Garden Pictures Pictures by all members (34350 photos)

Melianthus major

[4]

23 Nov, 2007

If you read the books, this plant should not be thriving; it is on a heavy soil facing north! Planted in 2007, it gets a dry mulch of the roots every autumn but the top growth left on until new shoots come through, usually in the second half of March. The old stems are then cut out and the new growth reaches six feet in the course of the season. A wonderful foliage plant.
I have seen this flowering in South Africa - the flowers are small and maroon and no great shakes. If the top growth comes through a winter, it will flower but they look so tatty by spring I always cut them out