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Self care by growing a garden

Self care by growing a garden

A SOS to any green thumbs out there

I have always found gardening to be therapeutic and it has given me great joy. However, after a major crisis with Mr Darcy's health I have not had been able to get back into it. Have other gardeners suffered from a similar hiatus and how have you recovered and got going again?

Darcy

PS have a spot that needs filling any recommendations for a 1m high cool climate white flower plant?

2358 replies

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In response to: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

My surviving Alstroemeria (Princess Lilly) looks like this...

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

These are doing well.

Strelitzia reginae - Bird of Paradise.

I grew it into a clump, from a tiny pot-plant.

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

This one I tried to germinate from seeds, but they never came up.

It's the Giant Bird of Paradise Flower (Strelitzia Nicolai).

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

we have a large out of control bird of pardice in one section of our garden @Adge

I was ready to tear it out until it flowered. Thankfully darling knew what it was and asked me to leave it. my have a look at reducing it so it looks more manageable while I am on a study break.

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

Love the Iceland poppies too @Smc did you grow them from seed?

@Determined @Adge after having seen an out of control strelezia, I am not keen on having one at our place.

Have you any heliconia plants @Shaz51 ?

Thinking of you today @Sheila as my asparagus seeds have germinated 😀.

Have been working on our garden layout today. Have not quite got the flow quite right so have taken a break from it hoping to get some inspiration over a cuppa.

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

Few plants get out of control here @Determined Unless you have a bore, & water like mad...

It's too hot & dry, especially for tropical plants - like Strelitzias.

Poinciana trees take about 20 years (from seedling), before they first flower - that's because it's so dry (& they're tropical).

My Strelitzias are in the Shade (so they don't get fried), & they took over 15 years to establish.

You can dig down, & remove some of the clump (if you want to) - although the roots are hard to get into.

You can also cut off many of the stems at the base, to reduce the size of the clump - the stems are very soft tissue (not woody).

Adge

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

My mum and mil has @Former-Member xx

Hello @Adge , @Determined , @Smc

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

@Former-Member, one picture is a purple poppy, Papaver segeritum, grown from seed, another is ranunculus grown from corms.... I do have a few Iceland Poppies scattered throught the garden, from a punnet. I'm hoping to collect seed from those to grow next year, but I've had patchy results with the Icelands for some reason.

My parents have an "out of control" Strelitzia. It's a patch about 3m across, right against the house. A couple of visits ago, I hacked back some of the stems so that a bit of light could get into the window of the room behind it. The flowers are beautiful, but...
I've got some in a large pot here. I haven't seen any really huge ones in this area, so I think the winters are cold enough to knock it back a bit.

@Adge, I've seen a white Strelitzia in a botanic garden. That is really gorgeous.

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

I did get poppy/ranunculi mixed up @Smc, a neighbour has a fine display of the latter, hoping it means they are easy to grow here.

Ended up tackling some more running bamboo as it became clear that we need to attend to it before we can complete garden layout.

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

Don't you love it when you come across a plant bargain? Treated myself to a cymbidium orchid for $12 from someone's home plant stand. It has 19 flowers on it across two stems, will enjoy the flowers and see if I can keep it going afterwards.

1,661 - 1,670 of 2,358