Happy New Year! Let’s start with some plants in my garden on 30 December 2025. Unexpectedly, Berberis Darwinii flowering: –
Daisies (Bellis perennis) in the back garden: –
Mexican Fleabane, (Erigeron karvinskianus), in the front garden: –
Even Greater periwinkle (Vinca major): –
The Nandina Domestical ‘Obsession’ still had its beautiful autumn colour: –
More from the garden later.
I was waiting impatiently for my HPS seed list to arrive by snail mail at the beginning of December, champing at the bit to work through it and extend my knowledge of plants – one of the few times of the year I look up all the plants whose Latin names I don’t know, and to research their size, growing conditions, flowering times etc. It takes me several days of concentration, rather like revising for an exam – there is only so much information my brain can take in at a time – so when I start to waver in my determination to look things up I stop for the time being and go and do Christmas preparations instead. Just as well I persevered from A-Z as on page 39, the very last one, there was an entry that stunned me. I didn’t even need to look it up to know what it was – Wollemia nobilis, a Wollemi Pine. Actually ‘stunned’ is an understatement I simply couldn’t believe it. The Dinosaur Tree, one of the rarest trees on earth, existing in the wild in only one secret location in The Blue Mountains of Australia and only rediscovered in 1994 after being believed to be extinct for over two million years. Seeds for distribution from a Wollemi Pine! These are trees that can live five hundred – one thousand years, and I know Kew Gardens received seed in 2005 to germinate and see how hardy they were, and what kind of conditions they might prefer.
I remember the first time I ever saw one was in a private arboretum in Dorset, a spindly looking specimen (obviously very juvenile, it was only about as tall as me). I was awestruck to be seeing a real dinosaur, and one that had been thought extinct – like seeing a Dodo face to face! The second time was I believe at Nymans, again a spindly looking thing, but taller than me – obviously, a few years older, and it SEEMED to have cones on it. I tried to take photos, but none of the pictures with cones in were in focus. Fortunately for the survival of the species each tree can bear both male and female cones – with the more rounded female cones higher up the tree than the narrower male cones. I believe at that sighting I was seeing male cones.
Batsford Arboretum has a tiny grove of Wollomi Pines sheltered behind tall trees, which I always try to visit and examine whenever we visit. They are really hard to photograph, but there I have seen trees with both male and female cones on. If you were not aware of their significance you could well walk past them without a second glance.
Unassuming, I think is a good description for these very young versions of the species. My indistinct photos do at least show that they look quite like their near relative the Monkey Puzzle Tree (Araucaria araucana) in leaf/branch shape. I have always imagined their home gorge as being a tall narrow ravine (I have no idea if this is the case as its secret!) and that therefore they are tall narrow trees almost fastigiate in form and needing shelter from winds. Obviously, all the specimens I’ve seen are very young, and maybe the older trees fill out a bit. Kew found they preferred a more acidic soil, so they probably wouldn’t like my Chalk Hillside setting at all. I am absolutely amazed that such juvenile specimens can produce seeds, however.
Once I had calmed down a bit, I discovered on the same very last page of the HPS seed list, Zanthoxylum piperitum, or Sichuan Pepper. Now I had first come across this shrub horticulturally speaking via the blog of former head gardener at River Cottage, Mark Diacono when he set up Otter Farm in Devon to try and grow edibles that were borderline-suitable for our climate. Sichuan Pepper was one of those. So, I still think of it as exotic, though I know it was included in a Chelsea Show garden by Jo Thompson featuring special edibles suitable for cocktails (which I think Mark was also involved in) a few years back. On examining the RHS website I see Sichuan Pepper is now seen as having an H6 hardiness by the RHS, in well-drained soil, and to be suitable for a range of garden situations. With a description of ‘A bushy, spiny, deciduous shrub with 15cm-long leaves composed of many oval, aromatic, glossy, dark green leaflets which turn yellow in autumn. The bark and fruit are also aromatic. Sprays of small, yellow-green flowers are produced in early summer, followed by tiny, red fruit that split open to reveal black seeds,’ I therefore thought I would add it to my list of requested seeds – let’s see if I am successful in getting some.
As this was not at all what I was going to talk about this month, I might as well carry on by going completely off-piste and showing you a very early flowering Pleione of mine, Pleione Wharfdale ‘Pine Warbler,’ that was in flower through December.
As you probably know, these hardy orchids can be grown outside, but I have them growing in the cold east-facing utility room. They flower before their leaves form, and these wonderful flowers last for maybe 3 weeks for me. The big strap leaves come well after the flowers have gone and have to be fed and watered more frequently than say Phalanopsis orchids, during the summer. Once the leaves start to die in September, taper off watering. The plants then go dormant – when you are supposed to repot them, generally at the beginning of December, cutting off the old roots (which are large and wiry compared to the size of the bulb), but this particular Pleione always catches me out as it is earlier flowering than the rest, and is often in bud when I repot them. You must not repot Pleiones when they have live roots as this will kill them, so this particular plant still has last years’ old roots in its new pot, just to be sure! Whilst they are dormant, they should not be watered. You are looking for the flower shoot buds to appear – as so: –
Then you water them very sparingly to try to encourage the roots to start into growth and go DOWN to look for water. Never let Pleiones sit in water as they naturally grow in rock crevices, or in moss and leaf litter on fallen trees. They want LOTS of water when growing, but lots of drainage. This is quite a challenge, but as you can see the special compost which I make up is mainly sphagnum moss, with perlite and bark in it to keep it open. Also, I have discovered, don’t repot them into too big or deep a pot, as the wet compost will take too long to dry out. This is true of many of the other orchids I grow as well.
Other of my orchids have flowers that last a long time – the Cymbidium that is also in the utility comes into flower in October, and I took this picture in December. I cannot tell you what cultivar it is, I bought it as “Red/Green Flower”: –
This plant also needs watering twice as often as the Phalenopsis orchids and is almost literally bursting out of its pot. It has been in the same terracotta pot for two and a half years now, so this year I shall have to take a deep breath and try and repot it. It is so heavy it may be a two-person job.
My Dendrobium Berry Oda which I bought at RBG Kew maybe 10 years ago has been in the same pot, splitting it open and growing lots of babies on its branches. It was finally repotted in September 2025 and has rewarded me with beautiful fragrant purple flowers through December and into this year: –
Let’s finish with a couple of lovely seedheads in my garden, looking good in the cold dry week between Christmas and New Year – first the Cardoon, (Cynara cardunculus); then the Echinops ritro ‘Veitches Blue.’ Both providing seeds for hungry goldfinches: –
And a special “teaser” for the new year – Galanthus ‘Bess’ on 30 December 2025: –
Next month, planning my Long Border.
Sheila May
