PUSHING THE BORDERS

Following my visit to Stone House Cottage, I developed a penchant for smaller pea-type flowers. This has surprised me because in the past I’ve never really paid attention to them, apart from the glories of in-your-face wisterias. I’ve managed to get hold of a few Indigofera, which I adore and I saw images of Lespedeza on the web and immediately wanted one, so generous did the show of bloom appear to be. I bought L. thunbergii and L. thunbergii ‘Edo-shibori’. Both seemed to do well, putting on lots of growth. However, the leaves have withered on both plants, rather spoiling the effect and on Edo-shibori everything seems to have withered. I read that these should be fairly fool-proof shrubs or is this wrong? Does anyone grow them and can tell me why this has happened or know if they have a particular liking for certain conditions?

Have you tried to keep them in pots?

They want to be 'shrubs', but are usually grown as vast herbaceous plants; annual growth to about 2M.

I would guess they'd cope in 70L pots or larger, but would be much happier in the soil.

Chad

Thank you Chad. I had read that they can be very successfully grown in pots to allow them to cascade and if the pots they are in are not 70L, they are very close to it!

Liberate them Martin,

Or cut the base of the pots so they can root through into the soil.

They are lower maintenance then as well.

Chad

Looks like that’s what I will have to do. I’ll be doing a bit of re-jigging next year anyway.

Had to smile reading your question martin! I also liked the look of them , it was a miserable unhappy plant here so I gave it to my son!! He is about 4 miles away as the crow flys and its spectacular for him