October 2011
Seminar
California Oaks: Planting & Protecting Our Urban Forests

The Council for Watershed Health are presenting a one day seminar called California Oaks: Planting & Protecting our Urban Forests. The seminar will be held on 17 November at Descanso Gardens in La Canada, Flintridge, California. More information can be found here.
Jean Vaché

September 2011
Latest book by Spanish member Dick Handscombe

Living Well From Our Mediterranean Garden 
Published by the author September 2011, ISBN 978-84-615-3825-6

The book explains how Dick and his wife Clodagh developed a colourful productive and therapeutic Mediterranean garden in order to live well in terms of mental and physical health, gastronomy and family economics. It is based on the author‘s 25 years of gardening experience and experiments in a once self-sufficient Spanish valley that has during this time abandoned most of its agricultural heritage and permitted the building of several hundred legal and illegal houses.

The concepts and practices described will be of interest to those who seek to enjoy to the full the opportunities and benefits of living in a Mediterranean climate, whether their garden is around a villa or town house, a finca or country house or is restricted to the terraces of an apartment or village house.

More information can be found here.

April 2011
A mysterious shrub in the Estérel mountains

Here are some photos of a mysterious shrub (1.70m) which grows isolated in the Estérel mountain-range on the French riviera, far from any dwellings, and which bears flowers in the month of March: the flowers, a dessicated fruit and one seed. Can you help identify this strange plant?
Michèle and Daniel Auvergne

March 2011
The Mediterranean Garden, No 44, April 2006

With the assistance of our former and present MGS Secretaries, I have now managed to acquire all but one of 'TMG's ever published.  The elusive issue is No 44. If any member has a surplus or unwanted copy I would very grateful and will 'reimburse' with a gift of some MGS Sparoza postcards.  
Duncan Munford
Languedoc Branch Member

Announcement
December 2010

MGS Sparoza Postcards

We are happy to announce that two sets of MGS postcards have been published, each containing six cards.

Set 1, 'Bulbs at Sparoza': Amaryllis belladonna; Fritillaria obliqua; Gladiolus tristis; Scilla peruviana; Tulipa saxatilis; a spring scene including Muscari neglectum and Hermodactylus tuberosus.

Set 2, 'Plants at Sparoza': A Crocosmia species with Acanthus mollis and Euphorbia characias; Lavandula dentata; Origanum dictamnus; Salvia leucantha; a Senecio species; a garden scene with flowering Rosmarinus officinalis and Tulipa undulatifolia.

These cards are available to members in return for a donation, as follows: One set of six cards: €6. Both sets of six cards: €10. (Plus the cost of postage.)

If you wish to order cards, please contact the MGS Secretary, Jane Taniskidou, or write to P.O. Box 14, Peania, GR-190 02 Greece. We regret that on-line payment for these cards is not possible.

A message from Marcus Ryan
December 2010

I am a member of the Mediterranean Garden Society, living in dry inland Victoria, Australia. I have 12 years experience working with perennials and grasses at Lambley Nursery here in central Victoria where we trial plants for their hardiness. The climate here reaches 45 degrees Celsius during summer, with frosts to -7 during winter.

 My enthusiasm for Dry Climate plants and gardens has assisted me in applying for a study Fellowship, and I am able to travel through Europe for 7 weeks during May and June of 2011. I have a keen interest in perennials, grasses and bulbs, and I intend to research plant breeding, selection, cultivation and garden design featuring Mediterranean plants.

I have contacted many wonderful people through the MGS, receiving many suggestions for additions to my itinerary. I hope to meet many of you during my travels. If any members have further suggestions, of gardens (public or private), nature reserves, nurseries, garden designers, plant collectors and enthusiasts, I would be grateful. 
I can be contacted by email.

Shade for a small city garden in Provence, France
Eric & Françoise Legrand
October 2010

We have a small newly created "mediterranean garden" and are looking for something to provide shade for a small fishpond. Ideally, this would be a shrub or tree that could be kept to a height of 3 or 4 metres. Something with a spreading branch structure would be nice but we don't have the space for a Morus platanifolia. We already have olive, fig and almond trees, Pistacia lentiscus, Arbustus unedo, Philadelphus virginalis, Laurus nobilis (and others less 'noble' ...) as well as Myrtus communis. As the shrub will be close to the terrace which is one metre higher than the garden we would like something whose branches begin at 1.5 to 2 metres. It could be evergreen or not, and if its flowers attracted bees, so much the better. However it must be able to withstand temperatures of minus 12° Celsius for a couple of days in winter - it must also require very little watering (or none) once established, in full sun for five months of the year, in a true mediterranean climate (over 30° and almost no rain). Thanks in advance for your suggestions by email.

A Tribute to Meye Maier 1944-2010
Cali Doxiadis
May 2010

Meye could deliver a learned, insightful and organized presentation of Islamic gardens while sorting and consulting a jumble of crumpled papers. She produced whole plants out of her capacious pockets demanding growing instructions, roared with laughter at involuntary mistakes in her own voluble idiosyncratic English, and giggled as she pointed out and mimicked the ridiculous postures assumed by botanisers in thrall to a specimen.

Always contradictory, she could be blithely though involuntarily hurtful (and sometimes pointedly insulting) in her casual criticism, while at the same time performing an impulsive and generous act of true friendship. She was an enthusiast in her life, her work, her plants and her writings.

She made an art of fashion design and perfumery and was a gifted botanical artist and photographer. Larger than life and passionate, her presence at MGS events never passed unnoticed. We will miss her. I will miss her.

Back Copies of The Mediterranean Garden

Copies of most issues of The Mediterranean Garden are available for members and non-members. Consult the full list of Journal back copies and their contents. Price per copy (incl. postage) is 8.00 euros.
Contact: the MGS Secretary, PO Box 14, Peania, GR-19002 Greece or by email.

Members only are offered copies of the older issues that are still available, up to no. 45 (July 2006), in packs of ten. The cost is €10 per ten copies plus postage & packing. Please consult Sundries in The Mediterranean Garden no. 58 for the cost per packet in your area.

Cuscuta
Jon Parker, BH Italy
July 2009

Cuscuta – Dodder, Devil's guts/hair/ringlet, Goldthread, Hail/Hairweed, Helbine, Love vine, Pull-down, Strangleweed and Witch’s hair.

Help ... Have any of you come across this nightmare? Do you know of an effective treatment against it? Evidently the seeds may lie dormant in the soil for up to six years.

Believe it or not, this arrived in the very expensive packet of wild flower seeds from an Italian supplier that I had recommended. See photographs (normally of the more beautiful parts of our garden): the last photograph being of the result from a packet of seed direct from France - "Vive la différence!" - needless to say, without Cuscuta.

Email suggestions to Jon

Shade tree for Montepulciano, Tuscany
John and Brigid Salt
June 2009

Has anybody a suggestion for a medium-sized shade tree to put in a south-facing courtyard near Montepulciano, Tuscany? I don't want to use a mulberry or an olive tree — we have them elsewhere. I wondered about a white American dogwood (Cornus florida) or may be a prunus such as Prunus yedoensis (yoshino cherry) or Prunus sato-zakura okumiyako. Something with an spreading branch structure would be nice. Email suggestions to John and Brigid.

Keeping your journals
Fleur Pavlidis
February 2009

With the offer of free back issues being so popular, many members will now find themselves with a whole shelf of TMGs; or possibly a pile wishing it had shelf space. Illustrated are two ways that members have dealt with the problem of keeping their TMGs tidy.

In Greece Ariadne Condelis introduced us to a covered cardboard box which holds exactly 40 copies and takes up only the width and a bit of one journal on the shelf. The boxes are 15.5 x 24.75 cm externally, with sloping sides so that the journals are accessible. The board is 0.3 cm thick and is strengthened to double thickness in the front. What makes the boxes attractive enough to appear on the bookshelf is the covering of book-binders' fabric. We now get regular deliveries from the box-maker and many members have benefitted.

Photo by D Michaelides

In Turkey Robin Pierce has had his journals bound into these smart volumes, one per year.

Robin writes,"I've got the last stack of journals at the binders in Izmir. As you can see from the enclosed photo I have more than half done but due to the vagaries of supply the cover colour has changed mid stream to the rather glitzy silver. Let's hope he doesn't run out before the remainder is finished and we have to put up with a third tone in the series!"

I must say I think the change of tone adds rather than subtracts.

Photo by R Pierce