Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Tecoma 'Mayan Gold'...look what I found at a little nursery in Potomac Maryland

Actually it seems to be everywhere now, a gold form of Tecoma stans. I have considered growing the standard Orange Tecoma for years but always chose not to. It's a beautiful orange color, it flowers heavily all season, it's vigorous....and I could put it in the ground in Florida, (where I'm going day after tomorrow). Still, I don't want to plant it in the Florida garden; Bougainvillea is my uncontrollable vine of choice down there. Since there's a nice Trumpet Vine on the back deck here that flowers 2-3 times a summer it would seem kind of redundant. Still... the color is better on Tecoma, somehow more alive. And I'm ruthlessly slashing the number of non-hardy containers that have to come into the basement for the winter: I couldn't resist this ont though.

It's interesting to see a "new plant" so readily available in what is basically it's first year. I have heard that it was available from Ball Seed last year, and various gardens "trialed" it, but wasn't readily available in retail outlets. Well that has changed; it's everywhere. And maybe rightly so. It will be an easy, free-flowering, dependable container plant that can start the season as a small 5"-6" potted plant, and finish 2'-3' tall, flowering all the way. Not bad.

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