• High altitude gardens
• Keep your plants healthy
• Longevity of Mediterranean plants
• Pests on Mediterranean Plants
• Plants in pots
• Stabilizing gardens on slopes

Longevity of Mediterranean plants

Over the last few months Loukia’s Landscapes has been producing a small gardening feature for the local Pafos TV, it usually runs on a Wednesday evening every 3 weeks so its appropriate, I think, to try to combine this feature with the theme of the discussion for this month, therefore we have chosen to talk about how to make your plants live for a much longer period without them becoming long and leggy and overgrown resulting in eventually having to remove them after a few years and replacing them because of their poor condition. Have you ever had a plant that you have never pruned or cut back just to find that eventually the nice fresh foliage eventually ends up at the top of the plant, or at the end of the stems but it has bare stems from the base up to the end of the plant. Of course after several years you can safely say that this plant looks rather ugly with its long woody stems and just a small bush of foliage. So heres some tips on how to keep your garden looking in tip top condition for years and years. First of all, if you have not been looking after your plants, i.e. pruning regularly then it may not be possible to try to resurrect these plants, it may simply be just too late. This is a method that needs to be adopted right at the beginning of planting new plants. The reason for this, as we have discussed many times before is that plants in Cyprus grow 10 times quicker than they do in, say, the UK, therefore controlling your plants right from the beginning before they get out of hand is so important. For example, take the plant Solanum, you probably recognize this shrub by its abundant displays of deep purple buttercup sized flowers. This is a perfect example of how quickly a plant can start to get overgrown and look out of control. Initially the shrub should be planted very small, so buy it in approximately a 5 Litre pot size. After it has been planted, but only if it is planted in full sun, coupled with an automatic watering the plant will need to be pruned down to its lowest green shoots, the reason for this is that it will then encourage the plant to bush from the base, and if it starts to grow foliage from the base it will always look nice and lush because it will start to produce dense foliage from below, most people however, don’t like to cut back hard when they first buy a plant but, in this instance its better to be cruel than to be kind. As long as the garden is not planted from Dec-March, you will see after, say 3-4 months a lot of rapid growth occurring, then, at this time it is better then to give your plant another prune, but this time, don’t prune so hard back, try to allow a little more growth, this time, say prune to above 3-4 new shoots, then when the plant begins to grow it will again begin to bush from the base and more lush foliage will be produced. If you have lived in Cyprus for a long time you will understand that it can be extremely hard work to keep plants under control but if you start looking after your plants right from the beginning you will have far less of a headache in the future and a far more beautiful garden for years to come. Here are some more shrubs that need to be treated in a similar way:- Hibiscus, Anisodontia (pink, buttercup size flowers), Plumbago (sky blue trumpet shaped flowers), Margarita rose (button pink flowers), Santolina (button pink flowers), Osteospermum (white or deep pink flowers), Lavenders and Rosemary, bush bougainvilleas. If you are in any doubt always contact qualified Cyprus landscapers, or any Cyprus garden services that are registered.