By Davidbone
United Kingdom 
Hi, can you identify a plant for me? Its a bit like a hedging plant, with strongish slightly woody stems and small regular shaped evergreen dark green leaves. About 70cms high, 70cms spread, it's evergreen. Its growing in a largiish container at the moment My problem is that when I bought it about 6 years ago, at whitsun, it had a mass of beautiful blue flowers, but it has never flowered since! I've tried pruning it at various times of the year and with various degrees of ferocity. It always comes back with strong foliage, but never flowers apart from one year when it produced just half a dozen or so flowers which were actually white and didn't last long. What could it be, and how do I get it to flower again?
Thanks!
2 Jun, 2010
Answers
Thanks for the suggestion, Fractal! I've just crushed a few leaves and there's no smell (apart from the usual "crushed leaf" smell). This isn't a ground cover plant, it's more like a small upright bush with a single stem, so I don't think it could be a Myrtle, although it does share many of it's characteristics (blue flowers in Spring, evergereen, the shape of the leaves look similar etc). It just doesn't have the right habit. Assuming I'm unable to identify it, my next move is to just leave it alone and see what happens next year. Many thanks, David
2 Jun, 2010
Hmmm, thanks David. You intrigue me I have to say. I shall try and look into it. Cheers,
Steve.
2 Jun, 2010
My Mistake - I've just taken another look, and its not a single stem, there are several coming out of the ground. But it is an upright "bush" shape, not like a Myrtle. Thanks again
David
2 Jun, 2010
Yes, this plant is almost certainly a Myrtle and yes, it only produces white flowers off older wood. If you keep clipping it, it won't produce many. When you bought it, the blue flowers must have been fake!
Crush a leaf and smell it. Is there any smell?
2 Jun, 2010