What's looking exotic in February 2015

February is generally a quiet month, but I counted about 15 or 16 plants in flower in my Conservatory - albeit some were only half hearted.


Strelitzia reginea - Bird of Paradise flower. This same flower has lasted for over a month now. There are one or two more coming including one next to it. It seems that Strelitzia flowers whenever it wants to rather that in a defined period.


Canarina canariensis. This does have a flowering season, which is the winter. It doesn't have a lot of flowers but those that it has are very long lasting.


Jasminum polyanthum. This has loads and loads of flowers and buds. But sadly there is hardly any fragrance except of particularly warm days.


Citrofortunella microcarpa, better known as Calamondin. This is a superb plant, it has fruit on it and looks like this for almost 12 months of the years


Hardenbergia violacea, grown from seed last year has just produced its first flowers. They are tiny and not impressive at the moment. I have only ever seen a Hardenbergia once before, about 10 months ago; it was 6 feet high, absolutely covered in blue, and a magnificent sight. I saw it at The Old Walled Garden nursery - which seems to have disappeared. I would be very sorry if they have gone out of business as they had many plants that couldn't be obtained anywhere else in the UK.


Impatiens niamniamensis - an old faithful.

 

It's always nice to have some flower inside, I only have my yellow Bougainvilleas coming into flower.

 

Strongy - how on earth do you get Bougainvillea to flower at this time of year.

I had a couple of very small ones that flowered reasonably last year, but I had two larger ones about 4 or 5 feet tall that never flowered. I finally concluded that I had overwatered them. I had put in an automatic watering system that hasn't been very successful as it gives water when some things really need it but others don't.

 

Aren't they! Twelve months a year here to one degree or another.