Re: Aristea, Anyone?
Tim Longville wrote:
>
> Glenn - Many thanks for the information - both useful and encouraging.
>
> I actually grow Wachendorfia here but though it survives the winter it
> rarely flowers and never very impressively: just not enough naked
> heat, I guess? Or perhaps, given what you say about it in association
> with aristea, I should be giving it a *damp* warm spot, rather than
> desperately and not very successfully trying to bake it dry??
Well I grow and flower Wachendorfia quite easily in a slightly shady but
reasonably moist border in summer temps around the mid 20s C. As to
Aristea ecklonii, it grows in several parts of the garden from partially
shady to almost complete sunshine and drives me mad with self-sown
seedlings. I have been driven in recent years to cutting back soon after
flowering to reduce the seeding.
On the other hand I have had Aristea major (the ordinary blue one)
almost forever and only once has it flowered (several years ago). It is
in a place where it gets a good deal of summer sun. In fact it is on the
edge of a fairly dry terrace successfully planted mainly with dahlias
(and also hosting a lot of those self-sown A ecklonii plants).
In view of what David has told us about growing these plants in San
Francisco
I now propose to move it down into cooler moister conditions near to the
Wachendorfia and see if I can frighten it into flowering!
If this works, I could be in the market for a few seeds of the pink
form. I once subscribed to Kirstenbosch myself, but gave up my
membership years ago as had no time to spare while rasing four kids.(and
now I don't have the energy to do justice to lots of seeds).
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
