A plant that is only borderline hardy for a particular location will perish without the gardener giving it ample winter protection...
Cyathea australis...or what was one
Does a plant have to be alive to be featured? Of course not, like this tree fern, Cyathea australis which perished a couple of years ago due to a combination of harsher than usual winter and failure to establish. Unlike Dicksonia antarctica which is able to re-root even if it was chainsawed off from ground level, Cyathea australis needs to be dug up with a good amount of root ball intact in order to be transplanted elsewhere with a good chance of re-establishing itself. But just a trunk with little or no root ball at all, it stands almost no chance at all of re-rooting. It relies on its reserve of starch in its trunk to sustain some visible growth for awhile but is actually on a terminal decline from there.Much like this one, it had very little root ball but despite the extra care it never really re-rooted properly, and a harsh winter two years ago saw it off for good.
But even if it did re-root, would it have survived that winter? Maybe, but more likely not, it would have died anyway. Not without a thick layer of insulation wrapped around it and perhaps some gentle supplemental heating too on the worst periods of winter. But left on it's own, no chance. It needs the help of a gardener. It is not as hardy as the more common tree fern available here which is Dicksonia antarctica.
Although I wouldn't say that Dicksonia antarctica is 'hardy' either (what is 'hardy anyway?). It is however, the only tree fern that stands the best chance of sailing through winters planted outside for large parts of the UK, certainly in the south. And not just sailing though winters, more importantly, thriving. And if you have it on a sheltered spot, you probably wouldn't even need to protect it at all (with one eye still looking at the weather forecast of course, and some frost fleece on stand by, just in case...).
Some plants, left unchecked and unattended by the gardener, will simply just take over...
Like this climber, which I'll just conveniently refer to as bindweed (although I'm not too certain it is bindweed as such, as the leaves are much smaller, relatively not as vigorous and much easier to control). Well, this plant is definitely capable of growing on pure chalk and is fast smothering the sack barrow we left on op of the pile just a few weeks ago. It makes for a good photo subject anyway.
Gardening is about controlling nature, and without the gardener, nature will always find it's own way.
Mark :-)
