[John J]

I took this photo this morning (the drops of water are rain, we had a short, sharp shower overnight, the first rain for 5 months). It's a vigorous climber that flowers profusely if given a little water over the summer. It's in the Bignonia family and has had its name changed so many times it must be suffering an identity crisis. In fact whoever decided to make the last change must have run out of ideas as they eventually ended up using an anagram of one of its previous names, Pandorea!

[Alisdair]

Lovely picture - the flowers look really grateful for that rain, John, but I bet not as grateful as you!
A bonus is the fragrance of the flowers.
Are you mild enough for it to stay evergreen through the winter?

[Hilary]

In the yard of the block of flats here in Corinth.
Mixed up with a Yucca and some sort of Cyprus
Gets some water about once a week when I try to encourage some other plant.
Loses its leaves in the winter

[John J]

I think I'd have to call it semi-deciduous, Alisdair. The winters have been getting noticably milder over the last 40 odd years since I first came to Cyprus with a good deal less snow on the mountains.

[John J]

I don't know what the record is for the length of a P. ricasoliana seedpod but I saw this one this morning. I can't recall having seen any others that were as long and straight, not on my plant anyway. As shown it's a little over 30cm.

[JTh]

I am not sure if the seed pods I saw in Ouranoupolis in August are longer  than the one you showed below, John, kind of difficult to measure from where I was standing, but I must say was quite surprised to see such voluptuous growth this far north, the top of the house was covered.

This is not far from our house, only 12 km across the bay (but 45 km driving around the bay). I thought it would not be hardy enough in this area, but maybe Ouranoupolis is more sheltered than our place?

[John J]

I don't know what minimum winter temperatures you experience, Jorun, but the RHS claims it will survive down to 10C. We rarely get frosts here but the nighttime temps can fall into the low single figures and it copes ok with those.

[JTh]

We do occasionally get some frost (and snow), but not every year; temperatures below 10^oC  are quite common in winter, though. I'll buy a max-min thermometre and see how low it goes.

[Daisy]

I love this climber. It flowers for so long. That is so important in my tiny garden. I cheated with mine. It is planted on adjoining village land next to my patio. It climbs through a quince tree which is growing there. I have never watered it directly, it just gets the run off, when I water the patio pots.
Daisy


046 by Daisyincrete, on Flickr

[Alice]

I, too, love this plant, and what a lovely specimen, Daisy.
We had one growing next to a Plumbago auriculata and I quite liked the colour combination but the Plumbago thug took over and the Podranea has now disappeared.
It never produced such monster seed pods as yours, John!

[David Dickinson]

With ref to winter temperatures I have one in a pot which I grew from seed a couple of years ago. Each winter it is taken down to "ground" level but comes back each spring. We usually have a few nights in December/January in Rome when we get down to zero though there is rarely frost on those nights because cold nights here are very dry. I use inverted commas around "ground" earlier because I grow mine in a pot. As yet it has not flowered but this year I had about a metre of growth from "ground" level so I am hoping for some flowers soon. Perhaps it could grow more rapidly if it were planted in the ground and thus produce flowers?

If anybody is interested in seed I collected a few seed pods from Naples last weekend and I am about to send some to the seed exchange. There may, of course, be seeds already on offer there.

 By the way, the seed pods I collected were around 1 foot long.