This flower is easier to grow than pothos and spider plants, with unusual flower shapes, blooms all year round, and can even be made into a bonsai

Introduction

Green plants and potted flowers are essential decorative elements for home life. Keeping some flowers and plants at home has many benefits - it beautifies the room and lifts your mood. "Flower Sound Potted Plant Diary · Issue 1161" introduces you to a new type of potted flower.

Today's featured plant

Yesterday a reader asked: I can even kill a pothos, so what flower is suitable for me to grow? A mimosa flower, I said. Of course, that was a joke. Although pothos is the most popular household potted green plant, it is not as if there are no plants easier to grow than it - for example, the one introduced today: Clerodendrum thomsoniae.

Clerodendrum thomsoniae

Clerodendrum thomsoniae, also known as bleeding heart vine, is an evergreen shrub of the Verbenaceae family. It is a woody plant, not a herbaceous one. Its flowers are very unusual: when they first open, the white bracts are prism-shaped, much like the pagoda candy we ate as children, and then the red flower beads slowly extend from the split at the tip, shaped like spitting pearls, hence the name. The whole process is full of interest, and the red-and-white blossoms are very beautiful too.

Extremely long flowering period

I wonder if you have noticed that plants from tropical regions all have very long flowering periods - for example, hibiscus, hoyas, Mandevilla, moss rose, and so on - as long as there is enough light, they bloom continuously all year round. Clerodendrum thomsoniae is no exception. With suitable conditions and proper care, it can bloom for you all four seasons, super diligent, and with a large number of flowers, so a pot bursting with blooms is very common.

Beautiful and easy to grow

Clerodendrum thomsoniae has extremely strong vitality and is very tough and durable. I once bought a small seedling online, shipped from Shandong to Guangdong, taking four days on the road. When it arrived, the leaves were already wilted and lifeless. I potted it and watered it, and that same evening it revived. Daily care is also very easy: place it on a south-facing balcony, one meter away from the window, where it gets sunlight; water thoroughly when the potting soil is completely dry; fertilize once a quarter. It stays in excellent condition and blooms continuously. The only problem is that the balcony is too small, so it must be pruned often, otherwise it grows extremely fast.

Excellent material for bonsai

If you want your bleeding heart vine to grow well and bloom abundantly, you can try caring for it like this: apply a compound fertilizer twice before flowering, and monopotassium phosphate twice after flowering; mix the compound fertilizer with water and pour it on the roots; apply monopotassium phosphate to the roots twice and spray it twice; keep the potting soil moist. In addition, bleeding heart vine is a woody plant with a beautiful shape and tolerance for pruning, making it excellent material for creating bonsai trees.