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Plant ID

This plant grows to a metre or so high, returns every Autumn and several more now reappear. It has flower buds that look like the Cape gooseberry and grows happily in my unheated greenhouse over the winter.  Help please!

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Posts

  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,295

    https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=538

    they make a great late summer show in my garden



    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • PalustrisPalustris Posts: 4,210

    Shoo fly plant. More correctly Nicandra physalodes.

  • Many thanks, Berghill and nutcutlet - I shall encourage them.

  • Also, according to Wiki Apple- of-Peru and a member of the nightshade family. Very beautiful blue flowers.

  • I was given one of these a couple of years ago by a colleague who said they were supposed to keep down whitefly in the greenhouse.  I put it in a pot and kept it in the greenhouse and I didn't have any whitefly that year but this could be a coincidence, I suppose.

    I moved house and took some of the seeds of this with me - we have a major problem with flies that seem to live in the soil in this garden (can't remember what they are called).  I planted some of this in one of my borders and I am pretty sure the fly population has been better - again, could be psychological but maybe it is called shoo fly for good reason? It's very pretty though.

    Has anyone else used it to control whitefly in their greenhouse?

  • Interesting, diblinschat, it sounds plausible - I'll try it, thanks.
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