Tysoe Walled Kitchen Garden: Plectranthus

Tysoe Walled Kitchen Garden

Welcome to the Tysoe Walled Kitchen Garden website! We are committed to organic gardening. Using the best practices from the Victorian days (i.e. lots of horse manure) and knowledge gleaned from the Ryton Organic Gardens we have set out to tame our Warwickshire clay. It’s all about sustainability, so as well as organic gardening, we’re always looking to better ways to work with our environment.

On this site you can find out about our history and the projects we are working on. You can come visit the garden and learn about organic gardening. Follow our blog to see what’s on our mind in the garden this month.

For the first 8 years all the work was carried out by just the two of us. Now we have help and are passing on our knowledge to students on the WRAGS (Work and Retrain As a Gardener Scheme).

We also find time to be involved with the WOT2Grow Community Orchard in Tysoe and have planted a 3 acre wood close to Tysoe, just over the border in Oxfordshire with a grant from the Woodland Trust.

Friday, December 21, 2018

Plectranthus

In September 2017 I went on a propagation course and was able to keep some of the cuttings I had taken.

One of these was Plectranthus purperea. I had not heard of this before but, seeing it in the garden from where the course was held, I loved the dark foliage.

It is not a hardy plant in the uk, in fact it is more a house plant, which as probably why I had not come across it before as I am not a fan, nor have the room for many house plants.

Dark red stems and dark underside of leaves

The cuttings grew well over the summer and looked lovely in their pots in the garden.

In October I took some more cuttings ready for next year and as insurance in case the main plant does not survive the winter. Also brought the plant inside.

Now it has pretty white flowers which is a lovely surprise.

Tysoe Walled Kitchen Garden