Another of the plants that grow on our back patio is the wonderful crossandra infundibuliformis "Fire Glow", to give its full name. It is such an easy plant to grow & looks so cheerful summer & winter. Ours flowered brilliantly, all winter &, with only a short break early spring, it has been flowering all summer.

Its needs are small. Regular watering, fertilising (when you remember), the eventual removal of its spent flower spikes & a roomy pot. Its flower spikes will have many flowers before they have finished & removing them will encourage new ones to grow. Pinching or cutting off damaged leaves will also, encourage new leaf growth. Its leaves are a beautiful dark glossy green.

Pics taken a couple of days ago.

As can be seen its imbricates, or flower stems, grow quite tall. They will start flowering while they are fairly short but continue to grow, & flower, until they are 10-15 cms tall. Each imbricate has many flowers.

This plant does have strange flowers but the overall effect is wonderful. Each flower head on the imbricate spikes is made up of several layers of flowers, with several flowers in each layer.

An individual flower looks as though it is a half flower.

Then it is joined by some friends.

The spike keeps growing through the layer of flowers, adding layer upon layer of flowers.

Until the flower heads look like this.

A view of a single flower spike, looking down on to it.

A side view. It looks like a many layered tutu. This crossandra infundibuliformis "Fire Glow" is a great plant which I tend to take for granted, I'm afraid.

The crossandra infundibuliformis "Fire Glow" is certainly one plant that doesn't know when to stop flowering. Was going to cut off its flowering spikes, so it could grow some new ones, as I thought they had finished. It fooled me because it started flowering from them again. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] alt="" />

Today's pics.

The crossandra infundibuliformis "Fire Glow" was battered a little bit with rain earlier this week but is coming back nicely. Another subject to test my new camera on.

Think our upstairs neighbour poured some substance, over her balcony, because there was a line of burnt leaves on the poor crossandra which lies directly underneath. Gave it a good prune & it seems to be coming back nicely.

Pruning doesn't seem to worry it. Maybe I should do this more often.

Oh Dear! that's not good to throw things over the balcony! You might have to move it out of the firing line Joy!

Haven't room for that, Dawn. Did move the adenium obesum back, though.

A very inconsiderate upstairs neighbour, here it against the law I think to throw anything out of an upstairs window or balcony! It could come down on someones head!!

She is still not a very considerate upstairs neighbour, Dawn.

Our crossandra infundibuliformis (phew) "Fire Glow" is one of our most reliable plants & because of that, does tend to get overlooked. It flowers for most of the year with just small breaks after I cut off the spent flowering imbricates. It is soon back, flowering away cheerfully, giving us a great splash of colour right in the middle of our back patio.

A couple of weeks ago, I removed all of its imbricates as something had been chewing all its pretty flowers & it did look very bedraggled. Lo & behold, many more imbricates have now grown with it flowering madly & I have only just really noticed.

Today's pic.

Eight days later there are even more crossandra infundibuliformis flowers. This is a wonderful, brightly coloured plant & it is so forgiving. It will bounce right back, even after drying out so badly it almost looks dead, which is what happened a few days before this image was taken.

Nearly two months later & the crossandra infundibuliformis "Fire Glow" is still flowering away. Might need to prune it soon to get it ready for some winter flowers.

Well, the poor crossandra infundibuliformis "Fire Glow" had to receive a more severe pruning than I anticipated. It suddenly seemed to start dying. Its lovely bright green glossy leaves wilted & went crispy without losing their colour. The stems were able to be easily snapped off. Kept thinking it was only going to happen to a few isolated stems but it soon happened to the entire plant. I think it probably was a result of a previous visit by some cowboy pest exterminators while we weren't at home.

Anyhow, I cut the remaining foliage down, almost to ground level. Never took a pic at the time as I was too upset by it & thought it would not survive. However, not long afterwards, it started to grow some new leaves. Hope was in the air. Here is the image of its new foliage growing in late September 2011. This would have been several weeks after the cut back was done.

It kept on growing & growing & by late January 2012 the crossandra infundibuliformis "Fire Glow" was now well on the road to recovery.

A month later & this is what the crossandra infundibuliformis "Fire Glow" looked like. Two of it larger stems had snapped off during a rainstorm, which left a "hole" in the middle of the plant. We stuck them in the pot beside the rest of the plant, later pruning the stems down to small stumps & they have started to grow new leaves.

Another month later. Here is what the crossandra infundibuliformis "Fire Glow" looked like yesterday.

You most definitely have a green thumb with many things Joy! but growing shoots cut off plants, you seem to have magic in your fingertips, every shoot I try to grow, even geraniums die on me . Wonderful success Joy! I am glad you have your Crossandra back.

can't see your pictures, Don

I figured out why I can't see the pictures. I just left it on this page and came back in 1/2 hour and the pictures had loaded. So I guess I have a really slow connection. Don