Plants with a long flowering season

Probably not much use as the tubers are a good 20 to 30cm down. Strange how they know that deep down, but it is certainly the case. I've had it blooming the first day of June one year!

A few more.
Commelina coelestis and tuberosa........................




They're dead easy from seed - best grown as an annual. Flowering from June to the frosts.

Dietes iridioides blooms for a long period too, but in a different way. Each stem only produces one bud at a time, but the same stem can flower for two years! Mine is in the greenhouse for the winter where it is opening another bud as we speak.


Bulbous plants tend to be shorter blooming, but if you grow specimen plants in pots I would recommend Bessera elegans......................


Each bloom lasts a few days, but there are many on each stem which open sequentially. A pot of ten corms should bloom for about ten weeks. They will bloom earlier in the greenhouse, but the ones outdoors were only about three weeks behind their pampered siblings this year.

 

My Phal "Yu Pin Pearl" has been producing flowers on the same stem for about two years! Yet it has still found the time to produce this new stem too!

 

I'm impressed! Are they that easy (or are you more skilled than the rest of us!!)? I fear that they will need good light?

Also, what is the plant in the background with the purple(?) flowers?

 

Ye gods! I just chuck mine in where I reckon they'll grow best!!!

I strike a couple at the weekend as there is plenty of potential material on them thanks to the mild December. If they don't take I'll do some more in the spring when you're really supposed to!

Seems fair enough Peter. It certainly makes perfect sense as far as tender herbaceous perennials goes.
But there is always one that throws a spanner in the works and this year it was the supposedly borderline hardy Lobelia tupa. The one that I left where it was in a rather exposed spot was way ahead of the ones that I lifted and moved to a sheltered spot (or into the shed when it got Arctic). Here it is with five spikes in bloom........................


It was probably in bloom for close to three months this year.

 

Its not a matter of skill, as with most plants its getting the conditions right, so mine get full sun summer and winter, min of 7C in winter but always rising to at the very least 15C during the day.
As to the purple plant, its one of those daisies, likes full sun to open its flowers and was ID ed by Stephen last year, but I forgot what its called.

 

LongK - many thanks for the Sollya offer. I have sent you a PM

Lovely to see that Lobelia tupa - I am currently growing some small ones and delighted to hear that they are long flowering. They are a bit borderline in hardiness. There was a large one that had clearly been growing for several years in a park in Leeds. But sadly it disappeared a couple of years ago after a bad winter.

Pete - in my book there is a word for getting the conditions right - its called skill , and we don't all have it . I grew a couple from seed this year. They are sitting in my lightbox and have been on the point of death ever since germination. They grow a few leaves then lose all but one then grow some more, then lose them.

 

I can do the heat, but struggle for light indoors

 

Summed it up beautifully!

Mine (as you can see) is very exposed. It got a good mulch of Taxodium needles last year which seemed to work well, so lots of other things have had the same treatment this year.

 

Peter check for RSM, they are a pain.
Adenium doesn't like very humid conditions I find, so RSM can be a problem.

 

I'm pleased to say that I am virtually RSM free now. The worst case of RSM that I had this year was on my Sesbania which was outdoors all summer!

Another fly in the ointment then. I have lots of humidity around all my plants.

 

I am coming round more and more to the thought that, in a conservatory, you have to decide what climate you are going to have and then just grow those plants. There are plenty of plants that want/need humidity and others that like it dry. I think its difficult to mix the two.

 

You could always build an extra conservatory!

 

The Conservatory, Orangery ... Hot House, Arid House ... Princess of Wales House ...

... that type of thing you mean?

 

Exactly so! The only way to solve the dilemma.

 

Humidity is great at 20C plus.
But at 10C its a no no .