Duranta erecta problems
I purchased a Duranta erecta last summer and it was blooming and continued to do so all season. As the temps dropped I moved into my garage but it still lost all of its leaves and eventually left me with brown sticks. In the spring, I cut it back fertilized it and sat it in the same spot in the yard it was in last year. It came back and the foliage is beautiful but no blooms. I was at nursery that was selling the same plant and it was blooming (this was at least a month or so ago) so I asked advice. They said to had a bloom booster fertilizer to my routine. I did and have continued but no change. Any suggestions?
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
What a nice plant! I had to look it up, not being real familiar with a lot of tropicals (up here in zone 6). The basic thing about this plant is that it is only hardy to zone 9. You are lucky it survived in your garage. I did find this:
In Zone 8 the shrub dies to ground after hard freezes but resprouts in spring. It typically recovers quickly enough to bloom, but probably not set berries, by the following season's first frost.
It looks like you are probably in Zone 7, even worse from the plant's point of view. So it may yet bloom, just a lot later than it would have, if not so cold stressed. If it does, then this winter you may want to bring it indoors, instead of leaving it in the garage. I have an angel trumpet I bring in every fall. I have a lamp on it for extra light. Being designed to grow a lot closer to the equator, where they never have such short days as we do in winter, it needs the extra light.
In Zone 8 the shrub dies to ground after hard freezes but resprouts in spring. It typically recovers quickly enough to bloom, but probably not set berries, by the following season's first frost.
It looks like you are probably in Zone 7, even worse from the plant's point of view. So it may yet bloom, just a lot later than it would have, if not so cold stressed. If it does, then this winter you may want to bring it indoors, instead of leaving it in the garage. I have an angel trumpet I bring in every fall. I have a lamp on it for extra light. Being designed to grow a lot closer to the equator, where they never have such short days as we do in winter, it needs the extra light.