Anisodontea

Anisodontea or Cape Mallow is another plant I would never have thought of planting myself but which I had grown rather fond of. My mother gave it to me 2021. It had been grown from a cutting as an indoor plant in cold Ulm, Germany.

When we came here I planted it in the garden, but during its first two summers in a rather poor spot, it never grew beyond a puny 20cm. During the garden “re-do” 2023/2024 it was replanted in a new spot and better soil. There it had quickly grown to about half of its maximum height (1-2 meters) and become quite a bush.

Anisodontea capensis or Cape Mallow blooms from spring to winter with pretty rose, pink or mauve-colored mallow flowers. It is easy to grow in ordinary, well-drained, dry and chalky soil, and likes full sun exposure. Once fully established (after about 2 years) it is quite drought-resistant and needs little additional watering, if any. It will, of course, flower better and longer, with a little regular water. Mulching also helps.

It likes to get some compost in spring. Cutting off faded flowers will encourage new flowers and pinching the stems regularly will stimulate branching. In late winter shorten the branches about 1/3 to encourage quick, dense growth and flowering.

Sounds like a simple enough plant to manage and it was blooming wonderfully again this spring. However, as it turns out, Anisodontea is prone to root fungus infections like Phytophtora. After we had some heavy rains in May, combined with rising temperatures, it dried up dead as a doornail within a few short days. And it’s probably my own fault. Not being aware that Anisodontea are sensitive to wet soils, I may have forgotten to add the usual gravel to the soil when planting it.

That rain has affected other plants as well. Erica multiflora, planted last fall and looking perfect until last week, has since dried and died (it definitely had gravel in its soil). The Ceanothus is looking pretty scraggly and I’m hoping to save it by ignoring it. And one of the new trees, the Albizia julibrissin, has died a year after planting.

I don’t know yet, if I will replant Anisodontea or Erica multiflora as I’m looking for plants that can handle the local climate with its extremes of lots of rain and humid soils in spring and extreme heat and drought in the summer.