{"id":9958,"date":"2018-05-01T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T16:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=9958"},"modified":"2017-09-02T22:08:43","modified_gmt":"2017-09-03T02:08:43","slug":"princess-flower-excels-where-summers-are-hot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2018\/05\/01\/princess-flower-excels-where-summers-are-hot\/","title":{"rendered":"Princess Flower Excels Where Summers Are Hot"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Princess Flower in container<\/p><\/div>\n

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Closeup of\u00a0flower<\/p><\/div>\n

Princess Flower or Glory Bush (Tibouchina spp.<\/em>) is a tropical shrub (from Brazil) that\u00a0produces beautiful showy purple flowers. It blooms over a long time span (USDA hardiness zones 9-12). \u00a0The most popular species in cultivation is T.<\/em> urvilleana<\/em>. A well-tended\u00a0plant can be trained into a miniature tree in a large container for\u00a0patios and decks.<\/p>\n

This fast growing tropical needs an organic-rich, moist, well-drained soil. Sunlight and proper soil moisture are key components for nurturing a strong healthy plant. Under partial shade, shoot growth tends to be leggy and flower numbers are a lot less. Plant\u00a0requires frequent (bi-weekly) pinching to increase branching.<\/p>\n

Plant should be fed every 3 weeks\u00a0with a water soluble fertilizer such as Miracle-Gro\u2122 or Jacks\u2122. An alternative nutrition\u00a0program is to feed\u00a0a controlled-release fertilizer such as Osmocote\u2122 or Nutrikote\u2122 to soil or container media.<\/p>\n

Princess Flower produces 3-inch wide violet or purple flowers, particularly all summer long\u00a0in southern climes. With\u00a0proper care a plant in soil may reach 10- 15 feet tall and 6-10 feet wide. In \u00a0a large container, expect less than half that size. Heaviest blooming happens in summer and falls of as air temps cool in the fall. In zones 8 (winter low temps around 20-25\u00b0F), Princess Flower may flourish\u00a0through the Thanksgiving holiday. Further north\u00a0move plant(s) into a greenhouse or sun room. Holdover plants should be cutback hard, repotted, and fed every 4-5 weeks from December thru February.<\/p>\n

Popular cultivar is \u2018Athens Blue\u2019 with deep purple flowers. Scale, nematodes, and geranium budworm are occasional problems.<\/p>\n

Warning: if\u00a0you live in a warm region where Princess Flower is hardy, remove seed pods to prevent Tibouchina <\/em>from becoming invasive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Princess Flower or Glory Bush (Tibouchina spp.) is a tropical shrub (from Brazil) that\u00a0produces beautiful showy purple flowers. It blooms over a long time span (USDA hardiness zones 9-12). \u00a0The most popular species in cultivation is T. urvilleana. A well-tended\u00a0plant can be trained into a miniature tree in a large container for\u00a0patios and decks. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[444,707,1319,1037,674,665,774,720,853,1101,843,847,1429,1060,1059,601,729,849,1076,777,630,785,823,646,756,113,455,642],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9958"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9963,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9958\/revisions\/9963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}