Melianthus Major (Honey Bush) 5 litre pot

I absolutely adore this strange plant, which is technically a shrub native to Africa.  It is pollinated by Honeybees and I see no problem with our native small birds having a bash at picking the flowers to feed on the sweet honey within – and there will be pollinators that will also try this plant.

Known as The Honey Bush or Peanut Butter Plant, it has the most amazing  scent when the leaves when rubbed. This picture shows a four year old plant. It survives the Winter so appears to be hardy.  A spectacular specimen foliage plant, particularly effective in containers or in a prime frontal position in the border. This forms a large clump of blue-green leaves, looking almost like some kind of pre-historic plant it is very exotic and worth planting.   Where hardy, this can form a large woody bush with big spikes of reddish-purple fragrant flowers in early summer. The flower spikes left on the plant do from a nice display too. we have harvested some for seed here and will leave some on. Ours is now about 8 feet tall.  I am now growing them on quite successfully from seed and root cuttings at the moment.

I have tried to keep them small for sale but they just grow so quickly that all the babies raised have ended up in 5 litre pots looking stunning!