Thanks for info Kaik, your problem sounds like it’s related to getting the rhodo established. (Neither bone dry nor waterlogged during the winter?) The chaste tree is uncommon here but will grow. I love Prague and the beautiful countryside in Bohemia. I have walked in the Sudeten lands and in places with names which are very forgettable if you don’t speak the language! I remember seeing large blue gentians in the mountains flowering at the feet of the red-berried mountain ash.
Xanthippe, don’t forget to put your borage leaves in a jug of Pimms in the summer. It’s unusual to have cucumber flavoured leaves.
Where do you live Talesin, looks like you enjoy (or is it endure) a cold winter?
It is interesting to see the differences in climate from the posts in far-flung places. Here in UK (I’m in Oxfordshire, central south England) for the first time ever I’ve had to mow the grass twice during the winter; at the end of December and end of February...unprecedented! The daffs began flowering here in early Feb and have continued through to April.
I managed to persuade a specimen of the florist’s Jasmine, the tender Chinese species Jasminum polyanthum to survive through the previous winter outdoors and last December it was ten feet ten feet tall and full of flower. Although I then wrapped it up well we had two successive nights of hard frost in Feb this year, which browned off many of the evergreen leaves...but it hasn’t died. The fragrance is delicious. I also managed to over-winter a large canna lily, alias ’Indian shot’ by putting it in my garden shed and protecting it from frost... just little things which keep us gardeners happy!