[Alisdair]

No not cheap, Jorun. Incidentally, if you don't already know the site, www.abebooks.com trawls many more secondhand booksellers than amazon (for instance, one has the English version of the Baumann book for £45)

[MikeHardman]

I second the vote in favour of www.abebooks.com.
I have been using them for most of the 20 years I have been working on Viola, and through them I have secured many of the long list of Viola-related books I have on my wants list. There are still many that never turn up, though!

[Umbrian]

Not one of the spectacular performers regarding autumn colour but nevertheless, to my eyes, a thing of beauty at the moment as the leaves turn to "smoky" shades of purple,bluey mauve......difficult to describe but I hope the photo does them justice!

[Rosie]

Just caught up with this thread but not sure it is worth starting a new one ... here is a lovely small tree which we have just found in a local nursery. It has come through it's first summer with flying colours and is a fabulous smokey purple colour on the underside of the leaves with small pale blue mini-lilac flowers. I have great hopes for this as the V. agnus castae does so well here.

[David Bracey]

This plant is so robust that it is now being used in road side and traffic island planting in the Gard.

[Fleur Pavlidis]

I find Vitex agnus-castus a bit disappointing in my very dry Attica garden. It comes very late into leaf, flowers and is all over in the blink of an eye. Whereas up near our mountain house where it grows along the road by a slight stream of water (during the winter) the flowering period seems much more prolonged. Also I bought a named variety which turned out to be sludge coloured rather than the lively blue promised.

[Alice]

Same on Paros, Fleur. I think it is one of those dry riverbed shrubs. Likes its feet near water during the cooler months.

[Umbrian]

We had a thread about Vitex agnus-castus before and variations in colour were noted. Having been given one as a present the flowers of which were a beautiful, intense blue, I bought two others only to be disappointed when they had really dull flowers.
Regarding its liking for a certain amount of water it is really strange that this year  mine are performing less well than normal despite unprecedented rainfall in our area this spring and early summer. However I love this shrub/small tree - it may be late into leaf but when they come they are really attractive and the flowers, if you get a "good" one are beautiful. The only downside I have found is the huge amount of seed, like peppercorns, that falls once ripe. Mine fall onto the front terrace and can be quite a hazard if not swept up regularly causing the feet of the unwary to slip from under one. No other side effects noted however

[JTh]

Fleur and Carol, I recommend starting Vitex agnus-castus from seeds, I gathered some from a bush with particularly nice blue flowers nearly two years ago, and germinated them the following spring in Norway. A couple of them were transported in my suitcase  last autumn (via Turkey, it took five days before they were removed from the bottles they travelled in), and one of them is now in bloom here in Greece. The flowers have the same nice blue/violet colour as the bush I collected seeds from, and the plant is about 90 cm tall. I still have a small forest of them in my greenhouse in Norway, waiting to go to Greece. I also have a couple I bought two years ago, they do get a little bit of watering, but not much; they seem to be thriving.

[Umbrian]

I must sing the praises of Vitex agnus-castus again. Many things in the garden are beginning to look a little sad by now with ever encreasing temperatures and hot, drying winds. My three Vitex agnus-castus however are covered with flowers and the leaves as fresh and green as when they appeared. Butterflies ,and many different bees love them and bring the garden alive where they are planted.