On Sun, 29 Sep 2002 06:49:59 +0000 (UTC), "anton"
wrote:
My clerodendron trcihotomum, planted about 5 years ago,
has grown to around 5ft high & wide. Notcutts says 'flowers
in August', but the flower buds are only just starting to break now.
The main attraction of the bush is supposed to be china blue
berries in violent red petal-like thingies, and at this rate I'll never
see them. I think the same happened last year, but there were
many fewer flowers.
So: does anyone else have success growing this in East
Anglia? My one's in fairly full sun, though is very dry at the
roots- but the leaves seem healthy all year.
We have C. fargesii and it doesn't flower until mid August to
September, depending on the year. It's still in flower now but going
over. Hilliers describes no difference in flowering periods.
Ray says that C. fargesii doesn't sucker whereas the C. trichotomum
that we have doesn't flower as well and suckers everywhere - in fact,
it's a bit of a pest. He wonders if that isn't why it's the one that's
sold more widely - so easy to dig up and sell on! ;-))
We get berries on C. fargesii and some berries on C. trich but not as
many because it just doesn't flower as well. Ray tells me to tell you
that in his opinion C. fargesii is the better because it makes a
better shape, flowers more freely and doesn't sucker *BUT* he also
says that without having the two together and without knowing about
the suckering propensities of C. tricho. it would be hard to tell them
apart. His comment is that he wouldn't have thought being in East
Anglia would make much difference because it's so late in doing
anything, anyway! Half the time, it looks as if it's dead. ;-) He
knows of 4 others in this area which probably came from the same
source 50 years ago and that would be a man who was the Supervisor of
the temperate house at Wisley before WW II and in Ray's opinion this
could be the source of our C.fargesii and be a better form of those
now available generally. He tells me that people now accept what
nurseries sell as X Y and Z under a 'blanket' label and forget that in
the past, some types, forms, sports were better than others and
acknowledged as such among gardeners but not now known to modern
gardeners. Sorry, this is probably much too long but I'm typing under
instructions! ;-)
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk/