went a run on the bicycle today for a bit of exercise. on the run around i could not believe the devastation i encountered in many many gardens in my area with the extreme weather we have had. it has been so cold for so long with temps minus every night for about three months. the plant that i noticed that had the most devastation was PHORMIUMS. as you know some of these phormiums can be rather expensive. in the area i live most people have them as a focal point in the centre of their front gardens and are an average of 6 foot high. the extreme low temps have collapsed the plants . in the last few years i have looked at these plants with admiration growing so upright ,but today they have collapsed. it looks like the heart of the plant has disintegrated. the area i live in has always a cold wind blowing from the east but this year with the wind it has brought in the arctic conditions. i am just waiting to see what shrubs etc in my garden have been effected by the extreme weather.:skp: music . .
Yes music, I think the last couple of winters have made us all rethink about what we assume is hardy and what isn't. Even down here we are getting plants that have survived for years starting to look pretty sick. It just proves that the climate has not changed and we cant take things for granted.
Hi Daitheplant you could be correct (CORDYLINES). there is a similarity in quite a few of plants we have in our gardens now . music . .
Our Cordyines are looking a bit sorry for themselves, but they're still alive. I think it helps that they've been established, growing in the ground rather than pots for three years now. I would have thought Phormiums would recover too - they're fairly indestructible! My OH's nephew from New Zealand was visiting last summer and was very impressed that the UK had Cabbage Plant trees (Cordylines) and New Zealand flax plants (Phormiums). As I pointed out to him, Victorian botanists and explorers were indiscriminate in the plants they brought back from their travels!
I agree that we shouldn't take things for granted but think that the climate has changed considerably. Unfortunately, we now seem to get more extreme weather than we used to, both heat and cold plus a change in the rainfall patterns with floods and droughts. Trying to work out plantings to cope is not easy but the joy of gardening is to try and see what we can do with whatever we get. :gnthb:
Shiney, the old news papers are full of strange weather events, they have always happened, its just that these days everyone seems to think there has to be a cause, and we do revel in our own importance, so it must be US, that are causing them. I've had my heating full blast all winter, thats probably why there was no snow in Canada for the Olympics.:lollol:
I heard rumours that it was all your fault but I can't let you take all the blame. I cannot tell a lie - I have had my heating blasting out as well. :flag: :hehe: :rotfl:
without wishing to sound cocky...i've ben saying this for ages now...all the talk in gardning guides about milder winters and being able to grow more tender plants...and then there was the older generation telling us youngsters 'we dont get winters like we used to' well im afraid weather works on a different time scale. What you could say is we have had a lot of mild winters recently, but anyone who thought cold winters were gone on the strength of less than two decades was way off the mark as the last two years have shown. BTW Im not suggesting not to plant tender plants, just know a real stinking winter is always possible so you know the risk. And professional gardeners who have lazily stuffed there plantings with phormiums and cordylines, should have known better. (I might call the guy I advised not to plant 150 phormium yellow wave in a sheme, he looked at me like I was mad when I said they were risky...bet he ignored me.)
I have spoken to three Reps in the trade and all have commented on Phormiums taking a real hammering this winter. I would guess that a majority of these are more tender cultivars and not so hardy as the original P Tenax.
My casualities include phormiums, cordylines (that were 35 years old), kniphofias and hoherias. Most of them are a black mush now.
Cordyline australis is still ok around here although young plants might have taken a hammering, along with the more colourful varieties. Phormiums that were well established seem to be looking OK, not to sure about the smaller more colourful varieties though. Its not been as cold as last year around here, but it has been much longer and possibly wetter.
Everything here seems to have survived quite well apart from our Musa which I haven't uncovered yet, but doesn't look too good. Somehow, I seem to have planted the more tender plants in the more sheltered areas of the garden . That's a bit of luck! :hehe:
