'You say Mimosa; I say Mahonia'

Picking up on the theme of recent blogs I suppose the Mimosa might for some come into the star category. Its fern like foliage is attractive, its yellow flowers are harbingers of Spring, and moreover it has a lovely, if delicate, fragrance. What more could one want? Well, like everything else it is not perfect. It looks rather a mess after flowering, and this at a time of the year when messes rather stand out since everything else is looking so fresh. Moreover in many parts of the world it is almost a weed, so freely does it sucker and self seed. This is true of the Riviera, where it has found conditions entirely to its liking and now threatens to take over the countryside. In SW France it is less happy, though certainly growable: if cut down by very cold weather a well-established plant usually grows again from the base. But in a way this makes it here more desirable than say at Menton, where I believe there is a Mimosa festival each year. Incidentally for mimosa read Acacia dealbata, the most common, probably because one of the most hardy of the family. It is in fact a huge family, mainly I think with yellow flowers, but with very different and mostly very attractive foliage. I grew for a number of years quite successfully A. pravissima with triangular almost spiky foliage, less successfully A.baileyana Purpurea with, as the name suggests, very deep purple foliage, but there are many others, sadly all a bit frost tender but well worth a try, and perhaps I should add that they come quite easily from seed, and grow very fast, which for us 'Wrinklies' is an advantage. But that said, as Christopher Lloyd used to write of certain plants, on the whole I prefer to see mimosas in other people's gardens, especially if those people are willing from time to time to give me a bouquet.

Mahonias are another matter. Apart from a certain alliteration, they share with mimosas evergreen foliage, though holly-like rather than fern-like, and yellow flowers, often fragrant. What I suppose I like about them, and perhaps increasingly so, is their architectural quality - this a description often used, so that it has become a cliche, but it is difficult to think of an alternative. Mine are just coming into flower, this of course at a time when there are not too many flowers about, so that is another plus. Sadly I do not know what varieties they are. One is almost certainly M. Winter Sun. The others were bought as Gamm Vert rejects, these well worth looking out for, especially at the L'Isle Jourdain outlet, which in my experiance has the best selection of plants, though in recent years Gamm Vert has made a big effort to improve the quality and choice of their plants. I guess more often seen are M. Charity and M. Lionel Fortescue, but I am not sure that I can tell the difference between them. They lack the strong fragrance of M. Winter Sun, but the most fragrant is M.japonica, a plant that one used to see a lot of in England, but I am not sure that I have ever seen it here, which is a pity. It is perhaps less architectural than the others mentioned, perhaps too bushy to be so described. The most architectural - Hilliers calls it "very imposing" - is M.lomariifolia, but it is slightly more tender than the others, and I think the flowers lack fragrance. I have grown two from seed, but maybe I will never see them in flower. Meanwhile there are many other mahonias, M. bealei perhaps being the most common, but not one of my favourites. There are also a number of definitely tender varieties, such as M.freemonti, which I have tried without much success; they have not exactly died, but they have struggled to such an extent that in the end I have pulled them out.

Meanwhile I feel that our autumn has been disappointing; rather long drawn-out - there are still plenty of leaves on the trees, especially oaks but then they are always late to fall - and thus not so intense. But so far we have escaped the cold and snow of Northern France, and indeed of much of Northern Europe including England. Long may this last.

Celebrities

Before attacking the subject of the title I want to return to my previous blog, since amongst the plants that I use rather a lot of are two non-stars that I failed to mention. The first is Viburnum tinus, a plant that I at one time I positively disliked. Evergreen yes, but a leaf that in my view is not nearly as attractive as cotoneaster lacteus which I wrote about last time; flowers that one might call winter flowering, or at least late autumn and early Spring - but do these come into the dingy white category? - and apparently in certain weather conditions it may give off an unpleasant smell, though I am not sure that I have ever noticed this. Why have I changed my mind, sufficiently so to plant not exactly a hedge, but rather a line of them ? One reason is the need to find something evergreen, if for different reasons, camellias, conifers and rhododendrons are not an option, this the same reason why I have become keener on the cotoneaster. One can also do more or less what you like with them, which is to say that they will take really quite hard pruning, and this has practical advantages. But the chief reason is that they by and large make more impact here than they did in the areas of England where I gardened. Curiously given its non-starring qualities Viburnhum tinus does not like cold weather, and indeed can be killed by heavy frosts. This meant that very often in Kent when the plant should be looking at its best, it could look rather ill. Here this is less likely, and perhaps even more importantly our hot summers significantly increase its flower power, as it does for quite a number of shrubs - for instance the chaenomeles, or as we used to call them the Japonicas. I first noticed this when in a garden near to the Prado in Madrid in March I saw these marvellous evergreen shrubs covered in dazzlingly white flowers, and wondered what the hell they were; none other than the humble Viburnham tinus. There are a number of hybrids, which I used to try in the hope that I would grow to like the family more - Eve Price and Gwenllian come to mind, but I am not now convinced that they are a great improvement on the bog-standard.

In between I have planted Teucrium fruticans, another non-star, but in our neck of the woods a very useful one. Silvery leaves and pale blue flowers that appear rather at the same time as the Viburnum tinus, which is to say late autumn and early Spring with usually a lull in mid-winter, though much depends on the weather, it can grow really quite large, which is to say a good one and a half metres high, and the same as regards width, or perhaps even wider, as it has tendency to flop. But also like the viburnum it can be heavily pruned and indeed I have seen it quite seriously clipped to make slivery balls to go with box or yew topiary. Incidentally its close cousin, T. fruticans Azureum, in my view comes in the star category, being a much daintier plant, with much stronger blue flowers, but like all stars it needs more cosseting. Even better, but harder to find - Pep: Filippi is one source - is T. fruticans Ouarzazate (Moroccan town), which has even stronger blue, almost purple flowers. At this very moment it is in full bloom, as yet not affected by the current cold spell.

This diversion has not left much space for Celebrities, but at least I can provide a definition. They are plants, whether woody or herbaceous, that out of the blue hit the headlines, or at any rate are to be found on almost every stand at a Plant Fair. Some times they just last a year, perhaps two, and then they disappear, or at any rate just become part of the crowd. Some times they are revivals - about twenty five five years ago the penstemons were rediscovered - sometimes they are new discoveries - Corydalis flexuosa with the lovely blue flowers and fernlike leaves, that, alas, dislike our hot, dry summers, I think comes into this category. More frequently they are new hybrids such as Albizia Summer Chocolate. The latter I fell for about two years ago but then decided that I positively disliked it and gave my plant away. But that is the problem with celebrities. At the time they are 'must have' plants, but to become stars they have got to pass the test of time. Many don't.