Hibiscus

I spent much of last weekend tidying up the balcony and sowing biennials for next year. And as I was rooting around in my seed box, I found these. They were just laying on the bottom of the box and had obviously fallen out of a packet. But what were they? They were the cutest seeds ever - heart shaped and feathery - but I couldn't remember ever having seen them before.

And then I came across an envelope marked hibiscus. There are a number of hibiscus in the gardens around the balcony, and I remembered that last year I'd broken off a couple of seed pods to save. And then forgotten about them. But over the winter the pod had dried and burst, and as I was scrabbling around for other things the seeds had fallen out.


When I think of hibiscus, the first thing that usually comes to mind is a houseplant. But Hibiscus is a genus with over 200 members, but I'm fairly sure that the ones growing here are a species native to eastern Asia called Hibiscus syriacus. It's hardy and I also have one in my London garden. Here, there are over a dozen of them lining the alleyway that leads between the blocks. They've been planted in the middle of a privet hedge and several have been trained into a standard shape, so that the trunk is covered by the hedge and the bush just seems to be a round ball sitting on top of it. Others just poke through. They're just coming into bloom now, but very shortly the alley is going to look glorious. The blooms only last a few days, but there are so many of them that the bush always seems covered.


Walking past in the last couple of days, I've also been pleased to see that there have been a couple of bees buzzing around them. Bees have been scarce this year, and I'm not sure whether it's because I've neglected the balcony and have had fewer blooms than usual to attract them, or whether they're just not there. Look at the first photo and you can see one. He was literally drenched in pollen.


Anyway, the seeds are now in, just for fun, but I've taken some cuttings too, which are keeping my oleander and pelargonium cuttings company. Hibiscus is supposed to root readily - we shall see.

The flowers of H. syriacus are small in comparison to the tropical varieties, but they still blow me away. Definitely a plant to find a space for. And very undemanding. It likes sun and doesn't like to be too wet, but apart from that isn't particularly fussy. I have to admit to having a soft spot for a lot of plants in the Malvaceae family - I also have mallow and hollyhocks growing on the balcony and love them both. Here's hoping the cuttings take.

Oh Leander!

Oleander (Nerium oleander). Doesn't it just scream "Mediterranean" at you. Not of course that you won't find it elsewhere - but for me, the image of the oleander has always been connected with lines of rather dusty and straggly trees lining the roadsides in southern Italy. Too dusty and straggly for me occasionally. A bit like buddleia - one of those trees which should be lovely but sometimes disappoint.

But that was before I moved here. The gardens and courtyards around the flat are full of oleanders, and they seem to thrive on the smog and pollution of Milan. All the gardens in our street have them, and at the moment they're in full bloom - I took all these photos in a ten minute walk up the road this afternoon.

Oleanders can be yellow, orange, white, red or a multitude of shades of pink. But here at least the yellow and orange varieties seem to be much rarer. Flowers can be single, or as with the wonderful specimen from our courtyard in the top photo, double.

It's said that they get their name from the myth of Hero and Leander. Hero was a priestess of Aphrodite who dwelt in a tower in Sestos, at the edge of the Hellespont (now known as the Dardenelles - the straits which, together with the Bosphorus, divide Turkey geographically between European and Asia), while Leander was a young man from Abydos on the other side of the straits. Leander fell in love with Hero and would swim every night across the Hellespont to be with her. Hero would light a lamp at the top of her tower to guide his way.

This went on all one summer until one stormy winter night, the waves were too strong for poor Leander and the wind blew out Hero's signal. Leander lost his way, drowned, and Hero found the dead body washed up on the shore, still clutching a flower in one hand. I don't know who it was who heard her lament of Oh Leander! Oh Leander! and decided to rename the flower but, rather than trying to make their name in botanical history, you'd have thought they'd have decided to spend their time looking after the poor girl and preventing her from zapping back up to the tower to throw herself off. Such is love ...

Though my sympathies lie rather with the more cynical view of my favourite Shakespearian heroine Rosalind, who in Act IV of As You Like It exclaims : Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.' But these are all lies: men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

But back to the tree : Oleanders are hideously poisonous. Well, some sources say reports of their toxicity are exaggerated, but I didn't experiment. Keen as I am on writing killer posts, there are limits ... Keep them away from your kids, pets and horses, don't eat any part of the plant, keep the sap off your skin, and don't try burning the leaves or branches - even the smoke is toxic.. Check here for general information and here specifically for horses - apparently an ounce of oleander leaves can kill a 1,000lb horse.

Presuming though that you can trust your family and pets to lay off the tree, I'd strongly recommend an oleander if you've got the right conditions. It will grow in most soils, and is drought tolerant. It will survive down to about -7°C (20F), but may suffer frost damage - in which case it will need to be pruned back. However, it needs the summer sun to flower properly. Plant it in the shade and you won't get the sort of blooms you can see here. It flowers off the new growth, so prune after flowering.

They'll grow to 20ft in the garden, but also do well in containers. Look up at the balconies in Milan and you'll often see them leaning over the balustrade.

They're easy to grow from cuttings, and I started one a couple of years back. It did well at first and even gave me some blooms, but last year was badly attacked by red spider mite - trust them not to find it toxic. I had to cut it right back and this year, though it's back in growth, there have been no blooms. The cutting came from the tree below - now imagine that on the balcony ....

More Pictures from the Park

This is another flowering shrub which I saw while we were in the park, but can't name. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen or heard of it before. But the photo doesn't really do it justice. The flowers almost didn't seem attached to the tree - it was as if a huge pinky cloud was floating over it.


As I said in the last post, the nice thing about the park is not only its size, but also the variety of different areas it contains, and therefore the variety of different plantlife. Apart from areas where the grass is cut and the shrubs and trees are cultivated, there are also areas dedicated to agricultural use - cornfields and hay fields ....

and then there are woodland areas.

This fungus, which was growing on the stump of a tree in one of the woodland areas was the size of a dinner plate.



There are also various streams and ponds, with rushes, irises, water lilies and other acquatic plants.

All of these different habitats means there's also quite a lot of different wildlife - but that's for next time.

A morning in the park

My son and I spent yesterday morning in a large park on the outskirts of Milan. It's a park with a bit of everything - some areas are cultivated with flowering shrubs, there's woodland, agricultural land, lakes and ponds, areas for sport and so on. I went a bit beserk with my camera and came back with nearly sixty photos, so I thought that I'd post a couple every few days for a while.

The elder was in flower .....


and there was weigela everywhere ...

and this is one which I know I should be able to name, but can't. It's on the tip of my tongue ....


This one was new to me though. I loved its trailing blue flower spikes. Does anyone recognise it?