Outgrown their positions...
I've gone all fierce - I've suddenly had enough of the big drab Phormium Tenaxes which are dotted around the house gardens. These fearsome foliage plants have outgrown their positions. Large flaxes will in future only be allowed by the water race.
Sunday 27th February
Right. The special garden visitor I have been twittering on about has been, and gone. She is an inspiration! We have just spent a wet couple of hours wandering slowly around the Moosey garden.
Jester Flax :- Some of the only hybrids to behave and stay the right shape are the Jester flaxes.
I have, with lots of positive reinforcement from her, a major new plan, involving my large oversized Phormium Tenaxes. They all started life as 'wee cuties', with coloured stripes and little leaf lengths.
This was such a pretty look - a foliage feature, proudly New Zealand native, taking up such a small space. They knew their place - and knew that 'upright' meant upright!
Bulky and Drab
The reality is that many have done quite a bit of reverting - back to the original species with tall stiff uncompromising leaves and a pushy, bulky habit. They have lost all their vibrant colours, becoming very drab and very stout (exactly what can happen to old lady gardeners). The days of tactically ignoring these monster Phormiums are over. My special garden visitor and I reckon that it's time for action. This is extremely serious stuff, and could involve one or more of the following:
A sharp kitchen knife, secateurs, a delicately angled bow saw, or the chainsaw.
Rural Volunteer Fireman
Flaxes Due for Demolition
The following flaxes are due for demolition:
- 1. The cute small red flax in the driveway.
This flax is no longer cute, small, or red. It is too big and very drab. And the fire truck can't get past it (so a responsible country gardener, whose partner is a rural volunteer fireman, has no alternative but to insist on its removal).
- 2. The large oversized far-too-big flax in the JAM Garden.
This flax was an early settler, coming from my friend's seaside garden, where it was growing too big for its position. Alas! It has done the same thing here. The leaves overhang the lawn, and flax leaves are bad news if caught up in the lawn-mower. The same partner who is a rural volunteer fireman mows the lawns.
- 3. The small, subtle, striped flax by the house patio.
This flax is no longer small, no longer subtle, and no longer striped. Like the two flaxes above it has reverted to stiff tall olive drab, and is completely crowding out the Nancy Steen roses and the climbing rose Compassion. I am a romantic gardener at heart, and so the roses win.
- 4. The wee red-toned striped flax by the glass-house.
You guessed it - no longer wee, no longer red-toned, no longer striped! I've already had to move the small path away from it twice. It's completely blocking the Cotinus (such a beautiful plant) and the Miscanthus Zebrinus (ha! proper stripes).
- 5. The cute red bargain bin flax underneath the Copper Beech tree.
Less of a bargain and more of a nightmare for the mower of the Moosey lawns, this is now a ridiculously oversized, non-striped flax. Because of this flax my David Austin roses in the Dog-Path Garden have suffered from poor air circulation, resulting in every fungal rose disease known to non-spraying rose gardeners.
Mary Rose in Late Summer
If only I'd noticed (when these flaxes were first growing) the odd leaf which had the species colouring - and got the secateurs in then and there! Wise after the event. All my newer flaxes will be seriously checked this week - before February finishes - and offending leaves cut out. And right now I am off to do battle with offending flax number three. I will not write another word until I am semi-victorious.
Ha! Three quarters of an hour later and number three is gone! The kitchen knife (oops) and the secateurs did a brilliant job. I have even cleared up the mess (the roots are still there, but the flax is cut off at ground level). So I could remove one a day, after tea and before bedtime...
Monday 28th February - Bex's Birthday
Happy Birthday to my web-site manager, who is always complaining that my pictures are out of focus. She implies that I am getting wobbly in my older gardening age - I've tried to tell her about the New Zealand wind, but I don't think she believes me!
Wisteria Growing on the House Pergola
And by the way - I hear you've been given some New Zealand flaxes for your rooftop London garden. Simultaneously, half way around the world in a much warmer (though windy) place, I'm busy rampaging through the Moosey garden with flax-demolishing equipment. Such symmetry - hee hee!