A staple "exotic" plant, and one that we use fairly sparingly in the garden. With a selection of common names such as Cabbage palm or Torbay palm making reference to the word palm, it is often confused as such.
Hailing from New Zealand, and pretty hardy in most of the UK, in all but the harshest of winters they are a fairly common sight.
One of ours is in flower at the moment and the sweet heady scent fills the air by the koi pond. People often say they smell like cat pee, so I'm rather pleased we don't seem to get that scent. Regardless of how they smell, the bees appear to love it at the moment.
How do you find the scent, heavenly or cat pee?
Gaz
This gardening blog follows our journey as we create our Tropical and Exotic themed garden. We hope you'll enjoy the journey as much as we do. We started our Exotic Garden in 2005 and this site will show its development, as well as our travels, both abroad and within the UK to gardens, nurseries and friends.
That's one dramatic bloom!
ReplyDeleteCertainly is :)
DeleteMine keep getting knocked back by cold before they can get big enough to bloom. I see them blooming in the Seattle area but haven't gotten close enough to smell.
ReplyDeleteThat's curious. It's a strong scent and gets mixed reactions
DeleteWhen they have finished flowering, do you need to do anything, at the moment the flowering part looks dead 🥺 been about 12 months since it bloomed
DeleteThey grow all over Astoria, Oregon, especially on the sunny south slope of the city. I love to see them in bloom. I often wonder how so many came to be planted there originally. I have added a cultivar to my garden there, and it appears happy.
ReplyDeleteCurious how it's become a staple here especially coastal locations. Likely that it sets seed here easily. It's great that it does well along Astoria, a great plant for exposed, seaside locations
DeleteThere were masses of them in Weymouth, when I lived there, and I always thought the flowers looked a bit daft - a bit like Christmas trees thrown by vandals onto the Cordylines at random angles. I moved house with one grown from the seeds of one of the flowers but it's suffering from being in a pot, even though it's the largest I can manage, and is raising itself up on its roots.
ReplyDeleteSounds like aerial roots, should do better planted out. Have found that it's one of the plants that tolerate pot culture very well though.
DeleteThe shrubbier version of a Cordyline I have has a delicate sweet fragrance to its flowers.
ReplyDeleteCould it be possible the ones that smell like cat pee are in gardens well populated with...cats?
Could be :) have found it depends who smells them as well, genetic thing going on...
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