Thursday, October 23, 2008

Mystery bush: kidneywood or dalea?



Husband Kurt bought this plant over a year ago when it was about 6” tall, thinking it was kidneywood. It’s now a little over 5’ tall and around 4’ wide and generally resembles kidneywood photos I’ve found online, but it has purple flowers instead of white ones. Thanks to Annie at The Transplantable Rose, who, after spotting a very similar bush in the garden of Lee at The Grackle, says she heard other Austin garden bloggers conferring about Lee's bush. They suggested my strange purple “kidneywood” might actually be something from the dalea family.





I searched many dalea images and descriptions online and they just don’t quite seem to match my mystery bush. Whatever it is, it’s fast-growing and very drought-tolerant.

7 comments:

TexasDeb said...

Try sending a high quality photo in jpeg format to
Mr Smarty Plants at the Wildflower Center. They have several folk on staff who excel at making tricky plant identifications. The address is
id@smartyplants.org and put "plant id request" in the subject line.

Iris said...

I'll try that. Thanks, Texas Deb!

Annie in Austin said...

I was just the reporter, Iris, not one of those conferring on the ID - mostly Lee, Pam/Digging and Rock Rose Jenny, I think ;-]

Good luck with the ID!

Annie

Iris said...

Oops, sorry Annie! I'll edit it right now. Thanks for the clarification!

Rock rose said...

If you go to the Grackle you'll learn the identity of your mystery tree.

TexasDeb said...

Did you get a final ID on your mystery plant yet? Stuff like that just haunts me I guess... And could you shed any light on who or what is LR's Grackle where you apparently can get all questions answered? I'd love to have help like that in MY life for sure.

Iris said...

Texasdeb,

I haven't had a chance to send a pic yet. Been too busy with the house renovation. Here is the post by Lee at The Grackle about his similar plant.
http://the-grackle.blogspot.com/2008/10/dalea-deluxe.html

I can't tell from his picture if it's the same as mine, though.