I have a few lavatera arborea variegata, one of which I've enjoyed all winter in the garden in the ground. It is about 6' tall with lovely velvet leaves. My problem is I don't really know what it is - is it a tree or a perennial? It has a single main stem about an inch and a half in diameter and most of the foliage is at the top half of this. I haven't seen any flowers yet but I'd keep it just for the foliage.
From A.H.S. A-Z Encyclopedia Of Garden Plants: "Tree-like, woody-stemmed annual, biennial, or short-lived, evergreen perrennial..." I guess the key phrase here is short-lived, although tree mallows provide a lot of bang for the buck, and are easy to propagate.
Thank you Gordo - I hope it lives long enough to flower and produce a crop of seed for the next batch then.
If your Lavatera seeds, and many are prolific seeders, it likely will not be true to type (may not have variegated leaves). If you want to produce more plants like you have, they can easily be grown from cuttings during the growing season.
Yes you're right. I think my seed were 2nd generation anyway because only about half were variegated. I tried some 3rd generation Heliopsis 'Lorraine Sunshine' that produced all green seedlings.
