Yorkshire Kris blog: Cow protection

[weve]

Great pics-thanks for posting. The Dicksonia antarctica fronds look amazing, do you give it any special treatment?
thanks
weve

[kata]

I found it..the Lobelia cardinalis on a Flash drive I have,

Also looked in the garden, seems to be alive Great thing about taking last minute images before winter you have an idea where they should be.

[sanatic1234]

Lovely pics kris, your garden is amazing im hoping to have an exotic garden like yours soon, im doing a lot of my growing from seed. My canna's are growing well and my Dicksonia antarctica is only a baby with no trunk but still looks gorgeous. My palms haven't grown yet but my success rate on these are very low. lol. Im even thinking about buying a blood vein bananna.

[Nigel Fear]

Kris, looks great, I'm going to have to get myself some of that Lobelia now.

But most of all, those treeferns really set the scene, hope they are still doing well there for you.

[Yorkshire Kris]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. Like a lots of people I've got a small garden but big plans!

No special treatment on the tree ferns. I simply water them every day come rain or shine from May till autumn. I was worried that this would be too much but seems to work. The only problem I found was that the gingers planted close by got too wet in May/June last year when the weather wasn't that warm and died back a bit. The large fern was planted pretty deeply (about 1foot) so I guess this helps with water update (and some nutrients??)

This winter has been a real test of hardiness for the ferns. Not just the minimum temps, but the days if not weeks of really lows temps. Lowest recorded was -7.8 at 1 foot above the ground. The big tree fern is ok but a smaller one is probably a gonner (lots of brown mushy knuckles)

I like to have lots of colour in the garden and the cadinalis, coleus and cannas really deliver (all really cheap too!)

[redsquirrel]

may i ask how long you have been playing around with colour? im having my first year with it and wondered how long i may have to wait to achieve something as good

[Dave Brown]

Great garden Kris, and IMO vibrant colour is as important in an exotic garden as leaf size and shape. Reds are the most tropical colour but need some green to show it off to it's best effect. Love that Lobelia, I have clumps in the pond. Your Dicksonia antarctica are something else

[themes]

I love the Dicksonia antarctica's looks very cosy

[Yorkshire Kris]

Again cheers for the encouraging comments.

Regarding gardening with colour. This is what my garden looked like in early 2008! So answer to your question Red Squirrel only a couple of years.

I am going to plant more plants this year rather than rely on bulbs and bedding, but still keep my palms in pots.

[Simba]

Nice garden Kris, and it's even better when compared to how bare it was just two short years ago....

[redsquirrel]

thanks for sharing that Kris, that is amazing turn around

[Yorkshire Kris]

Hi all,

Just thought I,d give an update on my garden. I lot has grown much better this year with the hot weather. Had lots of trouble with Red Spider Mite this year which held back the colocasias and Bananas. Most pleased with my £20 cycad which survived the winter with no leaf loss. Lost a Dicksonia antarctica tho.

Kris

[Yorkshire Kris]

and a couple more (papyrus from seed last september)

[kata]

Beautiful plants Kris!

I like the palm in the black pot, it look really nice too.

[dk]

Very interesting garden Kris, a great range of plants too! My favorite bit is your arid bed and the potted chamaerops in the background