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Although this could very well be a picture of me finding a new treasure at a favorite nursery, it's actually an illustration by David Catrow for a children's book called Plantzilla.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

My Favorite Plant in the Garden This Week; Indecisive Gardener Edition

I originally was going to say that clerodendrum trichotomum was my favorite plant in the garden this week because they're covered with magic right now.


Then I realized that I'd already done a post about this cool plant here last October. 


So instead here a couple of other cool plants that are also favorites this week.  First up is Ficus afghanistanica grown by Xera Plants.  I found it at Jungle Fever Exotics Nursery, one of Tacoma's best places to find unusual plants.  According to the tag, It's hardy to zone 7, drought tolerant, and deciduous.   

 Probably not the best fig leaf for making dolmas or covering biblical characters' naughty bits  but it sure is lovely.   Besides I have huge fig leaves growing in another part of the place should Greek cuisine or nudity become an issue.

Second is Trevesia palmata which looks very similar to Trevesia palmata 'Micholitzii' (from Dragonfly Farms two or three years ago) the former has  golden brown indumentum on  the emerging leaves while T.p. 'Micholitzii' has silvery gray making the emerging and young leaves more closely resemble snowflakes. Leaves on this puppy are about a foot and a half wide.   This one is a newbie this year, found at Valley Nursery in Poulsbo.  The leaves should become much more deeply incised as the plant gets even larger.


Anyway, one can never have too many Trevesias palmata in his/her collection because carrying tropical plants in huge pots up and down several flights of  stairs a couple of times a year allows for the use of much colorful vocabulary reserved just for such special occasions as tripping mid flight of stairs and falling on an agave or watching an accidentally dropped pot of something precious hurl down the staircase spewing potting soil all over the rug.  Not that I know anything about this sort of thing mind you.
 
If you'd like to see this week's favorite plants of people who can make up their minds, click on over to Danger Garden whose author and really wonderful person, Loree, hosts the Favorite Plant meme.


21 comments:

  1. The Ficus and Trevesia are indeed both beauties! And thanks for the info regarding the Trevesia as I've always wondered what sets Micholitzii apart and you've answered that question.

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  2. They are wonderful plants. I really need to get a fig tree. Does F. afghanistanica fruit, or is it just for showy leaves?

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    1. The 2005 Heronswood catalog says, "This Afghan Fig carries smaller three lobed deciduous foliage than Ficus carica while the small figs produced are very sweet and edible. A very hardy, long-lived and drought-tolerant shrub for full sun and draining soil." for more information on this fig, read Arthur Lee Jacobson's entry about it. http://www.arthurleej.com/p-o-m-Aug08.html

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  3. My Clerodendrum seems surprisingly full of magic too this year. In previous years, it was never so full of stars and berries.

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    1. Some years are definitely better than others with those.

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  4. Good choices all of them! There's nothing wrong with a little indecision, especially when you've got as many fabulous plants as you do.

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  5. Even though I don't have one, I always know when the Clerodendrons in town are fruiting, because at least one person will bring a sprig of it to work and ask me what it is!

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  7. Why, oh why won't my clerodendrum produce those wonderful steely blue balls? Perhaps it's a bit shy, and loathe to compete with the risqué fig leaves. Everything you show here has earned its favored status.






























































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    1. It took several years before mine started doing this reliably.

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  8. Hilarious as usual! What a mental image! Lovely plants, is the Clerodendrum fragrant? You can grow so many cool plants that are not hardy enough where I live. The incised fig leaves are intriguing.

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    1. The Clerodendrum is fragrant in bloom (close to a jasmine fragrance) and the humming birds love it. The leaves smell like peanut butter when brushed or bruised. The blue berries are backed by the red calyxs of the spent flowers. The plant is a bit boring in the winter but there's foliage in spring, mid summer blooms and now this berry show. This plant has also had parts suffer a sudden and uniform leaf wilt and branch death. It's strange and used to worry me but now I simply cut those branches away and others come to take their place. Don't know if it's the plant or if their is something weird in my soil in that area.

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  9. That Ficus afghanistanica is purdy!!!

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  10. Fabulous foliage all, and I love the blue and red stars of the Clerodendrum. I've been lusting for one of those for a while... the summer fragrance is so wonderful! Anyway, that branch death combined with wilt sounds ominously like Verticillium wilt. A while back, it happened in my garden, and I wrote about it. I do hope I'm wrong though, but even if I would be right, it sounds as if mature trees suffer less than babies. One of these weeks, I WILL jump on, and join the 'Favorite Plant of the Week'. Such a fun meme... http://thecreativeflux.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/the-villainous-ways-of-verticillium-wilt/

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    1. It could be Verticillium wilt. It didn't happen to the Clerodendrum this year for the second in several years. However, a large, very well established clump of Euphorbia 'Fireglow' a few feet away has been cut down dramatically by some sort of sudden wilt / death. Bless it's heart, it tried to grow back this year but was cut down again. Off to search your blog for your post!

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Thanks so much for taking the time to comment! I love to hear your thoughts.