News from Jasmin and the Biggar Bothy

The past month in my Biggar garden ….

Copper Chionochloa: If you have space, this evergreen New Zealand grass Chionochloa rubra, is the perfect all year round plant.

It turns olive green in summer, and in winter a beautiful copper colour. It doesn’t need cutting back, though if you have to, it will look quite ugly for a time, but will come back. I have it next to the black ‘grass’ – Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ and surrounded by blue Muscari. It prefers full sun but will cope with semi-shade.

Rhododendrons – this one – Rhodo. oreodoxa (var fargesii?), sits in splendid isolation, in the middle of the garden and the middle of my view. Normally it has a few flowers which get frosted, or none at all. This year it was covered. In buds, and just before it erupted, it was beautiful, subtle colours, beautifully shaped buds. It then became a huge pink lump, obscuring all the subtle blossoms in the garden – the tall gean with butterfly flowers beyond it, the soft whites, creams and blues of forget me nots, Cream and green Iris pseudacorus ‘Variagatus’. And the bright acid green of Euphorbia polycroma. I shouldn’t complain, it was splendid.

Jasmin Cann