difficult gardening

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I'm looking for something to grow in whats proving to be a very difficult location. I'm in the southern hemisphere and this small area of garden is facing south of a very tall wall. Only the taller brugmansia candida growing there gets any light during the winter and no light reaches the ground at all during the colder months. Then in summer the sun is directly overhead and the area heats up like a furnace. The brug does very well in the winter months, but hot dry convection currents rising from nearby paving predispose it to nasty red spider mite infestations which are controlled to some extent by keeping the leaves moist with a daily misting.

I'm therefore looking for something that will grow as a good understory and be able to tolerate the two extreme conditions - cold, wet and dark vs hot, dry (although i could water more if i had to) and scorching UV. So far I've tried wandering jew, gotu kola, chocolate flavoured mint, coleus, salvia splendens, Dicksonia antartica and some others whose names I am not sure of. These species have all died. Four species remain - a birds nest firn, the brug, Iochroma cyanescens, and a Cordylline.

If I can think of one other thing that may be killing the more sensitive species its the high nutrient levels they are occasionally exposed to as the area is in a convenient location.

Can anyone suggest what might grow? I would prefer something with useful properties - medicinal, edible, entheogenic but this is not essential. Furthermore I'm not too fussed about weed potential as the area is quite well enclosed - if it will grow rampant without starving the brug then thats great.

Thanks

[Torsten]

if you create a bit of shade then you can grow any shady plants all year round. A low growing tree, pruned to have a wide canopy might do the trick. The brug will love this too. if you use a decidious tree, you will create a more even environment for all year growth.

For really boggy spots use Lobelias, Acorus sp., mexican salvias. The better drained ones will take any rainforest plant.

[t st tantra]

can supply calamus acorus if you want some.

t s t .

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Thanks Torsten. I hadn't thought of growing a deciduous tree. The B candida would be at least 4m high so it would need to grow quite tall to cover the brug. I can think of a range of fruit and nut trees which might work OK would and serve at least two functions. Also they could be mulched if they grew too big and then fed to wood loving fungi in the colder months. Maybe a weeping mulberry. Ready made forms are ridiculously overpriced but I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to do the grafting myself and that way I could grow the root stock as tall as I wanted.

I can't think of any deciduous entheogens suitable to the Perth climate. I do recall seeing a Tabernoemontana (sp unknown) at a local nursery which I was told loses it's leaves during the colder months, however, if I had one of these it would be treated like royalty and I would have better places for it.

Thanks for your generous offer t st tantra. I will send you an email.

[theobromos]

Vinca minor?

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Is this any good for extracting vincristine/vinblastine or are these only found in the V major? I think you need about a tonne of dry material to extract a gram of alkaloids - hence a bit out of the questions for the home enthusiast.

I'll see how it goes though. At the moment I've put in some arum lillies and an interesting looking fern. They're doing OK so far.