Pam Moore writes
I have a Tibouchina which has flowered well over the last 3 or 4
weeks. However it is an ungainly thing, about 30 inches high with
bare, woody stem to 20 inches, but healthy, leafy growth above. When
I was given it, it was about 8 inches with 2 shoots above soil level.
A friend suggested taking a cutting of one shoot. This I tried but
the cutting didn't root.
Has anyone grown Tibouchina?
Please can you tell me what to do with it now. Is there any chance
of it sprouting lower down?
It's in a light place in my living room with other house plants. I'd
like to get it through the winter and put it outside for next summer.
(No greenhouse).
Any advice or words of experience gratefully received.

Only bumbling experience, I'm afraid .. but I love our Tibouchina. Got
it last year, kept it outside next to a wall in a sunny west-facing spot
... and it went mad! Huge flowers, never fewer than ten, all summer long.
But, of course, it must have felt right back home in Mexico then!
Brought it in to a North-East-facing unheated porch in autumn, and
pruned it (to make it possible to walk past it). It weathered the
winter, but very nearly died: it ended up just one stick, with no leaves
at all. I put it back outside and fed and watered it (it likes a lot of
water). It took until July before it had any leaves, and it never did
flower, but now it is big and bushy (it has sprouted all over,
especially low down) and looks as if it might be about to flower, and of
course it'll have to come in, and I'm wondering whether to keep it in
the living room or to give it to my daughter who has a (north-facing)
conservatory. And I too would love to take cuttings, if I knew when.

Don't you love the feel of the leaves, though?

--
Klara, Gatwick basin