Bears breaches a non-starter this year

Can I ask you chaps why you think nothing much beyond a large amount of ground foliage has happened this year when last year it had a 3ft flower in glorious colour? I did clear out a lot of Ground Elder that had set itself up under the leafs.

Could it be this that knocked it for six, a sensitive soul? It looked like this last year (except there was only one).

 

Hi Ben. I used to have a couple in pots - as they can be quite invasive. But they often didn't flower. I am really not sure of the answer, but I can suggest three possible reasons.

1) As you say, it may have taken so much out of itself last year that it had a rest.
2) In removing the ground elder, you may have damaged the roots and set it back.
3) I suspect the most likely reason is a lack of heat at the start of the year. The cold really hit a lot of my stuff. The late flowerers had time to recover with the later heat, but Acanthus is one of the earlier flowerers.

 

That is interesting... do you think I could take it out, pot it in a suitably large one and have any chance of it perking up? It really is a behemoth and if it's just going to sit there all year having a frump I'd rather let it have it's own pot and have the flower bed for something a little less fussy.

 

Right, interesting again. New house and garden so it's all a learning experience.

 

If it's the thornless one, I think the leaves are just as good as the flowers, nice and big and shiny. Mine hasn't flowered either but I don't think it ever does. Perhaps I should heave it into a pot as well!

 

Ben - its an interesting subject that applies to many other plants as well. I have been having a Google and found two other reasons quoted for Acanthus not flowering. Growing in the shade and if the soil is too rich. However, if it is growing in the same spot as last year these probably don't apply.

The more I think about it, the more I think its a result of the low early temperature. With any plant, its always worth finding out where it came from originally to find out what growing conditions it likes. Acanthus is a wild flower from the Mediterranean and North Africa. Wild flowers are used to poor soil, and anything from North Africa is used to high light levels and high temperatures. I suspect that that when it grows in Britain it is close to its northern limit - in a warm summer it will flower and in a cold summer it may not.

British natives are used to our cold and wet weather and will flower regardless, but there are many other foreign imports that don't always get as much heat as they need. One of the first plants I grew, when I started gardening, was Ipomea. The first year was hot and it did very well, but it never did again. I have since learned that it needs heat and the general rule is that it does well in the south but not the north. You can easily grow banana plants in Britain (with winter protection). They will give lots of green foliage, but it has to be extremely warm for them to flower and fruit.

 

I have two medium sized clumps. One was huge last year so I put a spade through it - it didn't flower last year, but has put out five flower spikes this year. The other clump I left alone last spring. It flowered but got large so I put a spade through that this spring - it has not flowered this year!

 

I don't think mine flowered this year. I had moved it to a half shade site though.

 

Probably all to do with weather.
I was talking to a farmer yesterday about weeds. He said Creeping Buttercup grew extremely strongly this year whereas Ragwort didn't and it was all to do with cool or warm, dry or wet, Springs.

 

It's funny I've assumed because the weather's been so much better, and we've had umpteen tomatoes and figs that never ripened last year that everything would thrive. I guess not. I had no idea on the origins of this plant so thanks to PeterS for that nice lesson. It does smack of the previous owner to plant something like that!

 

We had 2 clumps. One was too invasive so we tried digging it out but any bit of root would start to regrow so we resorted to weed killer to try to get rid of it. Thought we'd succeeded but noticed a bit of leaf poking out amongst the delphiniums during the summer.

The other is on the north side of a fence and doesn't get much sun. It flowers every other year. In the non flowering year it produces a lot of leaf presumably to build up enough strength to flower the following year. This one is also less invasive, perhaps because it needs all its energy for biennial flowering.