I garden near Essaouira, central Morocco. Limestone, rocky, desert, 1 kil from the sea, 165 metres up, a very windy site. Sheep and goat ...Read Morecrop maquis vegetation to nothing. In ravines and cemeteries, native plants growing wild include retama (white flowered broom), Thuya, wild olive, argan tree, lentisc, teucrium, lavenders various. My young guardian 6 years ago planted a dozen seedlings round the house of a mystery tree. Told it was an invasive mimosa I killed most of them off but left those growing some distance from the house. Those that get run off water are now 2-3 metres, bushy, evergreen leafy, with a yellow bottle brush flower. I was thrilled to identify it from your web site, having failed with Australian and Canadian botanical gardens. The combination of a bottle brush flower and a mimosa leaf threw me. Non invasive, but some years throws a lot of seedlings which are easy to get out. Very sensitive to drought; plants not getting house water run off grow slowly and look ragged. Evergreen here - no leaf fall at all. I am not sure I would recommend it, as it is not particularly beautiful, and goes ragged in drought, but for a site like mine which is rocky desert and nothing grows it is useful. It was a real thrill identifying it, thank you Dave's Garden. And I wonder how it got to this part of Morocco. I haven't seen it elsewhere in Central Morocco, though a larger white flowered Albizia grows near Tangier.
I garden near Essaouira, central Morocco. Limestone, rocky, desert, 1 kil from the sea, 165 metres up, a very windy site. Sheep and goat ...Read More