Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
On a visit to King Island last week, I was once again amazed by the adaptability of plants and their ability to thrive in extremely demanding conditions.
When you see Chrysocephalum apiculatum, known as yellow buttons, and Calocephalus brownii, known as silver or cushion bush, growing a mere 30m off the rocky shoreline, you can’t help but be impressed.
These plants are growing in a meagre amount of soil trapped in the rock crevices fully exposed to the howling winds of the Roaring Forties, and often being covered in sea spray as the waves crash into the rocks on the shore.
Yet here they are, growing quite happily until they are taken over by coastal grasses and tea tree as you move further inland.
Certain characteristics of plants enable them to grow in certain situations, and if we keep this in mind when deciding our plant selections, we can work with Mother Nature rather than struggle against it.
A good example of this is the use of narrow growing plants for narrow gardens, so that we are not forever pruning plants to keep them in control.
This situation is one we are often asked about.
In most cases, within reason, there are solutions whereby using the plants’ natural characteristics we can solve the dilemma.
For a narrow growing plant in a shaded area, you could consider using some of the slimline camellias like Camellia Slimline With Love, which has a narrow upright habit and will flower all autumn long with lightly perfumed soft pink blooms.
Growing to about 2m high by 1.5m wide, they will thrive in sun or part shade.
Another to consider would be Camellia Slimline Avalanche, a popular Australian-bred camellia renowned for its slender and compact growth habit, making it ideal for narrow spaces.
It produces a profusion of white flowers from autumn through to winter and can reach about 3m high by 1.5m wide.
Syzygium Up and Away is a quick-growing lilly pilly that stays compact and narrow and is ideal for a dense screening hedge.
Its columnar habit and stunning glossy green foliage with bronze new growth makes it a standout among the many varieties of medium-sized screening lilly pillies available.
Growing from 3m to 5m high by 1m to 2m wide, they are frost tolerant, drought tolerant once established and very hardy.
Callistemon Slim is a narrow growing native bottle brush that can reach 3m high by 1.5m wide with red bottlebrush flowers.
It is a typically hardy bottlebrush that has a bushy upright habit with foliage all the way from the ground up, unless pruned otherwise.
Cancan makes a good quick-growing privacy screen.
Ilex crenata Sky Pencil is a tight upright form of Japanese holly that grows up to 3m high by about 80cm wide.
It has small, glossy, dark green foliage and grows in full sun to part shade.
It is a slow to medium growing evergreen shrub that requires good drainage and likes a slightly cooler spot in the garden.
A great feature plant if you are prepared to put the work in.
Prunus Oakville Crimson Spire is a narrow form of flowering plum with rich burgundy foliage and light pink to white flowers in spring.
This deciduous small tree grows to 6m high and around 2m wide and is extremely hardy.
In my opinion, they are a much better choice than an ornamental capital pear for residential gardens, being a more manageable size with a better-behaved root system.
For larger gardens Quercus palustris Pringreen or Green Pillar is a great choice of a large, narrow feature tree.
It is a pin oak with a tight columnar habit with deeply lobed foliage that is vibrant green in summer and turns various shades of bronze and deep red in the autumn before dropping its leaf.
Fully grown, they can reach about 14m high by around 3m wide and make a great columnar avenue tree.
By using the natural forms and characteristics of plants you can achieve effective solutions for tight narrow spaces around your garden and save yourself hours of maintenance work.
But if you are not fussed by the extra work, you could look at espaliering or trellising plants to give you the results you want.
We have a few beautiful mature examples of these around our Golf Gardens and Garden Centre Gardens to check out.
We can also explain how much work is involved and how to go about getting them started.
So, call in over the weekend and have a chat, we are always happy to help you have success in your garden.