What's Looking Exotic In October 2014

Thread for photos of plants looking Exotic in October 2014

For anyone wanting to look back here are some related threads:

What's Looking Exotic In September 2014

and what everyone thought was looking Exotic in:

October 2013
October 2012

What's Looking Good Index

 

Thanks for the links Kristen. I have been away for a bit so have only just caught up with September.
Tibouchina urvilleana (purple) has been flowering its head off for some time. And the red is Ipomea quamoclit, which I really like. When I bought the Ipomea as a seedling in the spring, all the sources said that it was an annual - but I now believe that it's really a tender perennial. I do hope so - time will tell


Isoplexis - I can't remember if this is sceptrum or canariensis - one of them died.


Bougainvillea. This is only a small one and is doing fine. I have a couple of large ones - 6 feet and neither of them have flowered this year. I can only think that they have been too wet or in too large a pot - ie not under any stress. But they have grown a lot of foliage - so maybe next year will be fantastic.


Canarina canariensis - great excitement - there are a couple of flower buds. I grew this from seed about 4 years ago and have only had one flower (two years ago) in that time. But the plant is much bigger now - about 5 feet tall, so I have great hopes for it. Its a strange one. It grows from a tuber, flowers and then dies back and goes dormant. It's like a Dahlia, but exactly the other way round. Canarina is dormant all summer, then grows in the autumn and flowers over the winter before going dormant again in the spring.


Porphyrocoma pohliana (centre) - from seed this year. Beloperone guttata (the shrimp plant) is on the left.


A Fittonia flower stalk. I do like the red Fittonia, but I gather its quite difficult to grow as it likes high humidity and doesn't like to flower without it. In my garden room it gets humidity by the bucket full - literally. Apparently some places sell it as a plant to grow under water in a fish tank. But I gather it doesn't really like that much water.

 

Aeschynanthus lobbianthus (lipstick vine). One of my more expensive purchases earlier this year at 68p.


Tillandsia usneoides (Spanish Moss). I am really running out of space in my garden room, The floor is covered, the walls are covered and much of the roof is now covered. So that only leaves room for plants that hang down from the ceiling. This is a truly epiphytic plant - ie one that doesn't have any roots, but just adsorbs nutrients from the air.


Columnea krakatau (flying goldfish plant). Another dangler. I gather that most Columnea and Aeschynanthus are also epiphytic, However some of them will grow roots if potted in soil.

 

The garden room is looking glorious Peter!

Echinopsis subdenudata................

 

Thanks LongK

 

Salvia involucrata "Bethellii" is one of the exotic looking Salvia................


Hibiscus trionum..................

 

Brugmansia "Equator Pink" was pretty much eaten back to the ground by the slugs when I was looking the other way, but it seems to have recovered after a little bit of TLC & has produced the biggest flower:

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Stapelia gigantea.................


It has a distinct lack of stink though

 

Clerodendrum ugandense has just started blooming in the greenhouse.............


It usually blooms outdoors over the summer but it caught a late frost back in the spring so it had to start all over again.

 

The last raceme of flowers on my Sesbania for this year..................

 

Better last than never hedychium spicatum

 

Just back from a few days in northern Italy, staying on lake Garda. It was a lovely temperature of 22C, with the minimum temperature in winter of about 6C.

I didn't see a great variety of different plants, but saw lots of Mandevillas, Plumbago, Oleander - they can be big trees, Solanum rantonetti and another 20 foot high Solanum, on the side of a house, with a similar but slightly larger bluish white flower - any ideas? I only saw a couple of bananas and Brugmansia, but loads of Cycas revoluta and of course plenty of palm trees.


Urginea maritima has finally started to flower.


There is just no space left in my garden room.







Great joy - and quite unexpected - Thunbergia grandiflora has started to flower.

 

Jealous!

Jealouser!

It looks fantastic! I'm so jealous that I've turned green!

That is exceptional! Comparing the blooms to the bricks they look quite a size too!

 

Thanks LongK - yes T. grandiflora flowers are bigger than other Thunbergia flowers. Having seen its parent in flower in the spring at Hill House Nursery, where I bought mine this year, I wasn't expecting to see mine in flower this year. But I should have looked closer for buds as I saw one in flower locally, at Ripley Castle only a couple of weeks ago.

 

Canarina canariensis. This is a strange plant that grows from a tuber, which is dormant over the summer and flowers over the winter - the exact opposite of most things. I planted this as a seed in 2010. It produced a single flower in 2012, nothing in 2013 but now has 3 flowers open and is a much bigger plant.