Tag: garden plant of the month

Festive Pines: December Garden Plants of the Month

Not just for the festive season, but beautiful all year round: the spruce and fir tree help create a variety-filled patio and garden.
Spruce (Picea) and fir tree (Abies) are the real stars in December, but don’t overlook what they can offer during the rest of the year in terms of greenery and interesting points of focus in the garden.

Continue reading Festive Pines: December Garden Plants of the Month

Garden plant of the month: Fragrant Showstoppers

Broom (Cytisus), lilac (Syringa), Lantana, garden rose (Rosa) and Mexican orange blossom (Choisya) not only have fabulous flowers, but all bring a further experience to a garden or terrace with their remarkable fragrance. All five are woody plants that are easy to care for, and can be planted both in beds and in pots, containers and tubs. The scent and colour attract bumblebees, honeybees and butterflies, so these fragrant feature plants also liven things up a little more, and contribute to a healthy biotope in their environment. 

Continue reading Garden plant of the month: Fragrant Showstoppers

Garden plants of the month: Spring Surprises

Spring Surprises like hazel (Corylus avellana Concorta’), rock cress (Arabis), primula (Primula aucalis) and Aubrieta are perfect for those who can’t wait to bring their garden to life. Not only do they bloom early, but the latter two provide a second round of flowering later in the year. And hazel offers an attractive green backdrop that changes colour in autumn and reveals the decorative twisting branches in winter. So these garden plants don’t just surprise in the spring, but all year round. 

Continue reading Garden plants of the month: Spring Surprises

Sleeping Beauties: January Garden Plants of the Month

When the whole garden is still sleeping, dogwood (Cornus), Viburnum and redvein enkianthus (Enkiathus) with their attractive, sometimes coloured branches and eye-catching lines still put on a good show in winter, particularly with a coating of rime or snow.
And although these sleeping beauties appear to be resting, there’s lots going on inside these plants that manifests themselves faster than you think: they’re early bloomers that offer beauty during all four seasons. 

Continue reading Sleeping Beauties: January Garden Plants of the Month

December Garden Plant of the Month: Helleborus

Helleborus flowers in the middle of winter, and it’s always spectacular – a plant that blooms, even when most garden plants are hibernating.
Helleborus (also known as the Christmas rose) treats you to large white flowers with a fantastic crown of stamens at their heart from November to March. The plant can cope with snow or frost: branches might droop a bit, but as soon as the temperatures climb again, Helleborus will straighten up.

Continue reading December Garden Plant of the Month: Helleborus

Pyracantha: October Garden Plant of the Month

Pyracantha (also known as firethorn) is a shrub with flaming berries in the autumn and green leaves in the winter and early spring. In May and June the plant blooms with a host of cream flowers, so that the shrub provides beauty in the garden all year round.

Continue reading Pyracantha: October Garden Plant of the Month

Garden Palms: September plant of the month

Enjoy an Indian summer with garden palms
Sizeable, lusciously green, and with an exotic look the keeps that summer feeling going for longer: Garden palms bring the right vibe to September to help you carry on enjoying the outdoor life a little longer. The selection includes a True Date Palm (Phoenix caneriensis) with green feathered leaves and a distinctive trunk. The Chinese Windmill Palm (Trachicarpus) with its typical fan-shaped leaves.

The other stars of September are not officially palm trees, but look a lot like them, so they can blend perfectly. The Yucca and the Cabbage Palm (Cordyline australis) have an exotic look with attractive rosettes of leaves. With the Yucca the leaves can be green, yellow or white variegated, and green or russet on the Cordyline. Perfect for a seamless transition from summer to Indian summer.

Range
The Date Palm is available in two species: P. canariensis with rugged, upward-pointing feathered leaves, and P. roebelenii with softer, more elegant curved leaves. They’re available in various sizes with slender trunks, sometimes with several in a single pot.

The best-known species of the Cabbage Palm is Cordyline australis. The plant offers a fabulous rosette of leaves, and is available in both small sizes for planting as bedding plants, and larger sizes that look lovely on a balcony or patio. The most common varieties are ‘Red Star’ (red leaves) and ‘Verde’ (green leaves).

The Yucca is available as the hardy species Yucca flaccida, Y. gloriosa, and Y. filamentosa. All three have rugged leaf rosettes on which the leaves are always different. In the summer they flower with an elegant spike of flowers. Yucca elephantipes prefers to overwinter in frost-free conditions. It’s primarily a container plant, but also works very well as a houseplant.
The Chinese Windmill Palm (Trachycarpus) is characterized by its fan-shaped leaves. This species is available in substantial sizes, which makes it extremely suitable for dressing patios and driveways, and it can even cope with frost.