Honey bush gets its name from the copious quantities of nectar secreted by the flowers during the summer months. However, that only reliably happens in this plant’s native South Africa.

Grown in this country, it often fails to flower and only does so in gardens near the coast that are favoured with a benign climate, and its prodigious production of nectar is not often seen here.

In South Africa, the flowers are visited by sunbirds that drink the nectar and carry out pollination in much the same way as the humming birds of South America. Large amounts of nectar – even dripping from the flowers sometimes – are produced, because the sun birds consume larger amounts than insect pollinators would.

The honey bush is more widely known here by its botanical name of Melianthus major, and the honey bush name is hardly used at all. Melianthus translates as sweet flowers, referring to the sweet nectar. Here, the plant is well known to flower arrangers and hardly known otherwise. It is widely used in flower arranging for its magnificent foliage. The large leaves are 30cm or more in length and about 15cm wide.

They are divided, like an ash tree, into pinnate leaflets, usually about seven on each side and one at the tip. The number of leaflets varies with the size of the leaf. Also, the leaves have a main stem that is arched somewhat, and this presents the foliage nicely for flower-arranging purposes.

It has good strong colour too, a rich glaucous blue-green or greyish green. Along the edges of the leaves, there is a strong saw-tooth pattern, which is quite dramatic either in the garden or on the flower-arranging table.

While this evergreen native of the Cape of South Africa is not hardy, it is tougher than given credit for and lends itself to being grown for its foliage primarily, but also for its flowers in some places.

Melianthus is considered to be a shrub, and it has woody stems at ground level – though they are still quite soft and a bit brittle, easily smashed by wind and killed by frost. But it has great powers of regeneration from ground level and just below. Very often, it can grow back to more than 1m during the summer. This has led many people who grow it to treat it as a herbaceous plant, cutting it back in spring, removing the old winter-damaged shoots.

However, it rarely flowers if cut back to the ground, either deliberately or by frost.

To get flowers is not too difficult if the branches can be carried through to the second year of growth, and this is possible in mild areas, even if the foliage looks a little bedraggled in spring and early summer. But new foliage soon grows and along with it come the flowers.

The flowers are carried in a spike of brown and dark crimson, each flower about 3cm long and clustered along the stem, opening in sequence over a good period. Insects visit the flowers, including wasps, but no sun birds appear!

In colder areas of the country, melianthus can be grown in a large pot and taken outdoors in summer, or it can be used as a greenhouse or very good conservatory plant, where it will flower if not cut back too hard. It can reach 2m indoors or with the benefit of a sunny wall outdoors. It grows in the winter months in South Africa in hilly, grassy places and can withstand dry weather and dry soil, but does best in rich soil, well-drained and a sunny place. It can be raised from cuttings taken of young shoots low down on the plant in summer.

Late-season hydrangeas

The ordinary mop-head hydrangeas are still going in most gardens, the flowers now fading to deeper tones of colour. The blue ones take on slate-grey and dark-blue shades, while the red and pink kinds darken to wine-red and crimson. The shades are not as bright as the reds, pinks and blues of summer, but they serve well as garden decoration just the same, in tune with the yellows and orange colours of autumn leaf fall. After the last round-up of colour, the flowers dry out to shades of light brown and fawn, and the leaves will yellow and fall, often quite late. Don’t be in any rush to take off the withered flowers: leave them on bare branches as a winter ornament.

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Tree, shrubs and roses

Plant evergreen trees and shrubs of all kinds, either from pots or as root-balled plants. All kinds of pot-grown trees and shrubs can be planted too. Check that young trees are securely staked if they need it. Prune rambler roses, and climbers can be pruned too if not too leafy.

Fruit, vegetables and herbs

Pick and freeze any last herbs that might still have useable leaves, such as marjoram or French tarragon that make fresh growth late. Prune raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries. Remove old vegetables and do not allow weeds to grow and go to seed.

Flowers

Planting of spring bulbs should be completed as soon as possible. Bedding flowers can be replaced now with spring bedding and bulbs. Begin dividing perennial flowers – except grasses, which prefer to be split in spring – planting new flower plants from pots.

Lawn

Lawns are in great shape after a damp summer and warm autumn. Apply lawn mosskiller now, if necessary, particularly in shaded areas. Continue mowing and use an autumn lawn fertiliser high in P and K if grass was looking tired, but most lawns do not need any feeding now.

Greenhouse and house plants

Pick remaining tomatoes of good size and ripen them indoors, especially if the weather turns dull. Tidy the greenhouse and keep it well-ventilated. Do not over-water, but keep plants still in active growth just nicely moist. Check for greenflies and other greenhouse pests.