The following was received via email: On my last visit to the UBC Botanical Garden, I saw a flower named Princess flower(I forgot its botanical name), can you please kindly give me more information on this flower? Does it need to be moved indoors for winter? Will it shed its leaves even when it is indoor in winter? Do you have it for sale in your garden shop?
Princess flower is one of the common names for a plant known scientifically as Tibouchina urvilleana, which is a Brazilian shrub to 5 meters tall. Other common names for the plant include glorybush, Brazilian glorybush and purple glory tree. The flowers are a brilliant purple-indigo. The petals fall off eventually, and litter the area beneath the tree, retaining the colour for several days (please see pictures below). The leaves turn colour from green to a warm red-orange. The plant does need to be moved indoors during the winter in our Vancouver climate. However, it is far more likely that the plant will overwinter successfully if it is in a greenhouse. Inside a house, the plant will likely not receive enough light. It will then drop most of its leaves and not flower as successfully in the next year (the first flowers might not emerge until September). The plant is for sale in the garden shop, but only in the spring time. Best regards.
On the Dave s Garden page there are reports from zone 7b that it is left in the ground over winter and it regrows in Spring. What is your opinion on that and also the plant s drought tolerance in dry summers if there is noone to water some summers. Your attention is appreciated. Merci.
I suppose I would ask if those reported instances went through winters that reached minimum temperatures that define the hardiness zone. Prior to this past year, we had a string of mild winters--now that we had a cold one (not even as cold as the zone definition), many shrubby things that had grown for years have died. I don't think a rainforest plant would do too well with a drought. I imagine it would prematurely drop its leaves first.
