What I love about the world of horticulture is that there are as many garden styles as there are gardeners, but what unites them all is a sense of escapism. The seemingly instinctive desire to create an idealised sanctuary away from the realities of the world, whether that’s a pastoral idyll or a storybook jungle, sits at the heart of every pleasure garden ever created. To me, there are few plants more perfectly adapted to conspiring to pull off this fantasy than lomatias, whose otherworldly beauty somehow just works effortlessly in every style, from wistful, floral nostalgia to tropical modernism.
Ferny-leaved, primitive-looking small trees, which flush in the summer with tassels of unusual pea-like flowers from purest white to rich, sunset shades of pink, lomatias look like something from the planet’s distant past or from the set of a sci-fi film. Members of the exotic protea family, these lovely specimens are native across the southern hemisphere’s temperate regions, giving them both wonderfully unusual forms and tolerance to cool conditions, which means they can be reliably grown in most areas of the UK. The soft, airy texture of their leaves and the prettiness of their flower means that unlike other exotic-looking plants, they can blend into even the most traditional, temperate-climate scheme without looking out of place.
As for cultivation, lomatias like to grow in moist, acid soils with good drainage in milder climates – so, essentially, any region of the country famous for growing rhododendrons, from Cornwall to the western coast of Scotland and pockets of Northern Ireland, would be ideal. But given their relatively diminutive stature, even if your soil doesn’t have the exact conditions, creating a raised bed with at least 50cm depth filled with ericaceous soil or larger pots will work, too.
Perhaps my favourite is Lomatia tinctoria. Native to Tasmania, it is a fairly hardy evergreen shrub up to 1.5 or 2m tall, perfect for sheltered, urban spots. With suckering long stems and strongly lobed pinnate leaves with dark green and silver undersides, it flowers abundantly in July and August, with greenish white terminal blooms scented somehow like vanilla.
Another star is L ferruginea, which hails from Chile and its borders with Argentina. Its key feature is the elegant, pinnate foliage, some 20cm long with bronze fuzzy stems. If sheltered from cold winds, it can become a small tree reaching up to 4m in height, but it normally forms a multi-stem bush up to 2m tall. In July and August, it blooms profusely with tiny red and yellow flowers. Borderline hardy, it is happiest in the more temperate, rainy parts of UK, where there are milder winters.
Finally, there’s L myricoides from southeastern Australia, a hardy evergreen shrub that reaches 3m and grows along riverbanks, with wonderfully willowy arching stems and bright, apple green leaves with serrated edges. I think that these really benefit from structural pruning, to lift their canopies and clear congested stems to reveal the true grace of their form.
It’s such a shame that these incredible plants are still unknown to so many UK gardeners, when they would add such a wonderful atmosphere to landscapes across the country.
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