Sunday 16 July 2017

THE OASIS




MORE THAN 20 YEARS AGO, when we began gardening this plot, we started out with a clean sheet. Apart from three old apple trees and a couple of huge elderberry bushes, this half-acre garden was bare apart from its carpet of rough grass.
As I sit writing this in the summerhouse beside the pond that’s burgeoning with water lilies, I look out over a very different scene from that beginning. This is the ‘tropical’ or ‘oasis’ part of the garden. Around the pond are dotted five statuesque hardy Trachycarpus fortunei palm trees, and out of the window on my right I can see tall Cordyline australis ‘cabbage palms’ (although they are not palms at all). In a large pot on the deck that cantilevers over the pond stands a Phoenix roebelenii dwarf date palm.
Cordylines have regrown to 12ft
after being cut down to the
ground by -14 deg C frosts.

"UNTIL THIS YEAR ITS POLLEN 

HAD GONE TO WASTE"

I can fondly recall where each of these plants came from, and when, and the same for almost everything else growing in the garden. The largest of our palms, with its thick, sturdy trunk and huge fanned-out leaves, was purchased as a small plant from a then-favourite, family-run garden centre, since sold-out to a large national chain. It lived in the greenhouse for a number of years, gradually being potted-on as it grew. Eventually, and in a very large pot, it moved outside for its summers but still returned under glass in the winter. Finally it went into the ground on the south side of the summerhouse.
There it has thrived, and I can see its massive hairy trunk through the window as I write, now around 10ft tall. It has flowered every summer for more than 10
Flowers of the male Trachycarpus fortunei.
years, but until this year its pollen (it’s a male tree) has gone to waste with no female trees flowering. But at last, three of the other four palms have produced their female flowers (the remaining tree is also a male) and for the first time we have Chusan palm seed developing.
One of these female trees came from the excellent Palm Centre at Richmond as a relatively small tree, a present from my father. The others were bargain purchases, spotted at a
Gateshead Flower Show and bought as sizeable trees from a Co. Durham nursery and garden centre no longer in existence.
Seed developing on one of the female trees

"CRUEL FROSTS
CUT IT BACK"

Our cordylines came from different sources. The tallest, now regrown to 12ft after being cut to the ground by temperatures of -14°C in winter 2010/11, was bought as a small plant from an Isle of Man nursery during a visit there around 1996. It originally grew as a single stem, to eventually become multi-headed after flowering, before those cruel frosts cut it back. But perhaps that cold winter was a blessing in disguise, for this plant at least. Today it boasts four separate trunks, each of a different height, making it a focal point at the top of the pond’s shingle beach.
"I can see the massive hairy trunk through the
window as I write."
Alongside it grow three or four other cordylines. These originated from a roadside stall at Mount’s Bay, Cornwall, and considering how neglected they were in the following years, being kept in pots too small when they should have been potted on, it’s a wonder they are still alive. I’m a believer in not molly-coddling plants, but there is a line between growing them hard and sheer neglect and, unfortunately, in their case they were definitely on the wrong side of that line.

"THE PALMS AND CORDYLINES ARE
THE MAIN STRUCTURAL PLANTS"

But eventually they were planted out and finally growing away, with their roots free to explore where they may. They, too, suffered in that cruel winter, when it snowed here from the last week of November until well into January, but while their burgeoning tops perished, their roots remained safe beneath a 3ft blanket of snow. Their regrowth has been much slower than our Isle of Man plants, but I look forward to them eventually holding their narrow leaves, with a red central stripe, high in the air.
The palms and cordylines are the main structural plants that set the tone for our ‘oasis’ garden. Next time, I’ll tell you about some of the others that provide the different foliage shapes and textures to help provide the tropical effect in the garden in England’s far north.