Given the trauma we had importing the Lapageria its always good to see one of the plants produce its first flower on growth its made since arriving here. They are all still very slow to recover from what we did to them 20 months ago but I have started a few layers going and I am hoping that a baby plant with a fresh set of roots may actually be happier than the original.
So this is the cultivar 'El Vergel' a pale pink that was part of the Methodist Mission at El Vergel's original collection back in the 1800's it was # 9 on their original list and this plant is probably the only one in Europe. I wont know for several more years whether it flowers any better than any other pink cultivars!
These two pictures of the state of Lapageria cultivars at the two Botanic gardens back in 2001 shows just how many plants were no longer in the gardens by the time we first went in 2009 there were only 3 plants left growing in the gardens at Berkeley
I think you could be right, trouble is without growing them all you can't be sure which are the best ones to keep!
Those photographed pages are the state of play at Berkeley botanic in the early 2000's and there seem to be a lot of plants dead or missing, they are now down to just one plant out of what was a large and extensive collection their excuse is that they are only interested in wild plants but most of these Lapageria were ripped out of the forest by the locals over hundreds of years so they all represent aspects of the wild gene pool all be it not typical ones (bit like the early primrose forms found in gardens)
I just like the stories and history that goes with them ! :)
Looks like 1 or 2 more plants may try and flower this year. Remutral is one of the Bi-colours, I am of course hoping for more than one flower per year!
Lapageria El Vergel 001 by charliepridham, on Flickr
