This was kind of an experiment; I got these in at work last summer because I'd seen them at Piersons (Cedar Rapids) not long before and thought well if they're good enough for Piersons. . . .
They arrived in 4-inch pots, which we sold a few of. Then I noticed we were having to water them, like, every day, so when the opportunity presented, we moved them up into hanging baskets.
And they went nuts. They all started climbing up the basket hooks, and then got themselves tangled in the (already kind of tangly) bars and supports the baskets were hanging from, and eventually they had to be cut back because if somebody had wanted one, we wouldn't have been able to sell it to them without giving them critical parts of the structure of the greenhouse. .jpg)
I understand that similar things happen when they're planted outdoors in warm climates.
Clerodendrum thomsoniae is fairly well-behaved in the greenhouse, though they have a tendency to wilt really badly if we're even slightly late with the water, and they drop lots of leaves if we give them water before they're droopy. But still, those aren't so bad, really. They're better about spider mites than I expected from the reference sources we have there, and they seem to flower readily. So when what we have is gone, we'll probably try to get more.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Pretty picture: Clerodendrum thomsoniae
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5 comments:
Those flowers are quite stunning - seems worth a bit of fussiness...
Cool plant. The blooms look like the offspring of a Bougainvillea and a Dicentra spectabilis.
Very attractive flowers! Am I correct in assuming the white part is a 'bract' from which the 'real' flower emerges or are the white parts actually the petals?
How much light do they need?
Yes on the bract/flower thing. Not sure on the light, though my suspicion is that indoors, you probably need at least filtered sun. Haven't looked it up to check, though.
Yes!!!! It's all coming back to me now. I read too many blogs (imagine that--and they're all good) and when I saw your photo of the C. thomsoniae, I wondered why it looked sort of familiar. The photo I posted today I took last fall and had forgotten about, and then of course reading so interesting posts at so many sites...
Spleeny may be a Maritime word, come to think of it; we have many euphemisms that I take for granted until I get blank stares (or the Interwebs equivalent). It means non-vigourous or wimpy. My red E. milii have always done well, and i had a pink one for some years til my sister commandeered it a few years back. The yellow one might have simply been a plant that was mistreated before it got to the store, or before I brought it home. With your proficiency in plants, I'd say go for it and try the yellow one--or whatever colour tickles your fancy. And thank you for identifying my other puzzle, the mandevilla (it was labled as dipladenia, and not something we see here normally). I'll definitely shy away from it. I should have linked to you in my post, because I do learn so much from reading here and sometimes chortling in great glee at some of your posts. Even though I don't comment all the time, I'm usually pretty faithful at lurking and learning.
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