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Sunday 2 March 2008

Indigenous Beauties : Asystasia gangetica


Asystasia gangetica
Fairy Bells/Creeping Foxglove

Asystasia is a thrifty little plant - doing much with little. It is often found growing in coastal dune forest with very little nutrients, sandy soil and often low light. When given any kind of care - water, light or food, it will repay you with fast growth and pretty little white bell-shaped flowers.

Asystasia is a great little groundcover when you are needing to stabilise a bank, or hold soil in place. It will grow well in sun or shade, although if grown in full sun with medium amounts of water it will tend to go yellow temporarily. It attracts butterflies and has a pleasant fragrance.

It can be grown easily from cuttings, and will spread out to about 60cm wide, and 30-40cm high.

3 comments:

Katarina said...

The Creeping Foxglove seems to be a very pretty ground cover plant! (I only have the "ordinary" Foxglove in my garden, but that's quite nice too.)
/Katarina at Roses and stuff

Anonymous said...

Hi Ross,

Just had to come for a visit after receiving your comment on my modern sheds post. So glad I did.

Your photographs are fabulous! Such different plant material in comparison to what we see here in Canada. Right about now we could definitely use a bit of a tropical boost!

stoneware70 said...

Thanks for the comments...

It does sometimes get frustrating when most of the garden design books I read for inspiration don't use the same plant material as we do in South Africa! Tropical is great, but I could do with a bit of cooler weather again!

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