Wednesday 30 July 2014

giant hyssop from seed

I have been planting Agastache aurantiaca in the long bed.  I have fully twenty plants, raised from seed, which tells you that it is easy to germinate, and that the seedlings are tough little things, tolerant of temporarily wet or dry compost, rocketing greenhouse temperatures and snail attack, since twenty is the full contents of a five by four modular seed tray.  I must have had enough seeds germinate and then survive without damping off to be able to fill the tray when it came to pricking out, and all of the young plants made it through potting on into 9 centimetre pots to the stage where they are ready to go out into the garden.

Its common name is Orange Hummingbird Mint, according to one of the seed companies that offers it, Plant World Seeds (also available from Chiltern), which tells you something about its appearance and origins.  It is a native of Mexico, and has long, tubular flowers in an agreeable shade of soft orange, which are presumably pollinated in the wild by hummingbirds, as are quite a few red and orange tubular New World flowers.  Most of the seeds for sale are of named varieties, but I've gone for the true species.  In fact, I did sow some of the cultivar 'Apricot Sprite', which came free with a magazine, but nothing came up and I have just thrown the contents of the pot into a tub of rubbish destined for the compost heap.

I am putting the plants into gaps in the long bed, where there are shrubs which will get larger in time, and there's no point in planting up close to them with anything too permanent.  Agastaches tend not to be the longest lived inhabitants of the garden, and I note that while Plant World Seeds promise me that my Agastache aurantiaca will excel for many years in a well drained position, Chiltern more prudently give its life cycle as perennial or biennial.  However, they flower in its first year from seed, albeit as slightly small and wispy specimens, and I'm hoping that some will survive to next year, and that they will start to seed themselves and naturalise in that part of the bed, much as the oregano, bloody cranesbill and Stachys do.  And the bronze fennel, only I wish that wouldn't naturalise quite so much.

It is supposed to like sun or partial shade and good drainage, since according to my dictionary of perennials it grows in the wild on rocky outcrops in hills and open woodland.  I only hope the long bed is not too dry and starving for its liking.  Also that, if it does survive, my hunch is correct that it won't be doing much early in the year while the Pulsatilla are in full growth, since I am asking them to share the same space.  Pasque flowers have largely died down by late summer, which is one reason why this part of the bed has started looking so gappy, and I thought it would be nice if something else could follow on for the second half of the year.

That's one reason for continuing to plant right through the summer, despite the drought and need to keep watering, since it's only now that I can see where the gaps are that were full of something else in spring.  Although I am a little worried that where I have put Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve' cuttings into some yawning gaps at the other end of the border, they may be overwhelmed come next year by an eruption of oriental poppy foliage.  I have taken some more cuttings, just in case.

Addendum  I have just noticed that the normally excellent Chiltern catalogue gives A. aurantiaca's required lighting conditions as full shade, but I'm pretty sure that's their mistake, not mine. Otherwise I'll be spending part of tomorrow digging them all up again.

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