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Cultivation: -
There is much
conflicting advice given about how to grow Eccremocarpus.
It would be most
disingenuous of us to be critical of the experts, so we shall simply state
our own findings about what suited the plants we grew. The
borders in which we planted our Eccremocarpus started out as solid clay
with perhaps 6in (15cm) of top-soil, this was dug to a depth of more than
3ft (1m) and very heavily limed to break up the clay. Next we added as
much well-rotted organic material as possible, including horse-manure,
sawdust from a local coppiced wood, decaying timber also obtained from the
coppiced wood, and manure obtained from a local farmer. The completed
border started out almost 3ft higher than the surrounding soil and had to
be kept in place by positioning paving slabs on their side in the manner
of a retaining wall. Over a period of 12 months the border gradually
reduced in height and settled at a level 2ft higher than the original
soil. In essence there was 5ft (1.5m) of rich organic soil in this new
flower bed. Also apparent by the numerous deposits at the soil surface
were a multitudinous new generation of worms all playing their part in
working our new border. The icing on the cake were the small clumps of
tiny, honey-coloured and mushroom-grey, toadstools reflecting that we had
achieved our objective of encouraging fungal activity. Living
in East Anglia, where the area can certainly be described being a
mild-Winter region, certainly helped with establishing our plants, which
we raised from seed purchased at the local garden centre during late
February. We noted that the dark-red and plum coloured flowers grew on
plants with very dark-green leaves, the orange on mid- to dark-green
leaved plants and the creams and yellows on plants with much brighter
green leaves, where the leaf colour was distinguishable at the seedling
stage. The
back of our flower bed was a north facing wall, to which we had attached
dark-green plastic netting to give our plants some support and help them
on their way. It was at this point we made our first mistake. Having read
the growing instructions and descriptions that the seed packet carried, we
anticipated only a 3ft spread, so we duly planted the young plants in the
pre-planned positions we had chosen for them leaving only 4ft (1.2m)
between each plant. A big mistake. Over
the growing season, the orange flowered forms of our new addition to the
garden grew rampantly, quickly exceeding the height of the 6.6ft (2m)
wall, both falling back towards the garden only to cling to themselves and
start the climb once again, and tumbling over the other side of the wall
and climbing into our neighbour's trees, fortunately our neighbour saw the
unplanned encroachment as a freebie. Our monsters spread far further than
we had anticipated and virtually covered the entire wall in a thick coat
of dark-green leaves, and a virtual firework display of dazzling orange
flowers. Our
disappointment was brought about by the fact that the less vigorous and
perhaps more desirable colour forms were being swamped by the orange ones,
although they too were exceeding the promised form in terms of height and
spread, their attempts to flower were quickly hidden by the orange
flowered kinds, so the end result was a predominance of orange flowers
with occasional islands of red, pink and yellow, islands that were quickly
drowned in a sea of orange. By
the end of the year all of our plants had developed thick, woody, basal
stems, and were still in growth, far exceeding our expectations. Then the
first serious frosts arrived. By midday all the frozen soft sappy stems
began to resemble thawed out lettuce as during the day the temperatures
began to climb once again. We
decided on this occasion not to remove the season's growth, hoping that
what remained would provide some protection during the Winter. Through the
Winter the action of wind and what warmth penetrated the wall saw the wet
mess of leaves and stems, begin to dry out, turn brown and blow away on
the breeze, leaving us with just a framework of woody stems still hanging
on to a few of the many leaves of Summer. Inevitably
Spring arrived, the air warmed, and light levels increased. Yes a lot of
the woody stems higher up our plants were dead, but lower down there were
new buds bursting forth to start the process of growth all over again. We
decided that now would be a good time to prune out the dead material, and
many of the unwanted stems that had survived Winter. And this time we
determined to keep the orange flowered varieties under control, and
encourage the other colour forms. As
Spring progressed we found that our Eccremocarpus had self-seeded in the
most prolific fashion. With seedlings popping up almost anywhere there was
reasonable soil. Indeed even our neighbours had free Eccremocarpus, but
unlike our thugs, which were planted in deep, moist, organic soil, the
plants our neighbours had, were more polite, producing fewer leaves, fewer
flowers and struggled to achieve what the seed packet suggested. We
can only conclude that Eccremocarpus will restrict the number of leaves it
produces to protect it from excess transpiration, and that with less
moisture and leaves, it does not have the energy to grow as vigorously as
it can when conditions are more favourable. When
Eccremocarpus is happy, it produces an oval seed pod about 1in (2.5cm)
long, for every fertilised flower, and each pod contains several hundred
small black seeds each in a paper-thin envelope. These seed pods mature
throughout the year and split to release their seeds both on still and
breezy days, so if you possess an Eccremocarpus, you can expect that very
soon your neighbours will have one too. By
the time we moved to pastures new, our orange Eccremocarpus had basal
stems some 1.75in (4.5cm) in diameter, and were still going strong.
However, we did lose a few of the other colour forms with the advent of
Winter, and deep snow. However, I believe that this may have been due to
the fact that we pruned the plants down to a reasonable height before
Winter set upon us Most
gardening books advise that Eccremocarpus should be grown as Annuals, and
this should not be a problem if some of the seed produced by the plants is
kept for the purpose of renewal come next Spring, but grown as a
perennial, Eccremocarpus starts flowering almost as soon as Spring
arrives, and at a time of year when there are few if any other climbing
plants that will produce such a spectacular brightly coloured display. In
Summary. Eccremocarpus
needs moist, deep-soil, enriched with well-rotted manure, and will enjoy
any aspect provided that it receives uninterrupted light, not necessarily
direct sunlight. If
happy Eccremocarpus will not resent being severely pruned during the
growing season, to contain any ambitions it may have of going next door,
or swamping your pride and joy. |
