Success is a Flower



Now this may not seem much of an achievement to all you horticulturalists – but for me this single flower is a matter for some celebration.

I first saw this plant about fifteen years ago in Western Australia, and fell in love with it. It’s a climber and when it blooms it is just one mass of flowers. I rushed back to Sydney, bought a plant and popped it in the ground… and there it stayed for two years and did nothing. It didn’t grow, it didn’t climb and it certainly did not bloom. It was better than the two or three frangipani trees I planted, which turned to soggy stumps within weeks, this did at least stay alive.

I can assure that plants do know what you say to them. At the end of two years, I told this useless plant that if it didn’t get its act together – it was coming out. Whereupon it started to grow. Unfortunately we had to move so I have no idea whether the thing took off or died after we left.

Last year I bought a pile of climbers to cover the side fence. I have a pathological hatred of fences and firmly believe that they should all be hidden behind something growing. The earth was rock-hard but I persevered and put in some 24 plants, alll chosen to bloom at different times of the year. I confidently expected that each and every one of them would die… they haven’t and this little beauty has just come out to prove me wrong.

My next problem is how do I get these things to spread? At the moment all twenty-four plants (it’s a long fence!) are busily climbing up to the sky but not putting out any ‘side’  shoots to go sideways.

15 thoughts on “Success is a Flower”

  2. Oops, hadn’t finished, sorry. Quite often with ‘our’ climbers, like clematis, if you clip off the main top shoot, it retaliates by shooting back – more than once, thus providing side-shoots!

  4. It looks like the Lily family to me, but that’s as far as my horticulture expertise goes. To me it’s a beautiful specimen, but more than that, it’s been beautifully captured, congratulations Boa, I love it. Stunning colours.

  7. I’m reminded of one of my mother’s favourite plants, the honeysuckle.

    Plantzafrica has this to say about it…

    “Cape honeysuckle is a fast growing, scrambling shrub which may grow up to 2-3m high and spread more than 2.5m. This shrub is widely distributed throughout Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Cape coast and Mozambique.”

    They are all over the place down here, a quick look at wiki shows hundreds of varieties and colours.

  8. The flower is about the size of my palm. It’s not unlike the honeysuckle, Soutie, although it doesn’t have the aroma. Honeysuckle is one of my favourite plants, too.

    In a week or so this particular plant will be in full blossom. I’ll see if I can get a photo of a ‘real’ plant! There’s a stretch of road not far from here where the road divider is covered with the stuff. Just at the moment, the Jacaranda are out – another magnificent sight.

  11. Thanks for the compliment Val!

    Janus – I’ve already cut it off at the top. It was a couple of feet over the fence and that seemed pointless.

    Sipu – that’s it! I know that wasn’t the name on the label, but nonetheless that’s it.

  13. I would prune it back after it has flowered and if it is going up rather than along, provide it with some wires along the fence and train the new growth along those.
    If you just leave it it will go over the fence and down the other side and that is where the flowers will be, for the neighbours!
    Same advice for all evergreen creepers.

  14. Ever hopeful, we put the ‘wires’ up before the plants went in!

    Many thanks for everyone’s comments.

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