Crossandra

[John M]

I found this plant in my local garden centre last week. I had one given to me back in 1998; but, the flowers were quite a bit smaller. I guess with selective breeding, the modern hybrids available nowadays have much larger flowers. They grow as a small tropical shrub (up to 3' tall) and they bloom continuously for years. The foliage is a rich, glossy, dark green and looks a bit like the beautiful leaves of Coffee arabica. It's a nice plant even without the flowers; but, with the blooms, it's a winner. Plus, it's got numerous new inflorescences at various stages of maturity coming up.

 

[Paphluvr]

Beautiful plant. I can see why you like it!

 

[Lanmark]

Great acquisition! Love that color! I had one of these back in the 1980s, and indeed I see the flowers are much larger 30+ years later.

 

[Secundino]

Wow, the come-back of the lovely Crosandras!

 

[Heather]

Ooh, that's gorgeous!

 

[SlipperFan]

And it blooms continuously?!

 

[Linus_Cello]

The new house as a pool in the shade amongst the trees. I can see Cossandras in planters around the pool. Thanks for the intro to these plants.

 

[John M]

Thanks everyone. It seems to be a rooted cutting just making it's first blooms. It's not very big and yet, with the new flower spikes coming up and beginning to show colour too, about half of it's biomass will soon be flowers. I like that ratio! It's quite the little hard worker....not shy to bloom and carry a lot of flowers at all. I'm really keen to see how big it gets and how many flowers it has, in a year!

 

[Erythrone]

Gorgeous!!! Could it be the cultivar Orange Marmalade ?

 

[John M]

There were no tags in any of the pots I saw for sale. There was just a hand written sign that said "Crossandra". So, I will never know the clonal name, if it has one.