Stewarts Office Plants

We supply many businesses across the South, from Sussex and Surrey, through Hampshire and Dorset to Wiltshire and Somerset. For more information about the services we offer visit our home page, or contact us here. In this blog you'll find news, interesting snippets, stories and pictures of our staff's adventures out on the road.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Feature plant (s): Cordyline Kiwi and Glauca

Cordyline Kiwi
In previous 'feature plant' postings, I've tended to choose something unusual, or an odd variant on a traditional plant, but this time round I'm going for two plants that are old school and proud.

Cordyline Kiwi is the most high colour variant of the Cordyline Fruiticosa family. Other varieties include C. Tango (dark red) and C' Glauca (dark green), of which more below.

The larger Cordyline family encompasses a wide variety of plants. The C. Australis family are outdoor plants in this country, but the C. Fruiticosas like the Kiwi are small indoor plants.

The Kiwi needs good medium to warm temperature and high light.

It's on my mind because I am about to put several dozen on a ferry in Portsmouth, where they will be in a window so should - touch wood - do just fine.

Interestingly, unlike most plant families, the temperature tolerance varies widely across the family. More specifically, most of the varieties (including C. Kiwi) require good temperature, while C. Glauca (shown below) is almost hardy in the UK. If you feel the leaf of the Glauca it's noticeably tougher, almost leather, while the Kiwi's leaves are paper thin.

The Glauca will also cope with a lot less light. Less siblings, more estranged cousins?

Jonathan