Perennials Archives - The Green Door

Apr 232017 Tagged with Algarve, coastal plants, Hawke's Bay, Napier, Ocean Beach, Waimarama — 0 Responses

The Algarve’s Coastal Plants

We’ve enjoyed several days poking around the Algarvian coastline scrutinising the plants that have naturalised in this harsh environment with a view to repeating these plants in our home coastal plantings – Waimarama, Ocean Beach, Napier in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand.

These plants are growing in what appears to be pure sand, they’re obviously not irrigated and cope with the harsh coastal salt winds and the very hot summer temperatures that occur here. Albeit the more wind exposure they’re in the shorter and more compact they grow – but they are very healthy.

These plants would obviously be great choices for NZ coastal gardens. Plant in Autumn as soon as the weather has cooled and the Autumn showers/rain has started and they should be able to look after themselves.

Small evergreen shrubs such as Cistus Snowmound, various low growing forms of Rosemary, Lithodora, Helianthemum, Ice Plants, Thyme, Armeria, Spanish Lavender stoechas will all thrive in very light soils – even sand as we saw in the Algarve. They look great together and require nothing but a light trim every Autumn to keep them tidy and compact.

Apr 232017 Tagged with Algarve, Cistus, hiking, lavender, Monchique, Portugal, walking — 0 Responses

Monchique to the Algarve

Monchique proved to be a great choice for walking both in the mountains and out at the coast. Either side of our rural Casa aptly named Casa Vale dos Sobreiros – house in the valley of the Holm Oak trees there were mountains. Foia on one side and Picota on the other. We were spoilt for choice. To the south and west we had the coastline of the Algarve to poke around. We had four days and a lot of walking planned.

One thing about walking in Spain and Portugal – you practically never have to worry about the weather. It maybe a little cool in the morning but by noon it seems to be always around 22 and by 4-5pm 26-27 unless you are very high up.

The mountains of Foia and Picota are covered with Spanish lavender, Green Lavender, white rock rose and spots of blue – Lithodora and spots of white – Arenaria. If you imagine a walk in NZ and how many manuka bushes there are – multiply that by 10,000 and that’s around how many white rock roses you’ll find on a walk in this area of the world. VERY pretty.

May 052015 0 Responses

Fritillarias in Paklenica National Park

Before we left NZ the Mother had been looking up Fritillarias on her IPad and had found that there were 76,000 of them growing in a park just 10 minutes from where the Nephew has just moved to in Oxford. He was despatched to capture them on film. Which he obliging did as the lucky blighter only has to walk 40 mins down the tow path of the canal to get there.

That started us wondering if they were to be found in Croatia…. seemingly Mr Wikipedia told us we were MORE likely to see them in Slovenia… Read More…

May 012015 0 Responses

Great dry garden combo’s on Pag Island, Croatia

When you see plants growing in the wild, where they can choose where to grow it gives you a veray good idea of where to plant them successfully at home. Also why, in some instances you can be unsuccessful if trying to grow them in damp or clay soils.

I often recommend Euphorbia, Sage or other Salvias and Cistus (rock roses) as a great foliage/ colour combination for very dry areas. And when you see where they naturally thrive it is truly amazing just HOW DRY they like it as seen here where all the lime green in the distance is naturalised Euphorbia on Pag Island.