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What's Looking Good in January 2025

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Tetters said:
Nigel, however did you get salvifolia to bloom in January?
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Me I did nothing @Tetters it this blessed mild winter.
Yes it's a South African variety, but it's found all the way up the East Coast to Tanzania and also over in Angola and Zambia.
This is the white form and looks and behaves completely differently to the blue form. Alba has always flowered before the blue form and the scent is different. Apparently a very variable species and the wild population includes yellowish and pinkish flowered forms which are not hardy in the UK.
I lost the blue form last year it seems to have succumbed to the wet winter and spring of 23/24. It's on the replace list.
That wet spell finished off 4 Buddleja a Viburnum "Dawn" and a Grevillea rosemarifolius all seem to have died of root rots as getting them out was relatively easy.
 
If those really hardy shrubs managed to snuff it with root rot, you must have soil that doesn't drain very well. I've had a few sudden deaths here over the years, but never found root rot - we're on chalk.
I have suspected phytophthora and honey fungus, but not wet root rot. One case of scale went unnoticed for months, but a ground height ''prune'' fixed that on some Euonymus. It took a while to grow back, but it's fine again now. The scale was good for the bonfire!
We agree, we need a few more good frosts to do away with some of those bugs!
 
Normally my soil drains too well as I'm just below the brow of a hill and is very dry by the end of summer. Some parts have clay, other bits are shallow soil over rock. It could have been phytophthora, no sign of honey fungus though. All of the plants flowered well and leafed up, then late spring to mid summer the leaves wilted and dropped. In some cases the bark on the main stem/stems had split and easily came off.
 
NigelJ said:
Normally my soil drains too well as I'm just below the brow of a hill and is very dry by the end of summer. Some parts have clay, other bits are shallow soil over rock. It could have been phytophthora, no sign of honey fungus though. All of the plants flowered well and leafed up, then late spring to mid summer the leaves wilted and dropped. In some cases the bark on the main stem/stems had split and easily came off.
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Nigel, just a thought - how would you distinguish the difference between Phytophthora and root root...is it actually the same thing? My cases of phytophthora were first identified for me by an expert friend who had a crop analysis type business, but I've always thought of root rot as a separate problem - is it?
 
Tetters said:
Nigel, just a thought - how would you distinguish the difference between Phytophthora and root root...is it actually the same thing? My cases of phytophthora were first identified for me by an expert friend who had a crop analysis type business, but I've always thought of root rot as a separate problem - is it?
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Like most gardeners I can't and I originally used root rot as a general term because the shrubs showed signs of poor water uptake and then cam out the ground very easily.
 
@Sheal it's fully hardy down to -15°C . I planted it there because it's not an attractive wall and I provides a bit of camouflage for the grey wheelie bin. It's facing due East so it gets morning sun then shade, not wonderful drainage there. It's been there 20+ years and there are suckers/seedlings underneath it. It suffers a bit from wind burn due to the exposure and gets tidied up a couple of times a year. It's also near the front door so that the postman gets the benefit of the scent.
 
Thanks for the information @NigelJ. (y) I'm extending the bed in the situation below. If it makes sense - towards the bottom of the picture. The problem is the space between the bungalow and stone wall is only 8ft. The bungalow is side on - on the plot and this side faces north and the wall south so the only sunshine the bed gets is when it first rises. That said I'm looking for shrubs that would be happy in shade.

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Sheal said:
Thanks for the information @NigelJ. (y) I'm extending the bed in the situation below. If it makes sense - towards the bottom of the picture. The problem is the space between the bungalow and stone wall is only 8ft. The bungalow is side on - on the plot and this side faces north and the wall south so the only sunshine the bed gets is when it first rises. That said I'm looking for shrubs that would be happy in shade.

View attachment 2833
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The new Encore Azaleas are nice, they bloom in spring and periodically throughout the year.
 
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