Celmisia Display

As promised here’s an image of one of our Celmisia beds at Eggleston Hall Gardens (we have three).

The clumps of plants are lifted and divided late summer through autumn, and separated into individual plants; these are then trimmed of the old corky core which gives them the impression of having no roots. In actual fact apart from a small section of baseplate they haven’t, it is the regeneration of new roots that makes the process successful, were we not to cut the old rooted core off it would likely rot up through the plant.

Having been trimmed and tidied up of dead and decaying leaves they are potted into a gritty alpine type compost and left outside to grow on over the winter. Dead simple really I suppose. If only it were. Celmisia’s hate wet soil and we add grit for free drainage and added weight to the pot.

Architecturally they are a highly prized plant for their year round silvery evergreen (shouldn’t that be eversilver?) foliage. I do not like them but get well paid for their production. After harvesting we replant between five hundred and a thousand new plants which will take between three to four years to reach a size suitable for the above process to start again. I do not like Celmisia’s but my customer’s do, the only part I find attractive is the simple purity of the individual flower which I’ll show you tomorrow.