Mexican Fleabane, Erigeron karvinskianus

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Erigeron karvinskianus

I love daisies, whether in the lawn (Daisy, Bellis perennis), wild flower meadow (Ox-eye Daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare), or in the garden border (Echinacea, Rudbeckia etc.). My favourite, at the moment anyway, is the Mexican Fleabane, Erigeron karvinskianus.

Mexican Fleabane loves a dry, sunny spot such as a wall or paving or the edge of a path or raised bed. It grows as a low carpet and will rapidly soften up the edges of stonework. It flowers profusely throughout the summer, starting even earlier in milder springs. Well drained soil suits it best, as it doesn’t like damp winters.

I first saw this lovely plant at Hestercombe Gardens, near Taunton in Somerset, ten years ago, growing on the edges of stone steps and in cracks in paving. I planted it in Grapes Hill Community Garden, at the edges of paths, on my allotment where it copes well in the dry, sandy soil and in the big raised bed in our front garden. The plant is easily raised from seed and will self-sow readily, so you can give pieces to friends.

Mexican Fleabane is native to Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, but it now grows in parts of Africa, Europe, New Zealand, and on the west coast of the United States. It is a serious problem in Hawaii and Réunion as it form dense mats that smother native plants and it seeds profusely. It is illegal to introduce the plant into Portugal, New Zealand and New Caledonia.

In Britain, with our current climate, Mexican Fleabane is easy to control and you can pull it up if it grows in an unwanted spot. Carol Klein offers advice on how to use Erigeron karvinskianus to build your own daisy wall.

Erigeron karvinskianus

Mexican Fleabane, Erigeron karvinskianus, softening up the edges of our raised bed.

Catmint, Nepeta x faassenii

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Nepeta x faassenii 'walker's Low'

Nepeta x faassenii ‘Walker’s Low’ in our gravel garden

I love Catmint, especially the widely grown Nepeta x faassenii, a beautiful deciduous perennial with grey-green leaves and dense spikes of violet-blue flowers. I planted two varieties in our gravel garden last June and they flowered well in their first year. A year on, they are most impressive (as the above photo of our Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ shows). The flowers are covered with honeybees, bumblebees and at least two species of solitary bees, while butterflies also visit from time to time.

The plants are also scented, a rather pungent herby smell. You wouldn’t want to use it in cooking, but the scent is reminiscent of other members of its family, the Lamiaceae, such as thyme, lavender and marjoram.

The closely related Catnip, Nepeta cataria, grows more upright, with white flowers. Both it and Nepeta x faassenii contain a volatile oil, nepetalactone, which many domestic and wild cats find attractive. The attraction is controlled by a dominant gene and up to 30% of domestic cats in a population may not respond. Kittens under three months old tend to avoid the plants and then can develop an attraction when they are older. Affected cats may sniff, lick and chew the plant and rub their heads against it, for up to fifteen minutes when the effect wears off. In extreme cases, cats can cause severe damage to the plant, which can be very annoying, especially if it isn’t your cat that is doing the damage.

In humans the same chemical is alleged to cause aggressive behaviour and The Poison Garden website suggests that a hangman might consume some Catmint on a working day to get into the right mood to perform his duties. Personally, I would find that a cat rolling in my patch of Catmint would invoke a similar response. Smoking Catmint appears to have the opposite effect – the Plants for a Future website says that smoking Nepeta cataria can produce euphoria and visual hallucinations. The plant also has diuretic properties when eaten.

Cats apart, I can’t recommend Catmint highly enough. Nepeta x faassenii likes a sunny spot with well drained soil but I have grown it on a bank in heavy clay at The Belvedere Centre in Norwich and it copes with some light shade. In our back garden, it grows in well drained soil with a gravel covering, in a bed that is in shade throughout the winter months. There are several well-known cultivars: ‘Six Hills Giant‘ grows to three feet tall, ‘Walker’s Low’ is a bit shorter but still upright and there are dwarfer forms such as ‘Kit Cat’, and the white flowered ‘Alba’ is also available. My second variety is the ordinary Nepeta x faassenii and that is also very lovely and grows to about two feet tall.

Update, December 2016: Anthophora quadrimaculata, the Four-banded Flower-bee

We have recently submitted bee records from our garden from the past four years. In doing so we have discovered that our garden has one of the most northerly British records of the solitary bee Anthophora quadrimaculata, the Four-banded Flower-bee.

Our Catmint is one of its favourite plants and small numbers of A. quadrimaculata have visited the flowers each summer since 2013.

The only other Norfolk records have been from another Norwich garden in September 1982 and on a cliff at Gorleston in July 2015 (Nick Owens, “Bees of Norfolk” (2017)).

Rain!

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According to the Met Office forecast, we’ve had a dry but cloudy morning here in Norwich. When I venture outside, however, fine but steady rain is falling and has been since shortly after 9 o’clock this morning.

I mustn’t complain; Norwich normally has dry weather, often sunny but sometimes just dry and cloudy. When the weather is coming from the west, forecast rain frequently fizzles out before it reaches us. We frequently go for weeks with no significant rainfall. But sometimes, like today, rain comes in from the North Sea and catches us all out, including the weather forecasters.

The soil in our garden and on our allotment is dry and sandy and there is often a layer of dust on the surface. This means I have to water shallow-rooted seedlings, though the dust actually acts as a natural mulch and protects plants with deeper roots.

At the moment, however, the allotment soil looks lovely – dark, fertile and rich. The vegetables, fruit and flowers on the allotment are growing well in these conditions, as are poppies and oxeye daisies in the wildflower meadow in the back garden.

Poppies and oxeye daisies

Poppies and oxeye daisies