Call me Daphne!

I have never really got on well with daphnes. I remember that in my Aunt's garden in Bexhill there was a purple flowering D.mezereum which for some reason I thought was rather ugly, though I see that Graham Thomas gives it high marks - "one of the most valuable,hardy,small to medium-sized shrubs for our winter gardens". I have also a various times grown D.collina which makes quite a pleasing small bush though when its lilac flowers are not in bloom, it is perhaps not very noticeable, this in France but much nearer the Pyrenees than I am now. Perhaps my favourite to date , this in another French garden, was D.burkwoodii Somerset, or least that is what I thought it was, though plain 'Somerset' does not have variegated leaves which ours did, so I suppose that it might have been 'Astrid'. Anyway the variegation was rather the point because what slightly worries me about daphnes is that when not in flower they are usually not a very exciting feature. Many of course, make quite small, low shrubs - D.collina and D.petraea to name two - more suited to the rockery than the shrub border, which reminds me to ask what on earth has happened to the rockery? My father adored them and in my youth it seemed that there were a 'must have' feature, but they seem to have gone quite out of fashion. This is odd in a way because in a sense they are as naturalistic as say the now very popular gravel or meadow garden. Perhaps they are too much trouble, too fiddly and time consuming, and I guess that a rock garden which is not well-tended just looks a mess, while say my gravel garden can get away with murder, or I pretend that it can!

Meanwhile back to daphnes in order to report that despite my worries about them - and I have not mentioned my chief worry is that they do not want to be too dry or hot in summer - last year I did acquire two.  Daphne 'Eternal Fragrance' is I fear one of those 'tendance' plants that suddenly everybody wants to acquire only for them all too often to be quickly forgotten. Its attraction is of course the word 'eternal' - most daphnes have a fairly short flowering period often in the late Winter or early Spring, so that one that is always in flower would be very exciting. Mine however managed about a week but it was its first year so I can only live in hope. Then towards the end of last year I was seduced by an item in the excellent Burncoose website - D. x transatlantica Pink Fragrance, which looking at the new Hilliers I see is related to Eternal Fragrance so I am promised a long flowering period, though this time with pink rather than white flowers. And as both names indicate, the chief reason why ones grows daphnes is for their fragrance, so that if they can be planted near a door or beside a path, and I guess preferably in semi-shade, or at least near a source of water, so much better.

Finally a plant that I should have mentioned in my last blog since acquired last year, and seen first in Cornwall - Berberis valdiviana. As with daphnes I have to admit to being only half in love with the 'barberries'. I guess it is the prickles that most of them have in abundance that makes me wary of them, while they can, as in the case of B.darwinii, have rather too bright orange flowers.  But by and large they are easy plants to grow and as regards the many B. thunbergii hybrids they come very often with bright coloured leaves that go an even brighter colour in Autumn. And the good news about B.valdiviana is that it is not very prickly, and its flowers are a saffron yellow.  Spotted from afar, since it is a very large shrub, I had no idea what it was but it certainly made a big impression with what could be called a 'gosh factor', so I am hoping that it will make the same impression here.