Hypericums

Hypericum (St John’s Wort) is a numerous species of perennial shrubs and ground covers.

From the description in the gardening dictionary the one pictured is probably Hypericum elatum, from Madeira and the Canary Islands a frost resistant species with open 2.5cm yellow flowers.

The dictionary says ‘flowering in Spring’, but this one still has a few flowers albeit closed ones perhaps because of the wintry conditions.

It is listed as drought tender, but that is scarcely a problem in the Deloraine district this year as up until the final week in June rainfall for the month is 72mm and more forecast for next week.

There are seventeen different species of Hypericums listed in the dictionary, most of them from the Northern Hemisphere but H. japonicum is from Australia and New Zealand. As it is low growing and mat forming, it is possibly the invasive weed we know as St John’s Wort.

The drought and frost tender H. calycinum (the Rose of Sharon) has flowers of the same size as H. elatum but only grows to 0.3m.

In the vegie garden

In well drained gardens, soil may be turned over ready for spring sowings, but best to keep off heavy wet soils, as tramping on this type of soil will consolidate it and exclude vitally important oxygen. (Apropos of this, I do ask farmers with roadside properties to clean off their tractor tyres before venturing out onto the roads.

There is nothing worse than trying to avoid great chunks of heavy wet soil on our narrow country roads.

Two-year asparagus crowns have been noted in garden shops. Dig a trench to spade depth, add a pre-planting fertilizer, plus liberal quantities of organic matter, add the crowns 20–30cm deep and 50–60cm apart, cover with 5cm soil, and fill the trench as the asparagus grows. A little lime should have been mixed with acid soils before planting (from Yates Garden Guide).