Thursday, January 14, 2010

Pigeonberry....Duranta cv. beautiful bi-colored flowers...this is flowering in the warm greenhouse

We have a Pigeonberry bush in the Florida garden. It's a landscape standard in Zone 9. There are a number of species and while the fruit is palatable to birds, it's poisonous to mammals. The flowers on ours are a lovely color of blue, but lack this picotee edge. It came with the garden and was 7  feet tall three years ago. I prune it regularly even when it doesn't suffer winter dieback. Last winter it was killed way back by temperatures nowhere near what we just experienced. I can't wait to see it. Unfortunately/fortunately? that won't happen for another three+ months. By then, my guess is that it will have flushed out through the dead branches. I'll clean it up!

Pigeonberry is regularly, though not frequently, offered for sale as a "Container Plant" for decks and terraces. It grows quickly, flowers freely, and doesn't have issues with pests, diseases, or water, so might be a good choice for an amorphous anchor in a large container. The hard part is letting it die during winter, or finding a place for it inside.

1 comment:

Bradley Evans said...

This plant is a named cultivar called Duranta erecta 'Sapphire Showers'.