Encouraging more blooms on Lavatera

[Chiaroscuro]

Hi

Sorry about this ramble!

I bought a Lavertera last year which I planted in a long container with a few other plants. It only flowered for a short time and at the end of the summer I decided to transplant it into a large pot on its own. I live in a small block of flats and I put the plant into a pot in our communal gardens. Just as it was starting to bud the pot disappeared, initially I thought it had been stolen, but it turned out our gardeners whipped it away to cover a broken drain outside our neighbouring block! I wasn't very happy as the Lavatera was the only plant outside our block actually living - the gardeners had previously put other plants in containers and then not bothered watering them. So I marched off with my trowel and rescued my Lavetera, it is now in a large stone pot and has just had a beautiful flush of flowers. However, these are almost gone now with no sign of more blooms.

I'm not sure if this particular plant only has a short flowering period, obviously going on the evidence of last year would suggest so, butI thought it was supposed to have a flowering period through to around September.

Is there any way I can encourage it to throw some more shoots now? The bees absolutely loved the flowers, there was even one that spent the night inside one a couple of days ago!

[rainbowgardener]

I wasn't familiar with this so I looked it up. What I found is that there are a whole bunch of different lavateras, some are annuals, some are perennials, of several varieties, so there's not much we could tell you without knowing more about what kind of lavatera you have.

In the meantime, I found this nice little article about different kinds of lavateras and in the article one of the headings is Lavatera flowers short lived, so that may just be the nature of critter:

https://www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/lavatera.html

[Chiaroscuro]

Thanks for the reply.

I've been searching through Websites too and have wondered if it's a short lived version. I also read that sometimes they just 'up and die on you' with no warning.

I think this one's a fairly tough little plant as after it was 'plantnapped' by the gardeners it was really dry and, of course, it's been transplanted a couple of times in a few months but seems to have coped OK.

As you say, there are so many types of Lavatera but I'm pretty sure now it's Bredon Springs, which under that link you've given me is under short lived plants. I just wondered if I did a little gentle pruning now if it would encourage a few more stalks to grow or if it would be more likely to damage it. I know pruning is recommended in the spring otherwise.

There are a few photos here https://picasaweb.google.com/CL.Photographs/LavateraAndBee#, but they're all close ups because of my excitement at attracting bees!