I wasn't expecting it to drizzle steadily today from about eleven onwards, so progress in the garden was limited to looking at nursery websites and Googling species and varieties I didn't know, with a view to future purchase. Reading about plants I haven't even decided to buy yet is not going to make a convincing narrative, so let us return to the conservatory. I promised to own up to some of my less successful efforts, so that others can learn from them.
First of all, Camellia sasanqua. These are among the earliest flowering of the camellias, blooming in late autumn and winter. They are said to like more sun than most camellias, and are reputed not to be the hardiest. Prime candidates for cultivation under glass, you would think, and when fresh stock came into the plant centre they always looked so devilishly pretty, I ended up with three. I have not found them easy, in fact, a quantum more difficult than the C. japonica and C. x williamsii collection I had happily growing outside in pots for several years, until the series of cold winters got to them, and I ended up planting the survivors (which were the larger specimens) in the open ground. The leaves on Camellia sasanqua in my conservatory go brown at the tips half the time, when they do not drop off.
I searched for advice, and found it on the Trehane nursery website. They are specialists in camellias, and blueberries, and I have bought from them in the past, admired their stand at various shows, and found them admirable in all respects. Jennifer Trehane is an internationally renowned expert, who serves on the RHS camellia and rhododendron committee. The website advised that brown leaf tips could be down to over watering. Or under watering. Ah. I watched the surface of the compost with keen attention when watering, and hefted the pots to check their weight, to try to avoid either error, but the camellias did not get any happier. Maybe they hated our tap water, and I needed to save rainwater for them. I wasn't sure I was getting the amount of sun right either, and they have revolved around the conservatory as I've tried to find the right spot. If I had space in a border I would plant them out, and let them take their chances in the great outdoors. In the meantime I am vaguely disappointed and embarrassed by them.
Ditto the cycad. I bought that reduced from B&Q. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, merely that B&Q had had a Dutch trolley of cycads knocking around their plant sales area for some time, and the management had obviously decided that they had to go. The cycad lived in a back corner of the conservatory for quite some time, and was apparently happy there. Then I moved it to the sunnier back corner, and the leaf tips began to brown. I blamed the sun, and moved it back. The tips of its new leaves continued to curl up and go brown, when it made any, which was not often, while the old leaves turned a paler and paler shade of green as if they were not long for this world. I cut the old ones off until it was down to one circle of ragged leaves, defaced because I had cut the brown tips off with scissors.
I decided, sadly, that I had somehow wrecked my bargain cycad, and pulled the remains out of the pot, intending to compost the plant and put the pot away in the shed. Compost crumbled all over the conservatory floor as the rootball disintegrated. Most of the roots, I discovered, had rotted. I could see no signs of vine weevil or other pest, and was inclined to conclude that I'd over watered it. Perhaps I over-compensated when I moved it to the sunny side, or was deceived by the surface of the compost drying out when further down was still wet. The swollen base of the plant was solid, though, not rotten, and I could see the beginnings of a very few fat, white, healthy roots. Worth giving the cycad a second chance, I thought, and repotted it in the smallest pot it would fit in, where it sat looking slightly ungainly, like a pineapple perched on an egg cup.
I was very excited when it produced first one and then two new circles of leaves, but here's the rub. The tips of both sets curled up and went brown. When I was tidying the conservatory last week I tipped it out of its pot again, and found that while it had grown some roots, the little pot was by no means crammed with them. I wonder whether it had the energy stored in its fat base to throw out fresh leaves, but then lacked the capacity to take up enough water to sustain them as the weather warmed up. It is now back in its small pot, in the shady corner, brown tips raggedly cut off the latest leaves, while I wait to see if it can fill its pot with roots. But perhaps I am on the wrong track, and it is not a roots and watering cultivation issue, but something else. All sensible advice gratefully received.
The white jasmine simply died, or almost died. It used to grow rampantly, though always making more growth than it could sustain, which I have read is a characteristic of jamines. Then I moved it away from an admittedly shady window to the back wall, and it didn't seem to like it there. Parts died, then this spring most of it did. The rootball is still in its pot outside the conservatory, waiting for me to exhume it and conduct an autopsy, Elephant Bill style (cause of death: no kidneys). Perhaps it found the back wall too dark. Perhaps the roots will prove to be a mass of vine weevil. Maybe it simply got old. Plants have their natural life spans, like everything else, and I'd had this one for a long time.
I have read that the Dutch are better at using house plants than we are in the UK, because they are more willing on the whole to enjoy them for a while, and replace them when they start looking shabby, treating them more like cut flowers. The sentimental English, on the other hand, make pets of their plants, and keep decrepit specimens tottering along in their homes long after they have ceased to be attractive or useful. I haven't met enough Dutch home owners to be sure whether that's true, but when it comes to enjoying the conservatory as an indoor space, there is something to be said for the alleged Dutch attitude to indoor plants.
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