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The trees and shrubs shown on this site come from every continent with the obvious exception
of Antarctica. Some areas have comparatively few garden-worthy shrubs, some very many.
It is helpful when growing any plant to understand the climatic conditions from which
it originated. On these five pages we have discussed the main countries where the plants
have been discovered, thus annotating the climates, temperatures and rainfall in which they thrive.
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Europe and North Africa
Europe and North Africa
The earliest trees and shrubs to be grown in gardens were fruits and medicinal or
aromatic plants, such as Myrtle, Pomegranate, Box, Elderberry or Cornus mas. Many
were native of southern Europe or western Asia, and grown by the Romans and Arabs
in the Middle Ages.
Clusius was one of the first botanist-gardeners to go on a plant collecting expedition,
to Spain in 1564. Shrubs native to northern and western Europe experience both wet
and cold in winter, and require water in summer. Those from the Mediterranean region
tolerate a little frost, but will stand heat and drought in summer.
The whole coastline of the Mediterranean Sea has the typical summer-dry climate,
mainly between the sea and the mountains, as in the south of France and Turkey, but
in much of North Africa this climate occurs between the sea and the desert. Typical
scenery consists of rolling hills covered in low scrub, here called maquis or garrigue,
of Cistus, rosemary, lavender, oleander and evergreen oaks
The Canary Islands and Madeira
The Canary Islands and Madeira have an unusual flora which contains many ancient
species which grew in Europe before the Ice Ages but are now extinct, as well as
many species of African affinity or shrubby members of normally herbaceous genera.
Sadly most will tolerate little frost, though they grow well in Mediterranean climates
and in areas with mild winters: down to about -5°C. The Canary climate is cool
and wet in winter, hot and dry in summer, though in some areas in the mountains where
there is mist forest, it can be moist all year round.
Because the Canaries and Madeira were used as stopping off points for sailing
ships going round the Cape to the East Indies, many Canary plants have been grown in
Europe since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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