Anisondontea capensis is a magnificent plant. I purchased mine in May 2021, as a plant trained on a short stem, or mini-standard as they are sometimes called.
I potted the plant on into a bigger pot , and by the end of the summer the plant was over 1 metre (3’3″) high and as much wide.
When winter arrived I brought it inside to the green house. It went back outside in May, I potted in into its current pot, a big terracotta pot. It became too big and cumbersome to move so it stayed outside for the winter of 22/23 which was quite cold, the coldest since 2010. It survived and the plant now thrives.
It is evergreen and flowers all year round. The video above was taken during this week, you can see there are lots of flowers.
The picture below was taken in early October 2023.
Maintenance wise the plant is easy, last spring I gave the crown of the plant a cut back and removed some dead branches, it seems to get a few each year.
Each week from May to September I give a liquid feed to all the pots, I have found it does not matter what fertilizer I use.
In March I will take the top centimetre or two or compost away and replace it with new compost with slow release fertilizer mixed in.
Then all I have to do is keep the plant watered, and it is one of the more forgiving plants in this regard, it will tolerate drier conditions, but will thrive if kept well watered.
I have a number of seld-seeded plants in the garden, one which is growing big between the shed and greenhouse, I noticed it has longer more deeply cut leaves than it’s parent plant.
Look out for these great plants in May, if you want an easy to care for, evergreen that flowers all year long in a container or in the ground.
Ciaran The Gardener 