Holiday Adrasan Summer 2010 – Part 1

I’ve been ‘getting around’ to writing about our summer holiday in Adrasan for some weeks now. In fact we came back 6 weeks ago. I know, it is probably of little interest to the thousands of people who visit this blog to read more about the place that we seem to go to every year (and more) . . . But it was the original and stated aim of this blog to write about plants, garden and holiday.

I must admit that I feel slightly ashamed of returning to the same old holiday destination year after year, friends make fun of me about it and no-one wants to listen to tales of my holiday exploits when I return as they’ve heard it all before (as readers of this blog have done!).

Anyway, as I sat in a comfortable armchair, sipping a very good red wine whilst waiting for our flight in the Club Class Lounge of Gatwick Airport, I couldn’t care less what people thought! I love holidays and look forward to them in, I’m happy to admit, a child-like way. I love having a break from the tedium of employment. In the same child-like way, I’m excited by airports, airline food airline drinks. On this occasion my airline experience was even better than normal! I’d managed to get a very reasonable deal on Club Class tickets with British Airways which gave a whole range of ‘extras’ including access to the Club Lounge with a well stocked free bar and food, wide seats and extra legroom on the plane and a choice of meals on the plane. I resolved to always travel ‘club class’ (if I could afford it) and arrive at the airport 4 hours before take-off to make the most of the experience! As I said, when it comes to airline travel, I am very childish!

The truth about why we have been going to Adrasan for the last 7 or so years is probably because we are lazy! Our excuses, however, are that it is a beautiful bay set amongst mountains and forests, the local people are amazingly friendly, we have made many fiends there as has our daughter and . . . Yes . . . It is a very easy and non-challenging holiday and all we really want to do as a break from work is to relax! By the way – there are no package holidays to Adrasan but all one has to do is to book a flight to Antalya, select and book a hotel online and they will pick you up from the airport. Only slight problem is that flights to Antalya are not cheap, particularly if you are constrained, as we are, to school holiday times. Also if you are looking for a large sophisticated resort, Adrasan is not it! There are some very good hotels, the bigger ones set-back from the beach. But the sea-front area of the bay has a rather ramshackle appearance – which I quite like.

This summer, as last summer, we stayed at the Mithat Hotel which is situated right on the bay facing the beach. Readers may wonder why we did not stay at The Arikanda River Garden as we had done earlier this year over Easter. The simple answer is that the Arikanda is set a few hundred meters back from the beach and in the heat of the Turkish summer even that walk is quite demanding (I’m not sure that this is really such a problem as transport is easy to arrange if needed).

Anyway, our arrival at the Mithat was typical of why we keep going back to Adrasan. We stepped out of the taxi outside the hotel  at about midnight to be greeted by Onder (name could be Oner), the hotel owner and 2 couples we had met last year. As we were about to order some cold beer 2 other couples we have met over the years strolled by and stopped to greet us. We were also soon joined by some of my daughters friends. Quite a crowd! More beer please!

We were staying at the Mithat for 16 nights, bed & breakfast. We had 2 rooms for the 3 of us, each air conditioned and with shower and balcony. The hotel has a swimming pool which we don’t use because the beach is just across the unmade road where the hotel provides sun loungers and sun shades. It is probably fair to say that the rooms are fairly basic but they are cleaned daily with fresh linen provided. The cost of the 2 rooms etc was altogether about £800 GBP for 16 nights which is not bad for August.

The out-door dining area at the front of the hotel used to have a couple of trees growing amongst the tables. This year they had gone (due to a storm we are told) and been replaced by the largest sun umbrella I have ever seen.

Above: The biggest sun umbrella in the world! The Mithat Hotel Adrasan, (Mrs Musa can just be spotted sitting having breakfast)

My favourite meal of the day when on holiday is breakfast, probably because I never eat breakfast at home. Sitting in the shade of the giant umbrella in the morning, looking out across the bay and the mountain Musa Dag is pure pleasure.

The photograph below shows the dining area of the Mithat in the early evening. Onder (the owner) is sitting relaxing before people arrive for dinner:

OK – So that’s the end of Part 1 of this series of posts. I think another 2 or 3 posts will cover everything else on the subject of Adrasan Summer 2010

The Small Blue Scarab

I like adding stones and shells to the grit (true) that surrounds my succulent plants. I particularly like to add stones and shells gathered locally or from holidays. In the past couple of years I’ve asked friends to bring me back stones from their travels and I will add them to my growing stone collection. Recently a friend from work brought me back a small blue scarab thing from her holiday in Egypt, she said that she could not find any actual stones in her resort but hoped that the small, blue scarab thing would be OK. I think it will!

So, the following series of photographs is an attempt to find a place amongst the succulents for . . . the small, blue scarab thing:

Aeonium ‘Voodoo’

In the Spring I described a group of plants I had bought online from Amulree Exotics. Amongst them was an Aeonium variety called ‘Voodoo’. It is easiest to quote Amulree’s description of the plant:

AEONIUM 'VOODOO' A new cross between A zwartkop & A undulatum, similar at first glance to zwartkop but instead of black heads these are red/purple and get 3 times the size and up to 5ft tall! Full sun will intensify the colour.

Certainly, when I took delivery, the plant looked very similar to ‘zwartkop’ but not so intense in colour. It has now grown, not so much in height, but in breadth. It must be nearly a foot across its head.

It’s quite eye-catching and a lovely colour. As Amulree says, the colour does intensify according to the amount of sunlight it gets.

I always think I have a tendency to over-water plants and worry that I might particularly over-water drought-loving plants. However, I’ve also come to wonder if I don’t water enough and I know that Aeoniums can take quite a lot of water in the growing season. I’ve noticed that this Aeonium has grown a lot in the last month and can only guess that it has liked the wet weather. This is also the second year that I’ve noticed plants like Echeverias growing bigger and faster in late summer / autumn. I will experiment with watering more in the summer months next year. I’ll probably kill everything!

Fascicularia bicolor ‘Firewheel’ - Flower

I added a post on Fascicularia bicolor ‘Firewheel’ just a couple of weeks ago. So this is just an update . . .

I noticed, on my return from work today, how the buds and flowers of this plant had developed. What was a rather small bluish bud had grown to about 3 inches across and contained a cluster of florets. I’m not really sure how one would describe the overall colour but I don’t think I’ve seen the flowers as well developed as this in all the years that the plant has been in my garden.

Anyway, here’s the photo:

Early Saturday Sunshine

Twas a cold night but I awoke yesterday to bright sunshine. Looking out of the window I saw the early low sunshine lighting up the flowers of the tall grass – Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’. Its not often that I catch the sunlight coming from this direction so I got-up, got the camera and went out into the chilly dawn dressed only in pyjama trousers.

The photo below is taken from the back-door and shows off the giant reed – Arundo donax – as well as the leaves of all the other plants in this part of the garden:

The next photo shows Arundo donax catching the early sunlight:

The next photo shows the scene that prompted my early morning photographic expedition. It is of the red flowers of the tall grass Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’ with the sun shining through them:

The following 2 photographs again show Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’ but also show the fronds of the Tree Fern – Dicksonia antarctica. This is my tallest Tree Fern at about 6ft high but I have always struggled to get decent photos of it. The direction of the early morning sunlight seems to show-off the fronds very well:

It was good to have the sunshine but the cold night was a taster of the coming autumn and winter. I’m already thinking of my summer holiday next year!!

Thunbergia alata – Black-Eyed Susan

What to put in an urn (apart from ashes)?

A few months ago I was given as a birthday present a repro Greek urn type of concrete planter thing. I do rather like to have a few odd things around the garden and was, therefore, grateful. However, I couldn’t think of what to plant in it. I did think of Ivy but I have a constant battle to control Ivy in the garden as it is and did not like the idea of adding more. Ivy ,though, would have hung over the edges of the tall urn (and disguised it!) in a rather classical way.

Then I thought of the annual climber – Thunbergia alata or Black-Eyed Susan. I already grow this climber through the Hops and like its flowers. The Thunbergia has done well, I’m not sure if I planted a mixture of colours or if this variety naturally has a mixture of orange, yellow and white flowers. Anyway, it looks quite good! The photograph shows the urn and the Black-Eyed Susan tumbling from it. Around the base of the urn are the flowers of Osteospermum ecklonis:

Incidentally – Osteospermum comes from the Latin Osteo meaning bone and spermum meaning seed – bone seed. The seeds of this plant are said to resemble bones.

On the subject of garden ornaments etc. Here is a photo of my pond gargoyle

And below, my Ivy Gargoyle:

Arundo donax

My last post ( like The Last Post) included a description of the variegated form of Arundo donax. I tried to get a decent photograph of Arundo donax growing in my garden but found that the stems and leaves get lost amongst the other stuff growing nearby. So – I tried a Photoshop technique, known as – ‘ out-of-bounds’ – to isolate the said Arundo. Here is the result:

As you can see, it is a mighty big grass!

Monday and work looms! I won’t go into any more detail, except to say that ‘Arundo’ reminds me of a track by the band – The Nice – from the 60’s. The keyboardist – Keith Emerson  - went on to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I saw their debut at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 – Gosh, I’m old!

( the track was actually called ‘Rondo’)

Stems

Strolling through the Musa acres in the late afternoon of yesterday, a scene caught my eye which I will relate to you (I know . . . . Yawn!).

I have a path that is quite a bit lower than the surrounding planting beds. This means that the already tall plants seem even taller. So, I was looking through their stems . . . photo below:

The stems in question include Banana (Musa sikkimensis), Ginger Lily (Hedychium coccineum 'Tara') and the variegated grass – Arundo donax 'Variegata'. (There is other stuff too)

This year Arundo donax ‘Variegata’ has done quite well. It always disappoints me a bit as it is has nothing like the vigour of the plain green Arundo donax. The ordinary Arundo grows very rapidly making stems of 16ft in one season. I have a couple of clumps of this but I only allow 3 or 4 stems to grow from each clump – that is all you need!

I’ll see if I can capture a decent photo of the plain green Arundo donax for a future post.

By the way . . . Where has the sunshine gone? Where has the Summer gone?

S U C C U L E N T

Getting carried away with the succulent theme here.

Thought I’d add another photo of succulents and, in particular, Pachyphytum bracteosum. This is the plant with pebble-like leaves and it truly is very succulent, it also has an amazing name! I don’t think it will survive the winter outside but I will cover it with a plastic cloche and see what happens – I’ll let you know.

Also in the picture are some Echeverias and a Cactus exiled earlier this year from the house – I wonder if it will survive the winter?

Succulent Last Day Of August

Succulent – What a very nice word! It sounds juicy, thick, fleshy, moist etc. etc. All those things that succulents are. . . .  Succulent!

I don’t think there is a definition for such words – words that sound like they mean – I know they are not onomatopoeias, at least, not in the case of ‘succulent’. Words like ‘pop’, ‘crackle’ and ‘squeak’ are onomatopoeias.

The photograph was taken last week on the last day of August. Included in the shot are:

• Aloe
• Sempervivums
• Agave
• Echeverias

All these grow quite happily outside all the year round. In winter I put a piece of clear plastic over them to keep them dryish. I collect pebbles, stones, shells and driftwood to scatter amongst them. I even encourage friends to bring me back pebbles from their travels!

Must admit that I spend quite a lot of time studying my succulent plants and stones! Other succulents that I grow outside include Cacti, Kalanchoe, Aeoniums and a wider variety of Echeverias and Sempervivums. I plan to attempt to grow some of the hardier Cacti outside, I’ve been amazed at how hardy Opuntias are and this summer a couple of other Cacti have been evicted from the house but have been growing very well outside and flowering.

S U C C U L E N T

Ginger Lilies

Hedychium coccineum 'Tara' is a virtually hardy Ginger Lily that has annual stems, glaucous-green jungly leaves and large orange flowers at this time of year.  (Gosh! I sound like a real expert - ‘glaucous’!)

The photo below was taken this evening in the last rays of the day’s sunshine:

This clump of Ginger Lilies is right next to the pond and is growing next to a Thalia dealbata planted in the pond (this is the best pond plant ever!). Anyway, the stems and leaves are growing through each other so don’t be misled by the photos, some of the leaves are from the Thalia clump. (Thalia is quite a nice word!)

The photo below is of the flowers of Hedychium coccineum 'Tara' reflected in the pond this evening:

Hedychium coccineum 'Tara' is a very easy plant to grow despite it sometimes being described as tender. I find it as tough as old boots! In fact, a couple of years ago I decided to remove the original clump by the pond but only had partial success – I could not remove all of the rhizomes (I guess that’s the word for them) and the clump has formed again. I now have 2 other clumps of them around the garden. When cutting through the rhizomes (like that word) I got an amazing smell of sweet ginger, I’ve wondered if the roots are edible and I’ve read that they are but I’ve not tried them.

Incidentally, I should mention that the stouts stems grow to about 5ft and don’t need any staking. Another clump grows amongst Bananas, Colocasias, Ricinus and other stuff – it looks very tropical!

Finally here’s a photo, taken a couple of days ago of one of the flowering stems:

Miscanthus sinensis 'Malepartus' and Tree Fern (Dicksonia antarctica)

Both the tall grass Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’ and the Tree Fern – Dicksonia antarctica seem to be in their prime right now:

Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’ - has just started showing its red flowers. This grass grows to about 2m high and requires very little attention, all that’s usually needed is to cut down the dead stems before new growth comes through each Spring. This year the wet and windy August weather conspired to make the clump loll about in all directions, a loop of string mid-way around the clump did the trick of bringing it back together. Later in the autumn the grass stems will die becoming whitish in colour as will the seed-heads but it remains an architectural plant throughout the winter.

Dicksonia antarctica – Tree Fern – I had some concerns during the hot weather in July that this Tree Fern was too exposed to the sun (since next-door removed a large tree). However, perhaps because of the cool August, it is looking very good and is even putting out some new fronds. I continue to give it daily oceans of water through the crown and blasting the trunk with a strong jet from the hose-pipe. By late Autumn I will stop watering and pack the crown with old dead fronds or fleece ready for winter.

Hop Festival

The Faversham Hop Festival has just about ended. I can still hear the strains of various bands playing in the pubs across town but in a few hours it will all about be over for another year.

This year has probably been the busiest ever and we’ve seen some really good bands and drunk a few beers

Over the past couple of years the number of Morris Men & Morris Men have dwindled. I wonder if they have all succumbed to a nasty disease, perhaps brought about by inter-breeding?

You really only have to see Morris Men dance once in your lifetime – that’s enough! It seems that to be a Morris Man you need to have plenty of grey facial hair, wear a floral dress, have a pewter beer tankard attached to your belt, be over-weight and probably be a retired teacher or social worker. Of course, you don’t need any dancing skills! Once upon a time they were everywhere at Hop Fest time – blocking the streets and causing severe boredom. But now there are far more contemporary, rock, folk-rock, blues etc. bands appearing all over town. There are probably a dozen pubs with bands all over the weekend and 3 stages on the towns streets.

A good weekend. -  thanks to the voluntary organisers.

(Sorry Morris Men!)

P.S. My hops are currently flowering and look quite good growing across the back of the house. Trouble is that no matter what I do, I can’t stop the mildew that inflicts them. I might have to dig-up the roots of the existing plant and start again.

Musa

It has not been the best year for bananas! 2 cold winters in succession have not helped. However, here is an update on how they are getting on (the Ensete branch of the family are not included in this post.

Musa sikkimensis – I’ve grown this banana with little protection for the past 8 or 9 years. Some years it has come through the winter with its stems intact and gone on to make massive plants up to 16ft tall. This year (like the last) it was cut to the ground by the cold winter and only started to produce new shoots from its roots in early June. Therefore, it has not made the height of some years. There are 3 stems and it will probably make 10ft tall by the end of October.

Anyway, here’s a photo of it taken this morning:

 

Musa sikkimensis ‘Red Tiger’ – I bought this plant from ‘Amulree Exotics’ earlier this year. It was described as having red markings and being just as hardy as the standard sikkimensis. It certainly has the markings and is a handsome banana, it has grown well and is now about 5ft high. Time will tell about its hardiness, however, I have planted it in a less favourable position than the other sikkimensis – it is in more shade and in less well drained soil.

Here are some photos taken this morning:

As can be seen it is slightly over-shadowed by the grass – Miscanthus sinensis 'Malepartus' which is flowering rather well.

Below, is a close-up of the Red Tiger’s markings:

By the way . . . Amulree Exotics is an excellent source of tropical / exotic plants. Their online ordering service and delivery is very efficient. They are also known as Turn-It-Tropical . There is a link to their site in the right-hand column of this blog . . . . but here it is again:

http://www.turn-it-tropical.co.uk/

Fascicularia bicolor - Firewheel

I’ve had this plant for many years and it is another of those plants that ‘grow on you’.
It’s a member of the bromeliad family and hails from Chile. There is conflicting advice about the hardiness of this plant, some say that it is frost-tender, others that it will take temperatures down to –10. Mine has survived all weathers over the past 10 years without any problem at all. In fact, I do nothing at all to look after it, I just ignore it for most of the year.
Fascicularia bicolor has long, thin, strap-like leaves covered in small spines. It gradually makes a clump not unlike a very large hedgehog! The leaves are arranged in a series of funnel-like arrangements and at this time of year the plant makes an astounding display of flowering. The funnels of leaves (not all of them) turn a brilliant crimson red and a blue flower forms at the base of the funnel. The effect of the ‘red funnels’ amongst the green leaves is quite amazing. I’ve read that the Latin word fascicularia means ‘clustered together in bundles’.
My plant grows under a large Olive tree so it is in dappled shade. I never water it or feed it, the only thing I do is to remove fallen leaves that become trapped within its spiny leaves (a painful process!). It associates well with other tropical / exotic plants and makes interesting ground-cover.
The photo below was taken a few days ago (28 August):