I fell in love - I want one. I've seen a gold medalist at Harrogate
with a simple pot and a huge libertia in it. It looked absolutely
superb. Is anyone growing them and is there anything I should know to
grow them successfully? I'm just about to place an order with Avondale
nursery.

On 13 May 2007 06:05:56 -0700, La Puce wrote:

I fell in love - I want one. I've seen a gold medalist at Harrogate
with a simple pot and a huge libertia in it. It looked absolutely
superb. Is anyone growing them and is there anything I should know to
grow them successfully? I'm just about to place an order with Avondale
nursery.

Don't know about L. ixioides but I have several clumps of a libertia
grown from seed, species unknown but possibly L. formosa, which is
quite common down here in West Cornwall. They're in reasonably well
drained soil, cope with salt gales and our light frosts, and are
seemingly unfussy. Apart from dead-heading after flowering, I just let
it get on with life. It's in flower ATM.

I wouldn't recommend L. peregrinans though unless you have plenty of
space to fill. Very attractive foliage, green with a greenish bronze
stripe up the centre, but it suckers vigorously. 'Peregrinans' means
'travelling', and it does!


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

On 15 May, 21:13, Chris Hogg wrote:
Don't know about L. ixioides but I have several clumps of a libertia
grown from seed, species unknown but possibly L. formosa, which is
quite common down here in West Cornwall. They're in reasonably well
drained soil, cope with salt gales and our light frosts, and are
seemingly unfussy. Apart from dead-heading after flowering, I just let
it get on with life. It's in flower ATM.

Thank you so much! I thought nobody had heard of it. The ixiodes grow
wild in Scotland - sounds like the formosa is as robbust. I've since
found seeds from Chiltern Seeds for the ixiodes, but the formosa seems
to be sold more readily. I think I'll go for seeds. Avondale don't do
mail order but travel the country and I've missed them when they were
closer to me.

I wouldn't recommend L. peregrinans though unless you have plenty of
space to fill. Very attractive foliage, green with a greenish bronze
stripe up the centre, but it suckers vigorously. 'Peregrinans' means
'travelling', and it does!

I've found on a french forum a lady who has found enough libertia in a
skip to do an entire bed! Sounds like it could have been the
peregrinans then and someone had had enough of it. So I'll keep well
away from it. Thanks again.