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Pale flowers

dave.stephen49dave.stephen49 Posts: 9
in Problem solving

Can anyone point me in the right direction, last year end August i ordered 2 x caryopteris dark knights which arrived in bloom. They were real bee magnets and i really liked the intensely dark blue flowers. This year i decided to add some more. They arrived Mid June and almost immediately went in too bloom, but tiny mishapen light lilac flowers. I complained to the supplier who refunded me. I ordered new ones to replace from a different supplier they are just now starting too bloom and they too look to be on the lighter shade of lilac. Reviewing other plantings (bluebells which were closer to pink, catmints with really pale lilac flowers, and a dark knight budleia which is closer to burgundy), i am concerned that i have been doing something wrong or missing something?. I must point out that all the plants in the garden appear healthy and if anything a tad larger than normal...

Posts

  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,157

    I have a buddleja bought as Black Knight, I wouldn't describe the colour as burgundy but it's not Black Knight. I wonder if some of these plants are seed raised and not the true cultivar. 

    I like mine, nicer than Black Knightimage



    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 6,648

    I was sent 6 achillea 'cassis', 4 of which are 'cassis' and two are pink. I bought 3 red oriental poppies from a local GC, One is orange. Same sort of thing with kniphofia - yellow ones are orange, orange ones are green. Seems to happen all the time to me. I just move the 'wrong' colour ones to somewhere else. The only reliable true blues I've bought are agapanthus. Even delphiniums shade from really lovely deep blue to quite pale lilac, and camassia - same thing. I guess it's a 'most probable' label that the nurseries put on them, rather than a guarantee. Either that or whatever it is you're doing wrong, so am I, which is entirely possible.

    Can you grow ceanothus? There's a really striking blue one of those - if you get a big enough one at the GC to see what colour it really is before you buy it. Can't grow them in my garden image

    “Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first” 
  • dave.stephen49dave.stephen49 Posts: 9
    Would imagine ceanothus would work, lucky here soil seems to be really rich, everything i shove in the ground seems to grow bigger than normal, saying that though last two winters have been milder than normal, on the coast here in Aberdeen you take your chances. Thanks for the tip though
  • dave.stephen49dave.stephen49 Posts: 9

    Thanks Verdun, this part of the world over watering comes from the skies ?

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