The Streptocarpus Black Panther. I bought this as a plug plant at Tatton Park from the Dibleys stall. The guy had to root around these trolleys laden with muslin cloth wrapped plug plants in little clear plastic bags. I loved the Darkness of the flowers on the display plant. Its almost black, or very drak purple. Its also hard to photograph a Dark flower.I took a lot of photos.I need a sunny day to illuminate the flower petals. you can get the idea of it though from the photos..
Black Panther In Profile, five petals at the end of the Tubular flower. The stems rise up from the Long, crinkly green leaves. They are easy to propogate. At the Flower show the Lady from the British Streptocarpus association showed how you can cut off a leaf, strip the middle vein, and lay the two long pieces into well drained damp compost. The Streptocarpus will grow baby plants along the cut leaves. You have an exact copy of the parent plant...
Nerys, bought from Harlow Carr in June. This plant has flowered prodigiously from June to September and is still going. The leaves are really long now, ready for some propogating...
The Unknown variety with lilac and white flowers, with the Egg Yolk centres. This has flowered for months too. The stems and leaves are hairy on this plant. The other Streps have crinkly leaves. This one is African violet like.The Flowering stems are covered in bright red, downy hair, like Red snakes. The buds are wrapped inside the brown covering which open then drop off revealing two to four flower buds. I love the colours of this unknown variety.. There are two more Varietys still growing. Happy Snappy from Tatton Park with Red/Orange flowers, and Streptocarpus Ruby which Hils Friend gave her to give to me.I guess it will have red flowers but I dont know really.
The Streps are giving me September flowers, when everything else is struggling.My only other flowers are on the Cyclamen I bought in the flower show.
Seed and plant catalogues are being perused now, for more plant ideas, and for purchases...
4 comments:
Very pretty. I have not heard of them over here. Will have to pay more attention to see if I can find them. It is very interesting how you can propagate them. You could have hundreds of them in no time!
Thanks I never heard of them before this year either.I like the flowers and they are apparently easy to propogate.I am trying out the Streptocarpus Ruby with the leaf cuttings.If I do propogate loads they will be given away to friends and work mates.I hope you can find them....
Beautiful streps. I have about 17 of them myself.
Oh! Those flowers caught my attention. It seems you have a great flower gardens. How I wish I could have a cool garden like yours. Keep it up!
-pia-
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