Jungle Drums

Cleome amongst Canna leaves

We grow many plants in the gardens of the nursery that we don’t actually stock in our range. This is frustrating for our visitors – they fall in love with a plant they see in the ground but are unable to take a potted specimen home with them and frustrating for us too. This weekend I've been asked at least a dozen times for Cleome.

Spider-like, long-stamens on two-tone Cleome

We’ve planted lots of Cleome hassierana ‘Colour Fountain’ (Spider flower) in the Edible Jungle. They’re so exotic looking with their extremely long lasting fat, bottle-brush-shaped heads of pink, white and mauve spidery flowers on 2m tall stems. What’s more, they make an excellent, long-lasting cut flower. In truth, we did have a few plants to spare at the beginning of the season but the problem is they’re an annual. By the time they look at their best in the garden they no longer have any shelf appeal in the nursery. The best we can do is to send the enquirer away with a scrap of paper with the name scribbled on it and the suggestion that they buy a packet of seed the following spring. Maybe we should start stocking seeds – now there’s a thought.

Cosmos in shades of orange

Tomato red Cosmos

The same applies to annual Cosmos (Mexican aster). These are Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Polaris’ and a packet of seed sown in early spring this year produced hundreds of plants. Originating from Mexico they have very pretty, feathery foliage and single, bowl-shaped flowers in the richest orange. Other varieties have white, pink or purple flowers. We chopped ours back earlier in the season to encourage bushier plants. Despite having a reputation for requiring full sun to produce a good flower display, they’re doing pretty well in a shadier part of the garden.

Dahlia 'Vuurvogel'	Dahlia 'Alfred Grille'
Dahlia 'Firepot'

This year our Dahlia collection is looking superb. They’re rapidly becoming one of my favourite plants (this week anyway). Dahlia enthusiasts would never run out of plants to add to a collection – there are over 20,000 cultivars! We’ve always stocked a small range of Dahlias such as Dahlia ‘David Howard’ and this year we have ‘Sarah’ which has lovely dark foliage and deep red single flowers.
But in the Edible Jungle we have dozens of fancy-pants Dahlias with huge flower heads in a rainbow assortment of colours. They’ve grown into such healthy, fat specimens, with masses of flowers per plant. Deadheading is becoming very time consuming. I consider these to be the real show stoppers in the Edible Jungle, but we don’t have them available to take home. We simply must for next year though.

Dahlia imperialis (Tree dahlia)

Our Dahlia imperialis (Tree dahlia) survived winter outside this year and has grown into a sizeable plant already but no sign of flowers. I’ve yet to see one in flower in the flesh. Still, it makes a terrific foliage plant.

Gourds taking over the greenhouse near the Koi Pond

The glasshouse with the Koi pond is becoming more jungly by the day, thanks to the gourds we’ve planted around the bridges. These are snake gourds and the amount of growth is phenomenal. They’ve twined around posts, poles, shade netting and are now growing out of the roof vents.

Gourd tendrils reaching for Colocasia 'Black Diamond'	Snake gourd flower
Young Snake gourd fruits. These will elongate and coil over the next couple of months.

They’d twist their tendrils around us if we stood next to them for 20 minutes or so. I’m so pleased with the leafy, vine effect they’re creating but already dreading the clean up operation in late autumn. They’re producing very pretty white flowers and some are growing fruits.

Snake gourd fruit with blossom end rot

Blossom end rot, where the fruits begin to form but rot where the flower is still attached has been a problem and is possibly caused by inconsistent watering, so this is something we’re got to get to grips with. Again, these are plants that we grow for our own and our customers’ enjoyment while at the nursery, and when asked, we simply advise to buy seeds to sow in spring next year.

Dinosaur gourd growing up dead lemon tree

Monstrous Dinosaur gourd in the making

The Dinosaur Gourd growing at the entrance to the glasshouse has one magnificent fruit on it though. I saw these at a garden show last year and knew I just had to grow them myself. They can develop huge, monstrous-looking fruits with heavily textured, plated, veined skins. This plant is being supported by the trunk and branches of a rather large but sadly dead-as-a-Dodo lemon tree – yet another casualty of winter 2010/11.

Nobbly young gourd in the Edible Jungle

In the Edible Jungle we have yet more ornamental gourds and these are producing fruits in a variety of shape and colour. We had a group of ladies from The Congo visiting Norwich last week and they popped along to see the garden. They told us that they eat the boiled leaves – rather like we would eat spinach. I don’t know whether I’ll be trying them. They’re rather prickly.