A kind gift of Iochroma australe in late July reminded me of a small trick that can be played to help prolong the garden’s summer splendour. This beautiful plant – shrubby, evergreen in mild situations, bearing small, trumpet-shaped flowers of an exquisite lavender blue – is half-hardy. That is to say it will perish if left outdoors during winter in the greater part of the British isles, as it cannot withstand frost. The solution, therefore, is to grow it in a pot plunged in a flower bed for summer’s duration and lifted during September, before icy nights are forecast. Its roots will have escaped the confines of its container but these can be safely trimmed back, leaving the bulk of the root system undisturbed. Taken indoors to a bright and sunny place, those highly desirable, blue trumpets will continue to blow for several more weeks. Iochroma australe belongs to a...
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