Gardening with Margaret Matthews
Growing grey in your garden
by Margaret Matthews
As promised last month, some suggestions for plants that are drought tolerant and attractive. The long, devastating drought which has so affected our country should make us think twice about how we manage our gardens. We must conserve water, and we must consider what plants are appropriate for our own little neck of the woods.
In Victoria, which is classed as a temperate zone, we have probably all lost some of our plants to the drought. Not only exotics, but many native plants, have turned up their toes during this long, hot, dry summer.
It is environmentally irresponsible not to plan our gardens to adapt to such conditions. If we appreciate that our climate is very similar to Mediterranean countries then we should look to them for ideas of plants that will thrive in similar conditions. A healthy plant that grows and flowers without coddling is always preferable to a delicate species that is sickly and ultimately destined for the compost heap.
Perhaps you have noticed that most plants with grey or silver leaves are usually drought resistant. Foliage is just as important as flowers in a garden. Grey and silver leaves are often deceptive in that they are sometimes large and softly textured and look as if they might droop if denied water, but this is not so. They offset the varied green of other plants and temper the sometimes blatant colours of the flowers that match them for toughness.
Gertrude Jekyl, English garden designer and artist, and the French Impressionist painters Monet and Renoir used grey and silver foliage in their paintings and gardens. Monet often combined them with his beloved red poppies and Renoir cherished the old olive trees which surrounded the farmhouse where he lived. Another very famous garden to make use of grey foliage is Vita Sackville-West’s famous white ‘garden room’ at Sissinghurst in Kent.
Among the grey and silver foliage plants are the Artemesia family. You may well know the Wormwood (Artemesia arborescens), a useful shrub that can be pruned into shape or clipped to form a hedge. There are other members of the family including sub-shrubs and ground covers, all with glaucus foliage.
Members of the sage and lavender families often have grey or grey-green foliage. They come in a range of sizes from groundcovers to shrubs of varying heights. They all love sunlight, and will stand periods of dryness. Flowers are usually lavender, purple, white or red (as in the annual Bonfire salvia, or pineapple sage, which is a perennial). Many herbs, including some of the thymes, have grey foliage, but most herbs whether grey or green leaved, enjoy bright sunlight in a well-drained bed.
Dianthus, often called ‘Pinks’, make a good border plant and there are grey and green leaved species. They will flower for months in a sunny spot.
Gazanias come in both grey and green leaved forms and are extremely tough. They make good ground cover and are useful for planting on steep banks. They flower freely in hot weather and are virtually drought resistant.
Cotton lavender (Santolina) is a useful little shrub with grey foliage. Plectranthus parviflora has silvery foliage, is a spreading plant to 40cm and is one of the few species to thrive in heavy shade.
The Australian cushion bush (Caloacephalus brownii) thrives in sandy soil and is a gem for seaside gardens. The Atriplex family, which includes the saltbush species that can save stock from starvation in a drought, has other species suitable for gardens, which can exist without any artificial watering.
The native Correas are very tough and are a useful group of small plants with tubular bell flowers in a range of colours, and are often bi-coloured. They come in red and white, yellow, green, pink and the white flowered correa alba, which has grey foliage, while most of the others have green. All are bird-attracting and they deserve to be much more popular.
Lambs’ Ears (Stachys byzantina) has soft, velvety grey leaves and makes an excellent border or groundcover.
Almost all members of the daisy family, including the native Helichrysum and Brachycome stand up well to heat, and if they do perish in extreme conditions are not too expensive to replace. The scarlet Flanders or field poppies will be in your garden forever as they seed freely and they are a wonderful foil for silver and grey foliage.
Geraniums and pelagoniums are often underrated. Some of the new hybrids have lovely colour combinations, and they stand on their own for resilience. They are excellent in containers.
Some drought resistant trees include the Silver Tree (Leucadendron argenteum) which grows to 5m by 3m. There is the olive, which responds well to pruning and shaping and can be espaliered against a wall. Its silvery leaves are very attractive and it has the added bonus of fruit. The oleander and crepe myrtle are also tough and decorative, and the latter has a beautiful mottled trunk in winter.
Native plants which inhabit the inland of Australia are obviously able to withstand drought. There are eucalypts, grevilleas, banksias, hakeas, callistemons, melaleucas, acacias – too many to name individually. Many of these have grey foliage and you can choose these with confidence. Your nearest nursery specialising in native plants can advise you.
Always make sure that you understand the maximum height and width a plant will achieve when fully grown. Also remember that indigenous plants in the home garden require the same maintenance as do any others.
I have two Emu Bushes (Eremophila) in my garden, which have had no artificial watering for two years. They have grown well and have flowered through spring and summer, attracting small, nectar feeding birds. Instead of despairing of the plants you have lost to the drought, put on your ‘Edward de Bono hat’ and try some lateral thinking! We have to live with our climate, not give up on it.
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