Dombeya x 'Seminole' Loves the Heat

My garden is inland a little bit from San Diego so we get heat in the summer. I love those plants that like heat. You know the ones I mean, just as I am wilting, they are perking up and look positively chipper as the temperature climbs. Their growth accelerates as temperatures go above 80 degrees F. Dombeya x 'Seminole' is one such plant. Planted last fall as the temperatures were cooler, it kind of sat there for a few months--that is-- until it got hot, and now it is putting on impressive growth. Not sure what made me try it, it is supposed to really like water, and I never intended to put water lovers in my garden. Once a week this shrub gets maybe 30 seconds of water from the hose and it is doing well. I have it sited under the high shade of a tree it is refreshingly dark green and robust on that amount of water. The leaves are large and really green like a Hydrangea macrophylla and because of this is often called, "Tropical Rose Hydrangea."

Dombeya x 'Seminole' or Dombeya burgessiae 'Seminole'                                                                     S. Reeve

So far the growth habit is full and it hasn't required pruning. It takes well to pruning and can be kept 3-5 feet high and wide pretty easily even though it wants to be 8 feet tall and wide. Dombeya is in the Malvaceae. Originally this species comes from East Africa and was named for Joseph Dombey, a French botanist from the eighteenth century. This plant is a hybrid created in 1973 by crossing two selections of Dombeya burgessiae, E-29 and 'Rosemound'. This created a smaller denser plant with brighter pink flowers. The flowers are held on the outside and are very showy, occurring in large clusters of vivid pink petals. Each flower is 1-1.5 inches. The flowers are not fragrant. 

               Blooming Dombeya x 'Seminole'    

This is a long-blooming shrub. It starts in the fall and blooms until the spring. Large bowl-shaped flowers are popular with bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, making this a "must-have" wildlife plant for my garden. 

Costa's Hummingbird on Dombeya x 'Seminole'                                                                                   Pedro Lastra

This plant also does well in a pot. It is a precocious flower machine and will bloom very young. If you are in a colder zone, you could try it in a pot and take it in in the winter. Dombeya burgessiae 'Seminole' can take pretty radical pruning too and still come back just fine. Prune after the blooms stop in the spring. It is not cold tolerant though and is rated USDA Cold Hardiness Zone 9 and higher. Zone 9 is a little iffy though as this plant does not tolerate freezing temperatures at all. It is evergreen here in Zone 10b. It needs well-draining alkaline to slightly acidic soil which I have here. Not that I fertilize anything, but I wouldn't use chemical fertilizer on this plant, as I can imagine one of the those "miracle" fertilizers would cause lanky unattractive forced growth. The fruit is a five-chambered oval brown capsule. 

Nobuhiro Suhara photographer

Leaves appear healthy and I have not seen any pests on this plant. What remains to be seen is how well it flowers in a little shade. I have a feeling it will bloom just fine.

                        

Fancy Echeveria!

  Echeveria 'Andromeda'                                                                                                                S. Reeve

Echeveria 'Andromeda' has Mother-of-Pearl opalescent coloring that is difficult to believe unless you see it. I see pink/coral edges, blue inner petals, yellow centers that grade into blue and coral and silvery tones too. The coloring of sunsets and seas in every wavy leaf. What an amazing plant! This is a new plant for me and I was worried it would be finicky and difficult to grow, but it has been quite the opposite. Once I planted three of them they all took off and grew to large platter proportions. One was completely eaten (by rabbits?) only to return and almost catch up to its cohorts. In fact, as I walked by what remained of the plant, I silently gave it its last rites, thinking it was far too gone to ever come back. Was I ever surprised to notice it the other day almost as large as the unmolested other two! Impressively strong grower so far. 

Blooming Echeveria 'Andromeda'                                                                                                        S. Reeve

So here it is the middle of July and the plant shoots up these cartoonishly colored bloom spikes. The spikes are much more substantial than the slender horizontal spikes of the Dudleya pulverulenta. They look like they hummingbirds might like them, but so far, I have not observed any takers. This plant is so visually satisfying with its blue bracts and Pepto Bismol pink blooms on Helicoid cymes. According to the patent description, the flowers are 2.4 cm long and are large for the genus. This plant was bred by the famous Renee O'Connell in Escondido. My plants are in a little bit of shade. Even in an inland location, where we had a 102F degree day these plants were not phased in the slightest. Unlike Dudleya, Echeveria appreciates and requires summer irrigation. I am new to this genus and I am astounded by the diversity of coloration and shapes. Pretty sure some botanist will determine that there is more than one genus here and start dividing it further. Splitters--hmmph! 

Echeveria is in the large Family of Crassulaceae. Crassulaceae means "succulent little plant" and that is almost right with Echeveria 'Andromeda' except I would say "succulent big plant."  Native to cool mountains in Mexico and South America with one species outlier in Texas. Keep them dry in the winter and they will be more cold hardy, down to 20-25F. All members of the genus Echeveria have CAM or Crassulacean Acid Metabolism. CAM plants represent 7% of vascular plant species. Normally, plants open their stomata during the day to fix carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. In CAM the plant opens their stomata at night and has the ability to store carbon dioxide until it is needed during daylight. This evolutionary modification saves water that would normally escape at a greater rate during the warmer daytime through open stomata. This strategy has mainly evolved in arid and semi-arid water-limited environments.

I am really enjoying living here in Southern California and growing all of these cool succulents.  I water once a week and that seems to be enough. They seem to like my sandy loam soil. Good drainage is necessary to grow these well. They do not tolerate freezing temperatures and tend to sulk if temperatures go below 50 degrees F. People can and do grow these indoors, but it would have to be in a very sunny window. If you do grow these in pots use a good quality cactus soil to give them the drainage they insist on. Try to avoid wetting the leaves when applying water. I'm hooked. These succulents intrigue me with their jewel box colors and variety of size and shapes.