Wow! The current weather surely is tropical – rain, heat and humidity.
It turns my thoughts to plants which are suitable for a tropical garden.
My first vision is of the beautiful frangipanis covered in blooms, emitting their perfume into the summer air.
My mind is then searching for reasons why such an old fashioned plant is riding on such a wave of popularity.
Not to be confused with out native frangipani, Hymenosporum flavum, which flowers in October, Plumeria acutifolia (frangipani), originally from the West Indies and Central America, in India, is known as The Temple Tree.
The common name frangipani refers to the heavy perfume of the flowers – Plumeria, the botanical title comme-morates Charles Plumier, a seventh century botanist who described several of the tropical species,
It helps to know a tree’s origins – it is important even for the home gardener to be able to cultivate plants in conditions similar and suitable to their originality.
There are often varying opinions re a frangipani’s height which can be described as growing to nine metres.
In my opinion closer to the mark in our area is a small tree growing to 6m.
Bearing in mind that initially for a few years growth is slow, which makes the frangipani ideal for pot cultivation.
The outstanding characteristic of this lovely tree is its delightful perfume.
It is deciduous and when bare has an open framework of branches that have milky sap, which is poisonous.
In the tropics, the flowers appear before the new leaves whilst in the sub-tropics the flowers come after the leaves.
Frangipanis bloom in colours from white, yellows, pinks and reds, including a new evergreen variety that is pure white, which also brings me back to the frangipanis current wave of popularity.
New releases – each year during the last few seasons, a new frangipani has been marketed, alth-ough I have to say the old fashioned white-yellow flower still seems to be the most popular.
Frangipanis are relatively easy to grow, but beware of old pottery pipes
that can crack and be tempting for invasive roots once the frangipani
begins to mature.
I have noticed my son Scott’s attempt to have a magnificent tree in his front garden could be thwarted by his lawn growing up to the trunk.
Therefore a clear space, a sunny position and regular watering while establishing a frangipani creates the ideal situation for cultivation.
The new evergreen variety, ‘Everlasting Love’, has a leaf form differ-ent to that of the known species – it is claimed it won’t lose its leaves in winter.
We will see what happens when we have an extremely cold winter – its flower is beautiful.
Collectors will love ‘Darwin Blood’ and this year’s release ‘Miss Lu Lu’, which isn’t named after my youngest grand-daughter, (I wish it was) as it is quite beautiful (as she is).
It is pink with a white border around the petal edges.
This week
>> The grasshoppers are decimating many plants – many of them are small and difficult to notice, but they are there in huge numbers.
Similar to the household fly, when you reach for the can of spray they disappear.
Try a pyrethrum spray, if this doesn’t work, Malathon will do the job if you manage to actually spray these pests.
If this fails you may need to resort to Rogor which will at least catch them when they chomp away at the garden.
>> It is time to give roses some attention to prolong flowering through to the colder months.
Cut at least one third off leggy growth, spray with Copper Oxychloride and fertilise with poultry manure as roses like to be slightly alkaline.
>> If petunias are completely finished, consider planting marigolds, lobelia and cosmos to create colour throughout the autumn months.
Prepare spent flower beds with manure and an all-purpose plant food at least a week
before planting out new annuals.
New Release
Growing our own vege-tables has almost become the national pastime and in great demand are organic products.
Debco has a wonderful Organic Mix with 100 per cent NASAA certification.
The National Associ-ation for Sustainable Agric-ulture Australia does not hand out such certification without careful examin-ation of the product.
Organic Mix is com-posed of natural organic ingredients that is boosted with organic fertiliser.
This product is ideal for growing vegetables, herbs and salad greens in containers, but I’m really finding it beneficial to dig in around veggies that are not flourishing in the garden.
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