards the outer petals. This variety was bred by A Westerman from a pod parent of 'Ruth Watson' and a pollen parent of 'Sun Showers'.

Hibiscus 'Ruth Wilcox'

Australian coastal suburb with Norfolk Island Pine in the background

and Hibiscus 'Ruth Wilcox' 

Ruth Wilcox, like her namesake in the E M Forster novel Howards End is a tough old bird, tall and aristocratic, and a source of confusion to all those around her.

 She belongs to the arnottianus group of Hibiscus which include 'Wilder's White' and 'Apple Blossom', all originating from this large shrub/tree species native to Hawaii . Depending on where you live in the world 'Ruth Wilcox' can be pink or white and may go under the name of 'Albo Lacinatus' or 'La France'. Confused? It is worth reading the book Hibiscus Around the World by Ross H Gast as he mentions it growing in Nairobi as a tall standard, pruned bare to 3 metres so you could walk underneath it. The local native species to this part of Africa is H. schizopetalis which is a possible parent of 'Ruth' in combination with H arnottianus.
Regardless of origin, it is has lots of desirable traits which make it garden worthy. It is a very hardy variety , resistant to pests and diseases including borer and has very low water requirements. For this reason it is the main variety grown for use as a grafting understock particularly for all those large flowered but genetically weak Hawaiian hybrids. Grown on its own it makes a terrific hedge or screen plant and is never without a flower

A wall of green to 6 metres from Hibiscus 'Ruth Wilcox'

Ruth Wilcox was probably not named for the character in Forster's work of literature but she is certainly luminous in the pages of the novel which was published way back in 1910.

Early in the book Forster drops the hint that she is not long for this world when the effervescent Helen Schlegel, who is at 'Howards End' for an ill-fated engagement to her son Paul, spies on her in the garden 'looking tired, trailing her long dress through the wet grass and silently watching a red poppy open'. Red poppy being that symbol of opiates associated with pain relief. Ruth is stoically Quaker 'whose life has been spent in the service of husband and sons' , 'yet she and daily life are now out of focus and show blurred'. Despite her loss of vitality she develops a friendship with Helen's sister Margaret but is unable to communicate to her nor her immediate family the state of her health which leads to confusion on the part of family and friends. This is how Margaret reacts': 'Was Mrs Wilcox one of those unsatisfactory people -there are many of them - who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it ? They evoke our interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling around them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a definite name for such behaviour - flirting- and if carried far enough is punishable by law. But no law - not public opinion even- punishes those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be intolerable. Was she one of those?

Ouch!  And then a couple of pages later comes the sentence 'The funeral was over'. 

2 Yellow flowered Brugmansias

 Brugmansia sanguinea 'Midas'

 Chrome Yellow PbCrO4

Brugmansia x candida 'Clementine'

When these two Brugmansia started to bloom this week I immediately associated the flower colour with my old box of paints, little tubes of cadmium yellow followed by chrome yellow, and with being in the chemistry lab, where lead nitrate mixed with potassium chromate when filtered off, leaves lead chromate or chrome yellow. So chrome yellow was the colour description I settled on though it is probably easier to describe as taxi cab yellow, that yellow with a bit of orange in it. We owe the discovery of the colour to Frenchman Louis Nicholas Vauquelin (1763-1829) who was mucking around in a Parisian lab with a mineral from Siberia called crocoite from which he extracted chromium. It seems he was a bit of a plant boffin as well and has the distinction of having the genus Vauquelinia named for him, though Vauquelinia californica is a plant I may never come across.

Maroon

Leaf: Ipomoea barbatus, Flower: Salvia involucrata x 'Timboon'

The name Maroon was originally derived from the Italian marrone and French marron, meaning Chestnut, but the name Maroon today refers to the colour here shown.

It was adopted by the State of Queensland, Australia as their official colour in November 2003 and is an especially popular colour to wear during sporting events involving rival teams representing other States.

In the garden the colour is well represented by the tall 3 metre shrub Salvia Timboon. It is in full flower at the moment and is providing a magnificent display of flowers at the ends of its long arching branches. There is some confusion as to the origin of Salvia Timboon and it is currently thought to be a hybrid between S. involucrata and S. karvinski.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Moon Drop'

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Moon Drop'

 'Moon Drop' flower has a large cartwheel style overlapped flower coloured a vibrant orange  with a deep crimson eye. It has 'Liberace' and 'Stan Beard' as parents and was bred by Joy and Norm Hatton and registered in 1998.

The 3000 Mile Garden

"It's a salmon coloured flower" was the reply I received when I asked about this Hibiscus which I bought a few months back at a local market.  When you spend so much time being a bit of a stickler for correct names of plants it is nice to have a few unknowns in the mix. Something can also be said for buying local whether it be food or plants. With plants you are likely to get ones which have adapted well to the climate and have particular desirable traits such as resistance to pests and disease or ability to flower well outside their normal seasonal range. Ability to withstand extremes of climate is also an important issue these days and one book which documents this well is The 3000 Mile Garden by Roger Phillips and Leslie Land (Pan Books 1992). This book (and later TV series) is based on an exchange of letters between Phillips in London and Land who gardens in Maine USA. At the time of writing both gardeners were battling drought and extremes of temperature. Included in the book are their lists of plants which survive extremes of dry and cold, always important information to pass on for those contemplating growing a particular plant outside its comfort zone. Phillips also tells of his joyous travel in Australia and on return he laments: 'Back in England everything seems very small and old fashioned. As a nation we have totally failed to invest in our future. I feel that it is most depressing: unless something radical happens we will become a very minor museum with our only asset our tourism'

It is Leslie Land however who shines from the pages of this book. Not afraid to call a spade a spade, with a career as an accomplished food and garden writer for The New York Times, she draws herself naked amongst her favourite garden plants celebrating the end of that long cold winter which is part and parcel of gardening in Maine. In summer there is the opportunity to cook a whole salmon in a bathtub while across the Atlantic, Roger Phillips enjoys a summer barbecue in his pride and joy, Eccleston Square in central London. This book is still available and is well worth seeking out.

Acer buergerianum, Trident Maple

 Acer buergerianum Trident Maple

For the last few weeks many of the big exotic trees in my neighbourhood have been putting on a spectacular display of coloured leaves, of red overlaid with orange and yellow or russet tones of ruby red and gold. If you don't have the space to plant one of these colourful trees you can still get to enjoy them by planting a bonsai or penjing version. Many of the maples such as this Acer do well in both small pots and large containers and are fairly hardy as long as they receive adequate water over summer. If the pots dry out the leaves may fall prematurely and you will miss out on the autumn colour.

Acer buergerianum is native to eastern China and is known as the three-toothed maple or Sanjiao Feng.