Re: Large leaf plants

Gay Klok wrote:
The two rather unusual Lobelias, Lobelia tupa is a perennial, large grey leaves, scarlet flowers, late summer, and height 6 ft. It is easy to seed [in fact in our gardens seeds by itself in quite good positions] and appears to withstand light frosts in our garden.
Lobelia gibberoa is a spectacular architectural giant, that reaches about 24 ft in our garden. It does come from Africa but we have found it quite easy to grow in our cool temperate climate. We have also easily propagated it
Hi Gay
I looked up these Lobelias and in Flora I found pictured L tupa from seaside sandhills in Chile. It looks quite magnificent.

L gibberoa is outside their competace apparently. However though they do list two other African species, LL. aberdarica and telekii. Each of these is listed as growing up to 8ft tall. The height of 24 ft you mention for gobberoa sounds truely amazing. I guess you don't have to battle the strong winds which are such a feature of _our_ local climate!

I recall once when I waa still working in the advisory labs in Nairobi (nearly 55 years ago) my boss going some way up (I think) Mt Kenya and bringining back a wild spike of probably L. abedarica. This spike was only about 5ft tall, but I remember clearly how huge the individual clear blue flowers were. I regret I never myself got up to see these monsters in theri native habitat.

Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ. Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
NEW PICTURES AND DIAGRAMS ADDED 20/Feb/2005

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