What's looking exotic in April 2012

Do tell us what how your exotics are doing. It doesn't have to be plants in flower - they will be few and far between at this time of the year. Show us what you are growing and doing. And please lets have plenty of comments and your thoughts and experiences. We are all here to learn.

All my exotics are desperately wanting to go outside - but its just not warm enough.


Echium candicans has been in flower for at least a month. Its outside for the picture, but has been overwintering in a frost free summerhouse.


Iochroma cyaneum 'Plum Paradise' is another that has been in flower, inside, for a month. As time has passed the flower bunches have really filled out.


My only other exotic in flower is Clerodendron ugandense - does anyone know how long this flowers for?


Impatiens niamniamensis pictured above last summer was brilliant.


Although it stayed sort of evergreen over the winter (inside of course) it lost most of its leaves and just left an ugly thick stemmed structure, similar to the picture taken today.


However I took some cuttings, in water like any other Buzzy Lizzie, and photoed them yesterday before potting them up. Except for a few more cuttings I think the mother plant is beyond redemption - but I will leave it and see what happens.

 

I have just had a message saying that you can only upload 6 pictures to a post - so I will continue here.


I took some Brugmansia cuttings in the autumn, and the small one, on the left, already has tiny flower buds. However the one on the right is much bigger than all the other cuttings but no buds yet. Between them is my Strelitzia reginae. I love its shape and the leaves, which is just as well as I understand it could be a few years before it flowers.


I only have one mature Brugmansia in the house and it already has some flower buds - but nowhere as advanced as Wayne's Brugs.


Some of my seedlings are desperate to go outside. Above it Leonotis nepetifolia. With an early sowing, they should reach 8 feet or more in the summer. I just hope its warm enough to put them outside before then. Its an easy annual from seed.


Canna tuerckheimii from seed are coming on well.


I have to thank Angelina for the seeds for these - Thunbergia alata. All dressed up and nowhere to climb.

 

The Clerodendrum will bloom pretty much all summer. It's a thirsty plant though and will drop buds if it gets too dry.

My Impatiens niamniamensis has bloomed all winter, but is seriously leggy! What's the procedure for cuttings?

The Hippeastrum cybister looks good..............


And the BoP is almost in bloom for the first time...........



Bauhinia variegata seedling is settling in well in the front room.

 

Thanks for the info on the Clerodendron LongK. Mine was in flower as late as about November last year, but I only acquired it during the summer and wasn't sure if it was a first year flowering plant. I find that when you grow some plants from seed they flower abnormally late in the first year. Then the next year they flower at a different time.

I am surprised that your Impatiens flowered for so long. Mine stopped flowering in early winter - but that could well be because I don't keep my house very warm. The cuttings process was very much a gamble - but has paid off well. The plant was pathetic when I took the cuttings with practically no leaves at all. I took normal cutting material from the tips of the stems - because the stems were no so thick there. I took two nodes one to grow and one below water to root. Even though one or more of the cuttings had had only a tiny bit of leaf for the previous weeks, I put them in a glass of water in my light box, and noticed that the leaves at the top started to grow - before there was any sign of roots. They were in a heated propagator in the box, and I am sure that it was this extra heat that started them back into growth. I probably left them for 8 weeks or more - more as a result of laziness than design. The mother plant has now come back into growth - so I might take some more. One problem I find with this is that the internode distances can get so big that it looks very sparse and cutting material is not that easy to find.

I love your Strelitza - I had no idea that they flowed this early in the year.

I had to Google that Bauhinia - it looks really nice - but could get to be quite a size.


I am growing several different Hibiscus. This one is H. coccineus.


Mine is nothing to look at yet, but I understand that it can reach 6 feet over the summer and look like the above picture from the internet. It is said to have Cannabis like leaves - which could get me into trouble growing these under my grow lights - if its not in flower when the police arrive.

Its known as the Swamp Mallow and will even grow in standing water. Its also surprisingly hardy - I have seen it quoted as taking -15C. But its going to be difficult to get to flower unless we have a hot summer.

 

Nice plants Peter, and Longk.
I dont have anything in flower yet, still waiting for a break in the weather.

We had some warm days back in March but the nights were too cold.

My Strelitzia is just pushing up the flower stems but I dont expect flowers until late June.
Bougainvilleas are just shooting along with Plumbago and Erythrina.
Divided the cannas a while back but still got a fairly large Hedychium garnerianum to spilt up.
Adeniums are showing flower buds.
I need to find place to plant out a Butia capitata, (ok so they changed the name), but cant find a good spot for it.
Got an interesting Nepethes coming along, spectabilis, only ever grown alata up till now, also trying a few cuttings of Nepenthes from a mate.
Plumerias just leafing up, will I get a flower this year?

Oh and Peter, I grew H coccinea a few years ago, only way I could get it to flower was roasting it in the greenhouse full sun, and only then in late August.
Its hardy but needs a lot of heat to flower, along with constant water.

 

My BoP is shaping up to flower too - probably a month away, no colour to the buds yet. Plenty of buds compared to last year, but I do feel that I neglect the thing dreadfully (which includes probably watering it more than I should and/or at times when I shouldn't?)

I need to make a spreadsheet with a timetable of watering ... and feeding ... and structure the overwintering arrangements so that things that want to be dry are all together in a "zone", and things that want to be "a bit warmer" likewise can be near the emergency heater (or in an enclosure of some sort).

I was thinking of having planting-plans of the garden coloured-coded month-by-month for what was needed. So if I was doing the "fortnightly feed" I could just do everything red on the plan. And the monthly feed would be anything red, or blue. And the Autumn straw mulch would be marked on the (say) November plan, along with which plants to put an identifying stick in because they are very late to leaf in the spring and might get mauled in the Spring-weed-cleaning ...

... sorry, I'll shut up now, I'm sure you get the idea.

 

Thanks Peter for the info on the Hibiscus coccineus. You have confirmed my fears. Never mind my father once told me "you should try everything once - except incest and country dancing".

When I Googled it I got directed to an old forum thread that effectively said the same thing. Why don't they say this when they are advertising the seeds. I am coming round more and more to the fact that heat rules so many tender plants - which is what you would expect really.

Kristen - I like your logic about watering and feeding. But why not grow Brugmansias. They are simple - water and feed every day.

 

I've found that with heat, water and reasonable light mine will bloom for eight or nine months. Certainly at its best mid June to mid September ish though.

Thanks - will give it a go...........

The spike emerged last October time, but seemed to stall in the shortest days of winter.

I'm told that they can be kept back to one or two metres and produce flowers reliably if heat is enough provided. It will just move to the corner of the living room for winter.

Nice! A challenge is no bad thing.

 

Really looking forward to photos of your Nepenthes Pete!
Here's one from OBG a couple of years ago (just in case anyone were wondering).................

 

I do grow Brugs, its just that I've not been saying so here 'coz mean people keep posting pictures on here of their's in flower already ... but I'll be there soon, I've coloured them "hourly feeding" on the chart, and bought a new hourly-repeating alarm clock

 

Peter, do I like the Iochroma cyaneum 'Plum Paradise' . This year I have just the common Australis, but I could get into the others.
For Kristen, I managed to rustle up another picture:WINK1:

It's another Aborea, called "T". Bought it last year and have a couple of blooms on it. Nice flower with a really strong candy vanilla smell. These Arborea's normally start to flower this time of the year, nothing special done to them. Unlike their warm cousins, which love being spoilt. I'm looking foward to seeing your bloom's Kristen, what are you looking foward to the most??

 

My front window this evening..........................

 

I'm looking forward to just seeing some of mine flower!

I did feel sufficiently guilty this morning that I put some Miracle Gro in the can when I watered them

I bought a B. sanguinea off eBay a week ago. It arrived with a stick in the pot to stop the pot sliding up-and-down the packaging, but the stick was pointed and had thus pierced through the bottom of the pot and the plant had squished anyway :(, so only one leaf had remained attached :( its got some little buds breaking with new leaves, and will no doubt be fine, but its going to be a bit delayed - LIKE ALL THE OTHERS !!

Yeah, I know, you lot did try to dissuade me from buying a sanguinea ...

 

Nice choice!! It's my only Brug, but I'm up for a challenge too!