Hardy Tropicals UK

Ok as weeds have been mentioned and a different thread (Mr List) I thought I would share this image. It might look like a right mess, and it is but there are several useful plants for a tropical scheme. All these have self sown around these musa basjoo pups (which are very yellow ).

These are:

Verbena bonariensis (tall elegant plant with purple flower which start in July and ends in November)

Nicandra (shoo fly) which grows into a 3-4 foot shrub annually with purple black stems and purple flowers.

Nasturtium ( trailing type) with nice leaves and tropical flowers growing to many feet along the ground.

Amaranth 2-3 foot plants with long tassels of cream or purple/red flowers.

All these self seed in my garden each year and have come back from -10 as seeds.


Does anyone else have tropicals that self seed each year?

It saves a bit of money that's for sure!

i get the nicandra every year too..even had small nicotiana

I have always had verbena bonariensis but, although the plants themselves come back they never self seed.

nasturtiums do every year.

I have found verbena bonariensis to be a prolific self-seeder. It gets everywhere by the 1000.

Maybe I am just too Hoe Happy !

Didn't realise the amaranth would do so well left to it's own devices. Nasturtium leaves can go into a salad apparently (have to scrape the blackfly off first though I reckon).

Don't forget the flowers - they're edible and the seed heads too - nice and peppery!

keep getting Euphorbia Characias self-seeding everywhere, plus up until recently, Leycesteria formosa, and Passiflora caurulea, even an Acacia has seed pods occasionally self-seeding into various pots.

I also get Nasturtiums self seed, as well as Impatiens, Lobelia, Passiflora & Fatsia

Nathan wrote:I also get Nasturtiums self seed, as well as Impatiens, Lobelia, Passiflora & Fatsia

Lucky boy. It's great what nature will do for us.

Impatiens, tomatoes, Cordyline a. Trachycarpus fortunei, Chameadorea radicalis (found another single leaf seedling next to the main clump when tidying) Either grew last year and survived the winter or has sprouted in the mild spring. Loads of Phormium tenax this year by the looks of it, although the main plant that produced the seed was killed in winter. Maybe a survival technique.

how did you get self sown tomatoes?

Mr List wrote:how did you get self sown tomatoes?

I grow tomatoes beside the deck against the west facing fence. Some tomatoes must fall off and the seed sprouts the next spring. I have to weed these out as I grow Sweet Million which is an F1 I believe, and won't come true. The idea is you sit at the dining table and PYO tomatoes at BBQs Never had any complaints

I've got quite a few self sown tomatoes too. They are weeds to me because they are growing in the wrong place. A bit of frost has not done them any harm amazingly. They must have come from tomatoes that I didn't pick last year. They germinated over winter in the green house in an overwintering potted plant which is now outside.

Come to think of it. A couple of tomato plants grew "wild" next to a path near me last year and also in an Asda car park.