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Sunday, June 12, 2011

Don't know what it is, but I love it

I first saw this plant last summer, in an expensive hanging basket at one of my local garden centers. What caught my eye was that it looked a lot like a variegated bamboo, but in hanging basket form! Beautiful! Unfortunately the basket didn't have a plant tag in it, so I had no idea what the plant was.


I found another specimen this year, and although its price was a bit more than I usually like to pay for plants of this type I decided I needed to have it in my garden this year. Besides, when compared to the hundreds of dollars I've spent on trees (Japanese Maples mainly) that have since died, $16 was nothing. (I find it easy to rationalize garden purchases.)


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The foliage is so nice, and this plant is so full and healthy it's going to look fantastic wherever I decide to place it:



The other great thing about this specimen: it contained a plant tag!


Unfortunately, a Google search for Gibasis geniculata turned up a lot of photos of what seems to be a different plant. So this could be a different species, or could just be a variegated form of Gibasis geniculata.

Even if I never find out what it is, I still love it, and will enjoy seeing it every day.


It has so much dense growth, I may take a division and start a second basket. I like having "backup" for plants that I really like. The rabbits taught me early in my gardening career that a single specimen is disappointment waiting to happen.


I'm certainly not disappointed with this purchase though!

Now I just need to ID it. Anybody have any idea? Is the tag correct?

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4 comments:

  1. It looks a lot like what I'd call 'Bridal Veil' or something Google calls 'Varigated Wandering Jew' (I searched the common name, not the scientific name). I think my mother has one, it seems to be unkillable.

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  2. I've never seen this plant before but I'd buy it, too, if I came across it. In fact, I just bought two plant hangers and am now looking for plants to go in them.

    :: Bamboo and More ::

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  3. That does look really good in the hanging basket. I would too like to know what that is. Do you have it in sun or shade?

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  4. It's in part sun right now -- gets full sun later in the day. I believe "variegated bridal veil" is correct, although it's really hard to find good photos of it. Google "bridal veil plant" and you get lots of photos of all-green plants that don't look the same.

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